A Social Studies Forum

The Importance of Teaching Social Sciences

The social sciences of American history are given the most attention, especially for middle school students, using a variety of teaching techniques that show how society is changing despite the constraints that are in place. For instance, as part of the instruction, the students gather news articles and other newspaper content that illustrates the historical experiences of a particular ethnic community (Singer, 2008). As a result, the students are exposed to a wide body of information about their ethnic groups and are forced to reevaluate their personalities, understanding of where they are from, and how a particular ethnic group has been impacted by American events. Hence, the analysis of the articles demonstrates an emphasis in the social sciences teaching in the middle school where students get to recognize the position of the ethnic groups at each historical period. Moreover, the teaching process involves the students examining family artifacts that they are asked to bring to class by their respective teachers (Singer, 2008). By the students bringing the artifacts for classroom discussion, the learning process provides the learners with an opportunity to identify with their cultures and their specific ethnic groups.

The Drawbacks of the Current Approach

Contrarily, the emphasis fails to parallel with the correct social sciences teaching since it fails in many aspects to spur enthusiasm within the students to appreciate the cultural diversity in the United States. For instance, the emphasis on the students bringing their family artifacts, and articles relating to their ethnic group has a high likelihood of the increasing ethnicity and eventually developing cultural divide (Singer, 2008). Besides, anonymous use of the artifacts in the Immigration Museum prevents the minor cultures from being appreciated on the national level by everyone, and therefore, only the dominant culture is expressed.

Reference

Singer, A. J. (2008). Social studies for secondary schools: Teaching to learn, learning to teach. Routledge.