Entry Eight: Black Ants and Buddhists (Chapter 6)

     Chapter 6 of Black Ants and Buddhists focused on how to teach young students the importance of voting. The approach to teaching students about voting can sometimes be very standard, boring, and predictable. As classroom teachers, we need to ensure that students, even the youngest ones, are able to make the connection between the importance of voting and the impact the vote from the masses can have in the nation, state, city, and their immediate community. It is also important for the students to get to this high level of critical thinking and connection making by engaging them in a real-world hands-on experience. The teacher from the article decided that the best approach for her students was to learn about how voting came about and who was allowed to vote to begin with, as well as how minorities, who were once excluded from voting, gained their right to vote via hard work, dedication, peaceful protest, and so forth.
     By creating an immersive lesson in social studies you can ensure that students will be involved, making connections, as well as establishing their sense of identity and self as a member of society. By sparking the students' interests and leading them on a mission to register people to vote allowed the students to get a glimpse of the importance that this right has to offer them and the rest of the nation. Taking a dull lesson and making it age-appropriate, hands-on, collaborative (with peers, parents, teacher, and other professionals) allows for a more realistic foundation to be laid on which the students will continue to build their respective political views upon.

Entry Seven: Walking and Talking Geography

Community drawing from Social Development By Jessica Martinez

     When thinking about the best way to teach students about location, whether it's relative or absolute, it is always in the best interest of the students to start within their immediate surroundings. This is a geographical concept that is not hard to teach to students because as children develop they are able to make connections to what is around their immediate area (ie: house, neighborhood, school, and so forth) by simply recognizing the landmarks around a particular point of interest or by recognizing business logos like those of McDonald's, Chick-fil-A , or any fast-food restaurant that a child might be familiar with. 

     When I talk about starting small with the students, students as young as pre-kindergarten, I mean talk to them about their school environment and what's around it. Take the students on a walking field trip of their school and draw a classroom/school map, which the help of the students, to anchor the concept of relative location, then have them draw their own map. The activity can be simplistic in nature before moving on to a more broad concept like that of the community. These types of activities will engage students' prior knowledge and allow them to discuss with their peers and teacher their understanding of the relative location.

     Engaging students as early as pre-kindergarten allows for future and further development as well as comprehension regarding relative and absolute location in consequent years. This is the initiation of vertical alignment amongst the TEKS that need to be covered in every grade level and also the initiation to life long learning and the ability to pinpoint area location on any type of map.

Entry Six: Critical Literacy for Young Citizens

A painting of the First Thanksgiving Feast by Jennie A. Brownscombe.

Teaching any grade level can, and will, be a challenge, but it's how we approach the topics that we need to teach that makes the biggest impact on the learning of all students. I have always believed that a teacher who is extremely dedicated and prepared to go above and beyond simple expectations can make a student a life long learner who is appreciative of education and knowledge and ready to reshape the future.

Teaching social studies is a struggle in every elementary school due to the immense focus that is placed on core content subjects like that of Reading Language Arts and Math, but it doesn't have to be that way. I have mentioned in previous blog entries in my love for thematic teaching and cross-subject referencing and I will mention it again..."We can teach any subject critically if we sit down and devise a lesson that allows for information to be linked to several TEKS in different content areas!"

In the article "Critical Literacy for Young Citizens: First Graders Investigate the First Thanksgiving" by Jennifer H. James and Michelle McVay, the concept of inquiry based learning in a social studies lesson is discussed in great depth and detail. The concept of teaching younger students in elementary school historical thinking enables them to develop into effective citizens and how this will set them up to be "capable of shaping our future and sustaining and improving our democracy" (James & McVay, 2009, p. 348).

The inquiry based lesson plan that was designed by Michelle (Mikki) for a class of first graders showed how receptive and curious even our youngest students are, and how given the opportunity and right guidance can lead them to make their own discoveries. While planning her inquiry based lesson Mikki kept her objectives focused with the help of four aspects of historical inquiry that were laid out by Bruce VanSledright; identification, attribution, judging perspective, and reliability assessment. These four aspects allowed Mikki to focus her learning goals and devise a lesson plan that was student-centered.

In closing, it is not difficult to come up with meaningful engaging lessons that are student-centered and thematic or cross-subject effective. Mikki was able to take a inquiry based lesson design, that is generally only seen in science and math, and use it to teach research skills in social studies, while also using written text (nonfiction books) to engage students in reading.

