Dave Blake
November 3rd 2009
Jason M.C. Price
Maria, A. & Marshall, J. (2009). Lessons in Social Action: Equipping and Inspiring Students to Improve Their World. The Social Studies 100(5), 218-222.
Dave Blake
Summary:
The article explores teaching strategies to promote civic engagement within the students. A group of former elementary and middles school teachers developed a system of teaching strategies to follow and help further understanding of justice and social change amongst the students. The four strategies are: 1) A critical literacy curriculum that explores current global contexts, 2) the use of Primary sources, 3) Role playing, and 4) Civic debate. Using these strategies teachers expose the students to current global issues, while attempting to promote critical literacy within a safe environment for free reflection and discussion.
Too many teachers these days are using materials that were passed down from one teacher to another. The material is being taught in a dry and boring manner and needs to be spiced up to help grasp the learner’s attention. The strategies presented in the article are all very good teaching methods that I plan to take into my practice. Discussions about serious issues using critical literacy, being able to have an open talk with our student on serious events in history should happen regularly within the classroom, helping the students to feel comfortable. Primary sources should be used in all teaching areas it is a must and helps the student think and pull out knowledge and learn new material. Role play is the one strategy that I will really take from this article, the example given was excellent and is a great way to help the students feel and understand race and equality. Lastly the civic debate, great style of teaching getting the students to use multiple forms of learning and having a final product that students will enjoy and have fun with. This article just proves how teaching Social Studies or History and learning it can be enjoyable and not just fill in the blanks while reading a text book.
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1 comment:
I also read the same article so I'll post my summary here.
The article was written by two university professors who teach multicultural and social studies methods courses to teacher candidates in New York. The authors believe that by using: a critical literacy curriculum that explores current global contexts, primary sources, civic debates and role play, they can create a sense of social change and justice for their students. According to the article, “U.S. educators are failing to prepare students to become active citizens in their neighborhoods, cities, states, nation, and world”(p.218) and therefore it falls onto teachers to help students become more thoughtful and able to make informed decisions for the common good of society. One way that was suggested to make global connections clearer, is to ask students if anything going on in the world today is like something that happened in history. I think the tools presented can help us all out greatly in the classroom, with the ones I will probably implement the most in my own classroom being primary sources and role playing.
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