Social Studies for Young Children Preschool and Primary Curriculum Anchor Second Edition Gayle Mindes ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD EDUCATION A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK Published by Rowman & Littlefield Education A division of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.com 10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom Copyright © 2014 by Gayle Mindes All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mindes, Gayle. Social studies for young children : preschool and primary curriculum anchor / Gayle Mindes— Second edition.
pages cm Includes bibliographical references. Social sciences—Study and teaching (Early childhood) 2. Social sciences—Study and teaching (Elementary) I.6071—dc23 2013029696 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39. Printed in the United States of America To my family and friends with big ears and bigger hearts.
With many thanks, Gayle Contents Foreword vii Mara Sapon-Shevin Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction to the Authority of Social Studies 1 2 Moral Development, Character Education, Emotional Literacy, and the Social Studies 21 3 Teaching and Learning Social Studies in the Age of Common Core and State Standards 45 4 The Context of Culture in Teaching Social Studies: Beyond the Antibias Curriculum 69 5 Perspectives on Classroom Practices 89 Linda Davey and Doris Pronin Fromberg 6 Multimedia, the World, and Young Children 115 7 Assessing the Accomplishment of Learning in the Social Studies 139 8 Social Studies as Curriculum Anchor 161 Appendix: Children’s Literature Organized by National Council of the Social Studies Themes 193 Prepared by Kelly Minks, College of Education graduate assistant, DePaul University, Chicago. v Foreword Mara Sapon-Shevin How do we help young people learn to be good citizens living in a democrat- ic, diverse society, and why does it matter? This book makes it abundantly clear that this task is not only complex but essential to our collective future as human beings sharing an increasingly connected planet. Learning to live together—the focus of social studies—is the most important thing that stu- dents can learn in schools, and it is critical that we continue to advocate strongly for the importance of this curriculum. When my daughters were young, we lived in North Dakota, and they were the only Jewish vegetarian children with hyphenated last names in their fairly homogeneous school.
It was difficult for other children to understand and appreciate the food that they brought to school for lunch; their names were “different”; and they were sent home with ornaments that they had made in class to decorate their nonexistent Christmas tree. All of us—chil- dren and parents—struggled to situate ourselves and experience a sense of belonging within a community in which few people looked like us, wor- shipped as we did, ate like us, or had been born outside the state. This book makes evident how crucial it is for all of us—beginning, of course, with young children—to truly understand diversity, to have the inter- personal skills to live well with others, and to embrace a worldview that is broad and embracing, open to the vast wonders of the world. What could be more important? In this era of increased standardized high-stakes testing, external curricu- lum mandates, and growing corporate control of education, it has become painfully challenging for teachers to be responsive to the children in their care.
Many teachers have left education because of the excruciating gap between what they know is important for their students and what, how, and when they are mandated to teach. vii viii Foreword Social studies education, as outlined in this excellent book, has been squeezed out of the curriculum in many places, and it is vital to our survival as citizens that it be reinserted, valued, and supported by parents, educators, administrators, and policy makers. Social studies cannot and should not be viewed as an “add-on”—what we do if we have time after we teach literacy and mathematics. In fact, as this book demonstrates, social studies can and should be taught as an integrated part of all other subjects.
Social studies teaches us how we belong and how we can help others to belong, how we resolve conflicts, how we talk about differences, how we understand our interconnectedness, and how we support one another’s rights and opportu- nities. This book reminds us of the critical preparation provided by social stud- ies, and it is rich in concrete examples of how we can provide endless teachable moments about citizenship and belonging in terms of what we read, what we talk about, what we listen to, what we draw, and how we interact. Preface At birth, young children begin the exploration of their social world. As infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and young school-agers, they interact with people and the environment to learn about the world and their places in it.
Gradually, they become community members and acquire the skills to be effective citizens in a democratic society. The precise nature of their learn- ings and the ways in which they learn about the social world, with its cus- toms and rules for engagement, depend on the developmental stage, as well as the cultural, family, child care, and school environment. However, all young children will face the demand of policy makers, who require an en- lightened citizenship equipped with the tools for problem solving in the 21st century. Using the processes of social studies, teachers facilitate the acquisition of the tools and concepts appropriate for learning the social studies that will serve young learners lifelong.
