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Morgan Bates, Katie Kambouris, Jenna Orwin, and Alondra Perez Vega
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Morgan Bates, Katie Kambouris, Jenna Orwin, and Alondra Perez Vega
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The podcast discusses the concept of social studies and its importance in education. The participants share their thoughts on social studies before and after taking the class. They realize that social studies is not just about history, but also includes understanding of the world, diverse cultures, politics, economics, and social dynamics. They discuss how social studies curriculum should include multiple perspectives and teach students how to think critically. They also emphasize the importance of students reflecting on culture and engaging in thoughtful discussions. Welcome to our Social Studies Methods Reflection Podcast. My name is Katie Camboris, and to my left... Jenna Orman, and to my left... Alondra Perez Vega, and to my left... Morgan Bates, and we've got responses from Anna Schell today. Today we are going to be answering some questions for you guys for any future interns that are taking this class and wanting to know what you're going to get out of it. So our first question is, what is social studies? Thoughts of it before the class and after the class. So Anna, she wrote in her response that she mostly thought that social studies was about history, but obviously it goes much deeper than that, and I think we all kind of said the same thing where we thought it was history, and obviously it's not. It includes understanding of the world and the diverse cultures that we have, the political system, economic structures, and social dynamics. And in teaching social studies, we gain more skills to be aware, sorry, to be aware and productive citizens in the world that we live in. And it also provides a more holistic view of social studies, and now as I approach teaching this content in my classroom, I have a better understanding of how to do that effectively. Great. I love that response from Anna. Great job. Yeah, I think that we all were kind of on that wave, right, and we really thought that social studies was mainly about history. I'm ashamed that I went so long as an education major to get this far before figuring that out. But I think that I realize that social studies is a much bigger umbrella with a super broad range of subjects under it. Social studies is a conglomerate of subjects that all, in the end, make us successful citizens and people. That's my biggest takeaway. I love that. I love that you mentioned umbrella term. I said a very similar thing. I did have, I knew that at least social studies incorporated like government knowledge and civic knowledge, but I, you know, came into it thinking the same thing. And then, yeah, I loved umbrella term. It's, you know, it includes history, civics, economics, sociology, and geography. And, you know, teaching social studies, it just allows students to become better citizens and interact more positively with the world around them. And I think also, like, I never thought about how easy it is to integrate social studies into other subjects. So I feel like that was also a really big thing for me was like, oh, shoot, like, I can take this and put it into a dance lesson or do arts with it, you know, or a math lesson. Yeah, and the many different parts of social studies can easily be integrated into those other subjects. But knowing that it's not just history and it's a wide variety of several different things can help you realize that these are important for students to know and it is important for their development as well. I also want to say I was very shocked to figure out that there are no social studies, like, tests. Like, there's no standardizing testing around it. But I do think, like, I think our professor mentioned this one day, but, like, the ultimate, like, test of social studies is, like, just life. Like, living life. It really teaches you how to be, like, an empathetic, caring person as well when you are able to see all these other perspectives and learn about all these different subjects. Okay, well, our next question is, how do you bring multiple perspectives into social studies curriculum? Ana said that it's essential to bring multiple perspectives into social studies instruction because throughout history, differences and perspectives have shaped where we are today. There are so many different parts of history and those all have kind of continued to develop where we are with the different economics of America and outside of America globally. But it is essential to provide students with the tools to help them thoroughly consider different perspectives throughout the past, present, and future. And you have to be careful to not push just one perspective or another. And that's part of our job as teachers is to know that we are there to guide students through the curriculum and their understanding, but it is not our job to tell them what to think. And so we need to make sure that we are teaching them how to correctly think about different perspectives, different events happening, and let them come to their own conclusions. Yeah, I really agree with what was written and what you just did, Morgan. But also, like, being able to tell students it's okay if you have a different opinion about whatever we're talking about. It's important for students to know that there's not just one right idea of thinking, like, slavery is bad or slavery is good. We have our own thoughts on it, and it's important for students to know there's always going to be two sides, and one side isn't right over the other because we all have our own beliefs. And it's important for the teacher to emphasize that and say, it's okay for us to have different thoughts and let's debate about it, you know. And that will bring more knowledge to the students and being able to be like, I believe in this, but I know that this is the other view, and I know, like, the ideas of it. Yeah, the only other thing that I have to add to that is I wanted to say that history is often written by people that win, and that is something I truly want to emphasize in my classroom. I just really want to let students know that just because we won or wrote something or, like, we were the people saying that piece of history doesn't mean that what was happening was necessarily a good thing, or that we were doing things that were good. So, yeah, that's just something else to add in there. So I just think it's extremely important to include different perspectives that will accurately show us what happened and ensure it isn't biased or outdated as well. Going along with that completely, I love that you mentioned, like, we focus our curriculum on the winners in history and everything. Something, like, that I took from this question specifically that's so important is we need to have multiple perspectives so that we show kids different narratives of our world. Like, I know me personally, I know that we are required to teach specific curriculum regarding Columbus