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My mom and brother (now a principal) are social studies teachers. We’ve had some convos over the past few days about our current state of affairs being a result of educational negligence when it comes to history, civics, and social studies.
I love STEM, but if we continue to prioritize it so heavily over humanities in our education system, we will continue to reap what we sow — contextual collapse and ignorance about how and why to apply STEM.
Many of the engineers, data folks, and STEM practitioners I most admire have a deep knowledge and interest in humanities, and a lot of them are philosophy, English, history, econ, or poli sci majors/minors who view the world far more holistically than we teach it to kids now.
If people don’t have baseline education about how democracy works and WHY people fought for it, they’re going to believe shocking crapola like this. (From Sunday’s Nyt)
Social studies curricula have been some
of the most heavily cut and politicized in the US. And where kids should be learning critical thinking, analysis, and context, teachers must trend toward memorization and regurgitation to fit poor standards. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/21/once-again-texass-board-education-exposed-how-poorly-we-teach-history/
of the most heavily cut and politicized in the US. And where kids should be learning critical thinking, analysis, and context, teachers must trend toward memorization and regurgitation to fit poor standards. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/21/once-again-texass-board-education-exposed-how-poorly-we-teach-history/
Journalists should be especially concerned about this, because social studies is where children should be learning basic civics and media literacy, identifying and analyzing sources, understanding cause and effect in history and politics, knowing how govt. works.
By the time people are out of high school, it’s often too late to instill what they should have learned in fourth grade. Journalism can’t fight misinfo or do any kind of meaningful job when the majority of people lack basic skills and knowledge.
Anyway, I’m tired of living in a world where people can’t think critically, identify fact from fiction, or understand how and why we got where we are. Please bring back social studies. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