Entry Five: Teaching with Primary Sources

Primary sources are a great way to engage students in a new unit of study or topic. It allows them to make observations about the source whether it is a picture, newspaper, article, diary, artifact, and etc. It also help spark curiosity and meaningful discussions among their peers and with the classroom teacher. The great thing about teaching students through the use of primary sources is the cross TEKS objectives that are covered in various subjects like reading, social studies, and science. 

Teaching about primary sources in reading and then using an example in a social studies or science lesson will help the students reinforce the idea that the information that they learn in one subject area can help them in another. I bring this up because I often hear students mumble, "Ugh... why do I need to know this?" and " When am I ever going to use this?"  As educators we need to make sure to always try and connect across subject areas for the benefit of student growth and as well to reinforce our lessons. 

Entry Four: Columbus and The Indians

Teaching accurate History in Social Studies begins with identifying the myths and debunking them prior to engaging students and teaching them the inaccurate or slightly skewed information. This video that I have attached to this blog tells the story of how Christopher Columbus came to a newly found world and began to ravish not just the resources but also the people of this new world. This video, while it may not be appropriate to show to any elementary school children, educates the classroom teacher and give him/her the essential background knowledge in order to present accurate information to the students.

As current and future educators, we need to be able to tackle uncomfortable situations and teach the leaders of the future (our students) the realities that took place in our world and nations history in order to ensure that it does not repeat itself. Students are more perceptive and accepting than we anticipate. Some students already have some background knowledge that allows them to make connections to these events and they can and WANT to engage in meaningful discussions. So lets allow them to do so in a safe and structured environment.

Entry Three: "The Rosa Parks Myth" and "How Do We Teach Slavery"

Teaching children accurately correct historical information has become a hot topic over the past few years. Teachers are becoming more aware of the importance to teach the truth, rather than the scripted narrative that has been provided and taught for years. This change has come because people are more culturally aware of how important it is to recognize and acknowledge everyone's TRUE diversity and TRUE history.

When analyzing the information of what I thought to be the truth regarding Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincon, I came to the realization that I too was taught based on the scripted narrative that carries with it many misconceptions, and it is hard for me to change my schema of the historical information that had since been engraved in my mind since my adolescent years. But, reading the article about Rosa Parks and listening to the podcast "How Do We Teach Slavery" has helped me understand that accurately representing the information to our students is critical.

It is important for our students to know the truth and how things actually happened. We have been taught so many fabricated truths that it is hard to rearrange the information and discard any or all misconceptions, in order to make room for the essential truth.

Entry Two: "A Brief History of Lawns" and "Teaching What Really Happened"

The way in which history has been taught to the American students over the past few decades has left a huge gap in the academic community as well as in their understanding of true American History.

The way in which history has been taught by educators, unknowingly, is weaponized in a sense, in order to keep the oppressed within their lane. The curriculum is tailored to be viewed solely from the European-American perspective, with a few scripted glimpses into the history of slaves, native-Americans, and etc, but without the students getting the whole story. Part of the reason that history continues to be taught this way is due to the fear of what may ensue if the TRUTH gets taught to the masses (minorities).

Entry One: Banking versus Problem-Posing Education

When it comes to education and preparing students' for the upcoming challenges of future academics and the world around them, we need to be confident in our abilities as educators and trust that the students are capable of understanding even the most complex of ideologies.

The education system has seen a huge drift from new and expert teachers alike who opt to teach their students with a purposeful inquiry approach, also called "problem-posing", which focuses on cultivating creative thinkers amongst the students and encourages them to think critically to resolve a problem while allowing students to use various resources and enabling them to take ownership of their learning experience is more beneficial than teaching students to pass a state exam.

Teaching the children to take charge of their learning and ask questions that will expand their knowledge allows for more meaningful discussions. It is through these discussions that the students build their schemas and begins to make meaning of the information that is being presented to them using real-world connections. In the past educators have been so focused on teaching to the test rather than teaching the necessary skills to be successful beyond the classroom and this type of teaching has exhausted both the students and teachers.

Luckily, with the problem-posing approach, educators have been able to engage their students in meaningful discussions and activities that have resulted in lasting outcomes that outweigh any state exam. I strongly believe that in order for a child to be successful their creative and intellectual mind needs to be nurtured, and the only way we can make this a reality is by providing every student with the opportunity to learn something meaningful rather than having them memorize information that is short term.