Day. However, on Columbus Day, I will definitely be including the perspective of Indigenous Native individuals and showing their perspectives and how they were affected because of the colonization that Christopher Columbus and his men brought to America. Not only that, it's just, like, if you are using, like, in order to do multiple perspectives, you have to use real-world examples, obviously. So when you're doing that, you should not give examples that, I guess, alienate one group or population in your classroom. You should be using examples that are going to be culturally relevant and appropriate for all kids in your classroom so that they can understand what you're talking about and you're not alienating specific groups of people. Which brings us into our next question, which is, how do you help students build skills to thoughtfully reflect on culture? Ana's response is, one of the things I really liked from the article beyond food, festivals, and flags was the need to recognize that simply asking students to participate in cultural activities doesn't provide a rigorous learning experience that teaches critical thinking on its own. This isn't to say that culture days and celebrations aren't great stepping stones, but you have to do so with things like higher-order questions, thoughtful reflection time, and connection activities to help students recognize, discuss, and reflect on the importance of topics within culture and social studies. I really liked Ana's response because I think it emphasizes, you know, a great stepping stone is to recognize and celebrate cultural differences, but you have to go deeper on that. You have to make sure that your students are building an understanding of other people's culture, and maybe, you know, if they don't agree with it, that's okay. Everybody's going to be different in life, and I've learned from this class too that we all have our cultural biases. No matter what we want to say, everybody has them. So you can still have your cultural biases, but you should at least attempt to make sure that your students are understanding different cultures. Yeah, I think it's super important to understand how you as the educator facilitate good reflections and discussions in your classroom. I think that's like really crucial for you as a teacher to be able to do that. You don't want to just be asking kids questions that are like yes or no answers, that get yes or no answers. You want to be asking open-ended questions where they're thinking about what they're saying, and they're reflecting on it, but you have to model that as the teacher and be showing them the way that that is done successfully in the classroom without, you know, you don't want them to be hostile with each other or anything like that if you're, you know, disagreeing, but just making sure you're modeling that and showing how it's supposed to be done. One thing that's been said between last question and this question is discussion or kind of debating aspects of things, and having students have that healthy conversation allows them to talk about situations and different cultures, so many different things that can be learned from what they're talking about is important for part of their development with interacting with people as it allows them to be like just well-rounded as someone who maybe is talking to someone else that has a different perspective than they do, and so there's going to be the differences, but it allows them to be prepared to think about like how they might talk to someone and then like be more respectful in situations. Like I think it's very important for students to know like people out there are going to have different opinions and everyone's opinion is their own and there's not necessarily like a right answer, but it's important to know like it's okay to have those thoughts and know like I can have a conversation with someone and not turn into a fight or a disagreement or anything like that because you're reflecting on what you both think and what you both think is right. Cool. Well, our next question is how do you integrate different subjects into social studies? Honor's response says, while integration takes thoughtful decision-making, it can also be done efficiently and effectively. There are so many tools and resources available, and I think using them makes instruction, planning, and easier process for the educator. Picking standards that can be combined to meet the learning goals of students is the most effective way to integrate other subjects into social studies. And ultimately, integration also makes learning more engaging, fun, and effective. Creating relevant and engaging instructional activities is a crucial role of an educator, which is why integration is essential. And so part of their learning of social studies and the reason why it can be so easy to integrate between different subjects is because some of it is skills that they can use for anything. And so if you take an aspect of social studies between civics or history, anything, you can apply it to English or you can apply it to math or science and just allow them to have different parts that allows them to think in different ways. I think also it allows students to see, like, when you're going through life, it's not just, like, one straight way of, like, oh, I have to do this math problem for my job or whatever, like, but you can also have, like, different aspects of, like, English or art within that because it's going to happen in the real world, you know? So it's not just, like, oh, I have to learn this for school. It's I'm learning this because I'm going to be using this in the real world. Like, I'm going to be integrating different aspects of my job and my life into what is happening today, you know? I like that a lot because I think, like, simply put, in my mind at least, social studies is life and the world around us. And so I think, you know, it should be, like, thinking about it relatively easy to integrate different subjects into social studies because it's simply just life, you know? Like, for this class, we went to the art museum and, like, I did not think based off of, because, like, we've taken classes, obviously, for art integration, but I didn't think that, like, going to a museum and seeing paintings and different statues that I would be able to come up with ideas to integrate art. But then, you know, I spent the entire time walking around just, like, I love this, I love this, I love this, and, like, taking pictures of everything and, like, I have to actually stop myself because I was, like, I think I probably have a whole year's worth of social studies, like, integration planned at this point. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's so, I've experienced the same thing yesterday. As we're getting, like, further into our careers and, like, we're all going to be teaching this year, it just comes so naturally for us now to, like, see something and be, like, oh, like, I'm going to pull this and I can use this and social studies is a really, like, broad field, like we talked about earlier. It's, like, a really umbrella subject. So it is really easy to integrate because there's different parts of it. Like, economics, that's, like, monetary, right? So then you think about, like, math and how that can be included in that way. Also, like, geography being a part of social studies and geography and science working together. You can also think about, like, how scientific theories, when they were created at that place and time, you can talk about how people might not have thought that was right and how that was different based off of historical context versus how we think about it now. So that's really important. I think also integrating art, you can really focus on the impact that those primary sources can have on showing a perspective. Like, for example, we looked at a painting yesterday in class called Guernica by Picasso. And if you really, like, look at that painting, it shows so much emotion and so much pain from, like, a bombing that happened in this small town called Guernica. And it conveys, like, so much emotion and just makes you feel so empathetic and really takes these things that sometimes you can't relate to and it allows you to relate to it in a more empathetic way. So last question is, what is your biggest takeaway and how has it affected your pedagogy and teaching philosophy? Ana said, after taking this class, it is evident that social studies instruction is essential to the learning of students and enhances their success in school. Understanding this is so important to teaching and will definitely impact my teaching philosophy because I am more excited and prepared to build social studies content. Another thing I would say I gained from this class is knowing how many resources there are to access not just for social studies, but for teachers in general. Reading the various children's books, watching the instructional videos, and the discussions we had throughout the class brought up so many helpful ideas and tips that I will be taking with me into my own classroom. And, yeah, I totally agree that some of the websites that we were able to, that we were shown throughout this class were so cool and I really plan on using them. I, like, still have them open on my computer as tabs. Another thing that I wanted to include in this is I love the collaboration and bouncing ideas off of our, the peers in the classroom. It has been super helpful and validating for me to collaborate in the ways we have been as a class. We're really, like, doing this big thing together. And it really teaches you that working with your peers can be so helpful when trying to create lessons and ensuring that they're meaningful and cohesive. I feel like my biggest takeaway from this class is empathy has always been, like, my biggest push as an educator, and it's something that I really want to teach my kids when I become an educator. But I think that I have always felt nervous about how to accurately teach empathy in class, but I think that through social studies you're really able to show them so much empathy. It really is the subject, like Jenna mentioned, that, like, it encapsulates, like, all of life. So when we teach students social studies in, like, appropriate and accurate ways, we teach them how to be good change agents and we teach them how to be good citizens and good people. And I think that that's really important for kids. I really love that response. Mine actually goes right, like, hand-in-hand with that one. One of my biggest pushes as an educator as well as empathy and teaching it. And I think something, like, my biggest takeaway from this class was, like, if you are going to teach them empathy, your social studies instruction needs to be meaningful and it needs to be engaging so that students can understand the topic in a deeper way. And I think that's really important. And, like, we learned specifically about how primary sources can assist us with that. Like, when I was younger, we did... It was the first time Martin Luther King Day had ever meant anything to me because we listened to the speech at the very beginning of class. And then we wrote our own I Have a Dream speech about something that was going on in the world. And up to this point, we had done, like, current events. And so it was just really interesting to me, like, the use of that primary resource because I didn't really have a lot of that growing up. But primary resources really are something that can help us so much with having kids engage and actually learn something from social studies and have a deeper meaning. And I think primary sources go hand-in-hand with teaching empathy because I think it would be really hard to, you know, hear an original speech, see paintings, pictures, whatever, of, like, original things that have happened that you can hear and see and not develop some sort of feeling and response to that. So that was my greatest takeaway is just, like, making sure that you are meaningful and using the resources that you have to create that meaningful, deep experience for students. Yeah, I definitely agree. My own teaching philosophy is to be a kind person. And I feel like social studies just goes hand-in-hand with that because if you look back at our history, a lot of it is people not being kind to one another. And it's, like, this is the impact that kindness can have. And just, like, look at our history, you know? So I feel like that is, like, the main thing that I want to do. But also, like, my biggest takeaway is just, like, knowing that integration is very... can be done very easily within social studies because, like stated before, like, social studies is life. Like, we learn and we see, like, this didn't work in the past, so why are we doing it now? Or, like, how can we change it in the future? How can it be better? And then it also allows students to say, like, oh, like, maybe one day I want to be president so I can change, you know, the things that's going on right now so we can have a better future or whatever. So I feel like just that in general, like, it allows students to say, like, if I want change, I'm the person that's going to have to do it. I can't rely on someone else because, like, it's not being done right now, you know? So, yeah. For me, I pretty much have the same thoughts as everyone else. It really changed from how I did think about social studies and now I can realize and go, there's so many different ways you can teach it. And so within your teaching philosophy and pedagogy, you can apply it to a lot of how, you can apply it into your classroom easily with, like, your classroom culture in its own way. But with your students specifically, it can just help them develop a lot more. And it's easy enough that you're really able to do it in many different ways. And I'm excited to apply it and use it in so many different ways that you can. So that's part of what has changed from the beginning is that there wasn't much thought for social studies, but now I'm like, there is so much I can do with it. I completely agree with that. Well, guys, thanks for listening to our reflection podcast on social studies and adverts. Bye. See ya.
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