My licensure is 4-9 Math and Social Studies. I teach 4th grade Math and Social Studies. In 4th grade we have the dreaded Ohio Achievement Assessment for Math and Reading only. In my short 4 years here I have noticed something, Social Studies and Science get the short end a lot!
One example of how I see this is that I only teach one Social Studies class for 45 minutes each day to one of my classes, while I teach 1 hour and 20 minutes of Math to two of my classes. I have questioned this but then I have been shot down immediately, by other teachers and administrators. Also, whenever there is a delay or other assembly Social Studies and Science are cut out, while Math or Reading maybe shortened.
My question is, do Middle School Teachers or High School teachers notice this lack of Social Studies instruction? What is the biggest thing you notice the students lacking in Social Studies.
I understand that Reading, Writing, and Math are very important but I was just wondering what we were doing to these other areas in the process of focusing on these other subjects.
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I am also certified in grades 4-9 but am licensed in social studies and science.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what you stated. I have had many discussions with elementary teachers and many have them have stated that they either don't feel comfortable teaching social studies or science or don't have the resources to do so. I feel that in the lower grades interdiscilinary studies needs to begin occurring. It would be very easy to combine reading/writing and social studies and combine math and science. What I have found, however, is that many elementary teachers haven't had the time to learn how to do this successfully. It is time for the state and school districts to start looking at this issue on a yearly basis because many students then fall behind in those two topics as they are not introduced to it at an early age.
In my high school science and history classes, I have found that many students dislike or are not interested in those two classes and therefore, have a harder time passing these topics on high stakes assessments. I feel that this issue must be looked at and dealt with beginning with elementary teachers and guide them and give them traiing so thy can be successful and confident at making science and social studies an integral part of their daily classroom without too much extra planning.
This is something that our special education department has discussed in the past. We have students in the regular classroom who do wonderfully in social studies and science in elementary school, but when they reach middle school and high school they continuously fail.
ReplyDeleteI agree that if we are going to put such an emphasis on social studies and science at the high school level, we need to start by implementing more social studies and science activities in the younger grades.
Jackie, you are right when you say it would be easy to incorporate social studies into reading/writing. Teachers at the younger levels (and those at the middle and high school levels, too) really need some extra guidance on how to do this.
I think this is definitely a problem. With the elimination of the OAA, there is definitely a lack of concern for our content area. Further, the new standards soon to be implemented will likely bring a revised test. Perhaps this would work. I will say in terms of infusing the topic with other areas, our language arts and reading kids presently read Crispin: Cross of Lead as part of a cross curricular approach and we have seen some success in with our seventh graders.
ReplyDeleteI hope that the powers that be will see our needs and put them in a high order of importance because our content is substantially important.
I agree as well that social studies is often one of the first subject areas that seems to be dismissed. We are currently awaiting to see our new schedule for next year and one possible solution is to incorporate social studies with the language arts. It was addressed as if it was not that important and easily "stuck" in with language arts. This really has bothered me, because I do so much in social studies that hopefully crosses over into the other subject areas as well.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with all of the above comments. One of the biggest issues for my classes (I teach 11th grade) is that there is no section on the ACT/SAT concerning social studies. This automatically makes my students think that it's "not important" or they "don't need it for college admissions" when in reality, every student will be required to take a history course in college, no matter their major.
ReplyDeleteLike Kaye said, I too am ALWAYS integrating other subjects into mine. It could be grammar or writing/reading skills, or also using charts or graphs to show historical past. Are other departments doing this in their classes? Probably not, because not only does the administration usually rank Social Studies as #4 of the core, but other teachers and departments do as well.