Such tools include raising questions as well as gathering, analyzing, discussing, and displaying data. These are the open- ended, inquiry-based learning strategies ideally suited for child investiga- tions of topics and themes that appeal to young children. Sample themes developed through the exploration of “big ideas” include “Who am I?” “Where do I live?” “Who are my family members?” “How do people travel?” The themes are timeless, and children explore them in the context of their lives, using their previous knowledge and the currency of their current lives. Thus, “Who am I?” explored at various ages varies in complexity and is influenced by the cultural context of the learner.
So, part of social studies is the academic content of the social studies, which includes the traditional fields of history, archeology, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, geography, and philosophy. This content is appropriately scaled for investigation through learner projects. ix x Preface Investigations might begin with a children’s question, such as “Where does my food come from?” Using the academic tools appropriate for the ages of the children, teachers provide learning environments and activities that will enhance their understanding of the fundamental questions that they raise. In the pages that follow, this curricular approach is described and applied.
As well, the book shows how to develop and enhance the social aspects of learning as part of the processes of social studies. This text pulls together the disparate but intertwined content of the social studies and discusses the processes of social studies that promote social learning, self-concept development, character development, and emotional intelligence. Issues of culture, classroom community development, and fami- ly collaboration are other vital aspects of the social studies discussed. The book offers an integration of this content and a significant examination of issues underpinning it to provide a whole-child orientation to the curricular area of social studies for young children.
The approach recognizes that the themes 1 of social studies rely on social interactions and child-constructed meaning to support acquisition of the required academic material proposed by state and national standards. Finally, culture and community are inextri- cably linked to the teaching and learning of social studies. The book presents social studies content and processes holistically. It begins in chapter 1 with a focus on the historical foundations of the social studies and goes on with current emphases and the importance for strong consideration of culture in the social development of young children.
Chapter 2 continues the elaboration of social development and social learning, with a focus on moral development, character education, and emotional intelli- gence. In chapter 3, the focus shifts to the particular strategies and methods that facilitate acquisition of knowledge, as well as strategic tools for the exploration of the social world. Chapter 4 picks up the discussion of cultural issues and priorities as these factors interface with the lives of children and families, moving beyond the antibias curriculum. Global issues and a post- modernist perspective are explored in chapter 5.
In chapter 6, the media and methods of instruction are discussed in practical terms. Chapter 7 focuses on the alignment of assessment practices with curricular goals and interventions. The final chapter discusses bringing the social learning and the social studies content together, with pragmatic examples of lesson and thematic investiga- tion planning, as well as sources for contemporary topics. NEW TO THIS EDITION Since the last edition, the National Council for the Social Studies revised curriculum standards with a renewed commitment to the 10 themes of social studies and an emphasis on the standards as framework for learning the Preface xi content, processes, and dispositions of citizenship in our multicultural soci- ety.
The Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association prepared Common Core State Standards that are adopted by most states. While these standards do not include social studies at this time, the English language arts standards and the math standards promote the goals of critical analyses and higher-order thinking—processes that are an inherent part of the social studies. Attention to cultural diversity in nonsimplistic ways focuses our attention on using the social studies to understand our global and multicultural orientation to schooling. Digital media and social media are tools that are reshaping our world and offering opportunities for new ap- proaches to teaching and learning so that all young learners may be success- ful.
All these changes in the world of education and the world at large are incorporated in this edition. In addition, the content of all chapters is updated while maintaining the focus on best early childhood education practice, as reflected in the latest position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (2009). KEY FEATURES OF THE TEXT • Focus questions, study questions, reflection prompts • Suggested further readings • Internet resources to support teacher and child learning • Integrated approach to social learning and social studies education • Examples of holistic instructional approaches NOTE 1. Culture; time, continuity, and change; people, places, and environments; individual development and identity; individuals, groups, and institutions; power, authority, and govern- ance; production, distribution, and consumption; science, technology, and society; global con- nections; and civic ideals and practices (National Council for the Social Studies, 2010).
REFERENCES National Association for the Education of Young Children. Developmentally appropri- ate practice position statement. Washington, DC: Author. National Council for the Social Studies.
National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A framework for teaching, learning, and assessment. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Acknowledgments Thanks to the thousands of children, parents, undergraduate and graduate students, and colleagues who have influenced my thinking and practices over the years. In particular, I appreciate the thoughtful ongoing reviews and encouragement of the original series editors: Doris Pronin Fromberg and Leslie Williams.
I value the care and hard work of Kelly Minks, DePaul University graduate assistant, who compiled the children’s literature collec- tion organized by the National Council for the Social Studies themes. The librarians at DePaul found the “unfindable” quickly; I am indebted to them for all the reference assistance.