What is a social studies approach?

1. In your own words, describe what a social studies approach to global history means. Give an example using the New York City Scope and Sequence curriculum. A social studies approach to global history means that you realize that you not just teaching the student you have in front of you today but are laying the ground work for the citizens and human beings they can be tomorrow. Without teaching students to use everything they have at their disposal to reify their learning you are just following a curriculum when you could be igniting a path. In the Introduction to The New York City Department of Education High School Scope & Sequence Grades 9-12 we are told “A strong and effective social studies program helps students make sense of the world in which they live, allows them to make connections between major ideas and their own lives, and it helps them see themselves as active members of a global community.” I think it’s necessary that when you enter the classroom you have to take into account your journey as a student before you take on anyone else’s. I consider myself a student of history, an analyst of events, and a researcher. I’ve been an organizer, activists, an observer and participant in events. As a kid I can remember pouring over Time Magazine, Newsweek, U.S. World News and Report, the New York Times and the Daily News. I’ve been interested in politics, geography, world events, biographies and early photography for as long as I can remember. I was encouraged by parents, relatives, teachers, friends and employers to pay attention to what was going on in the world around me and I drank it in. Through everything I learner or was interested or became an active participant in I try always to see the connections and ask questions. How does one event affect another? Are we getting the true story? Why is this here? Who came before us? How did people live? What did they believe? Why did they believe it? How does it affect me, my family, the Bronx, New York, America, and the World? To make the connections, and to be active members of a global community students have to learn early on that the most interesting social studies are the ones going on around them. The Bronx today is going to very different from the Bronx of thirty years from now. To make connections they need to get out and use all the tools they have at their disposal. Technology is a wonderful thing, but going out and seeing places, talking to people who live events, examining artifacts brings history and a wide variety of skills together to make lessons and learning lasting and the world a smaller more interesting place. That’s were students learn to make sense of the world and their lives. Set the path. How will you decide what is important for your students to know in global history? The Scope and Sequence says it well, “While knowledge of content is very important, it is equally important to engage our students in historical thinking. Students should be engaged and challenged to think like historians, raise questions, think critically, consider many perspectives and gather evidence in support of their interpretations as they draw upon chronological thinking, historical comprehension, historical analysis and interpretation, historical research, and decision-making. These are the skills that will serve them well as participating citizens of a democracy.” What leads my students to become critical thinkers and participating citizens of a democracy is paramount. However, I have to take into account who my students are, where they come from and what they already know. Building from strengths that sometime my students don’t even realize they have is in my experience the key to teaching any subject especially global history.