“Why are people marching?” Given today’s level of activism, this is a plausible question many students may have. Although only some students voice the questions, it is very likely that many more have pondered why people are protesting after seeing reports of events such as the Women’s March (equality for women), March for Our Lives (about gun control), Black Lives Matter (for racial justice), Janitors March (for fair pay), and Keep Families Together (demanding the Trump administration reunite immigrant families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border). As elementary teachers, our subsequent…

Two noteworthy books can help young learners grapple with significant societal issues such as poverty and homelessness and can help teachers introduce students to the vocabulary of civic action.

This ninth-grade inquiry invites students to analyze arguments about banning certain books while also asking them to consider what makes a book worth reading.  

Elementary teachers can help nurture the next generation of citizen-activists with two books that explore examples of young people engaging in civic action.

Teaching about the civil rights movement in the elementary grades has, in many schools, focused exclusively on the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Many students are well versed in the content of King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, and they know well that Rosa did not give up her seat on the bus. While these moments and heroes of the movement are essential in the study of this era in history, the study of more obscure and lesser known people and events is a great way to deepen our students’ understanding of the sacrifices that so many thousands of ordinary people made in the…

M. Gail Hickey, ed. Reflecting on Service‐Learning in Higher Education. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. 230 pages. $80.0 cloth; 79.77 eBook.This book examines forms of pedagogy such as service‐learning, experiential learning, and problem‐based learning in order to determine how students make connections between and among abstract academic concepts and real‐life issues. This edited collection is divided into three sections—“Reflecting on Community Partnerships,” “Reflecting on Classroom Practice,” and “Reflecting on Diversity”—so as to represent interdisciplinary…

Inviting students to ponder the meaning of secure elections can launch an important discussion about public trust in election results.

Teaching students about the history and patterns of authoritarianism can help bolster our own collective awareness of the vulnerability of democracy.

For a pre-kindergarten (preK) class, designing a 3-D map of a newly constructed playground offered authentic opportunities to participate, deliberate, and solve an authentic problem. Responding to the compelling question—“How do we build community spaces that are welcoming to, representative of, and sustaining for all community members?”—the class was able to reimagine the purpose of a neighborhood park with the help of scaffolded inquiry. Through active deliberation (e.g., voting what items to include in the park) and participation (e.g., surveying classmates and families about what they…

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly divided, particularly in the United States. In fact, people tend to interact almost exclusively with individuals who hold their shared world views and beliefs. Because of these trends, teaching students from a young age how to engage with others on issues that they may disagree about is of the utmost importance. Unfortunately, this type of social studies learning rarely happens in public schools, particularly in lower elementary school classrooms. To address this challenge, we formed a collaboration to develop a curricular intervention with…