Why are the social studies an important part of a student's education today?

 Social studies are an important part of a student's education today because it ensures to some degree that we educate the whole child. Students should not only learn the cold theories of math and facts of science. They should learn to understand the people around them and history can help them do so. When we study history and culture, we understand better why certain people act certain ways. Mather is an extremely multicultural school because there are many immigrant and refugee students. By studying history, new students can learn why America is the way it is. Students who encounter students that are not like them can have a better understanding of why certain people act certain ways or wear certain things. When we better understand the people around us, we can get along better with them and have more friendships. Also on a practical note, courses like civics teach students how things work in the adult world. I have been teaching financial literacy and I think it is an extremely important topic for students to know because it will directly impact their lives now if they have a job or in the future when they get a job. They can learn to budget and manage money responsibly, setting themselves up for a good life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How have you advocated for the teaching profession, whether in schools or in the wider world?

 Something I realized early on in my education career is that teachers are not respected as professionals. I have heard it in the media, from friends, and from family. I remember sitting at a family dinner and a relative was making fun of a kindergarten teacher who had a masters degree. He commented, "What kindergarten teacher needs a masters degree?" And I responded, "Don't you want the smartest people to teach your children at any age?" It has always been very frustrating for me to see that teachers are not treated as professionals. The main ways I have helped to advocate for the teaching profession is through my actions as a teacher and my involvement with Golden Apple. As a teacher, I always make sure to act and look professional. Some teachers may like to wear jeans and t-shirts to work but I always make sure to dress business casual. It's the clothes that make the man so if teachers want to be respected as professionals, we should dress like profession...
Read more

How have you made use of social studies theories and research to improve your inquiry skills during your internship?

 During my internship as a student teacher, I felt like I did not focus too much on improving my own inquiry skills. I mainly focused on improving the inquiry skills of my students. But nonetheless, there were still many things I learned about history during this internship and I used social studies research and theories when I did use my inquiry skills. I learned many things about history while student teaching. They say that you don't really know something until you teach it. From my experience so far, that is entirely true. There were many topics that I was familiar with but did not know to the full extent required by being a teacher. Now I know much more about topics like African and Chinese history. When I was creating my lessons for those units, I used social studies inquiry skills. I looked for credible sources. I mostly looked at secondary sources to save time. However, I looked at multiple secondary sources about a topic to not only find the best resources for my students ...
Read more

Blogger’s Choice #1: What advice would I give to freshman Amanda?

What advice would you give to your past self is a classic question posed by generations upon generations. So I decided to answer that question for my blogger's choice post. What advice would I give to freshman Amanda? Since this the internship that this blog is for involves both education and history, I will write about both of those topics. There really is not much advice I would give to my freshman self in regards to history. I loved every history class I took at Loyola. My favorite professors are from the history department. I would maybe tell myself to take a class on African or Asian history but I was able to study those on my own for student teaching to fill in any gaps in knowledge. For my education freshman self, I would tell my self one very important piece of advice. Education is much more political than you expected and it's okay that you are not into politics. My education classes at Loyola were strongly focused on politics and I would prepare myself better for that...
Read more