Social Studies Autobiography.

I am a dreamer and an explorer. I am excited to learn new things, and I have especially enjoyed the small amount of social studies I have been taught as a student. If I can instill the same passion and love that I have for learning into my students, I will be a successful educator. Because social studies is a subject that most teachers do not spend much time teaching, I hope to use it to motivate and engage my students.

My favorite part of social studies is state history. I am excited to be observing in a fourth grade classroom this semester, and I hope to see several lesson plans centered on North Carolina history. I believe the reason for teaching social studies is to teach students about the context in which they live. I am excited to teach social studies because the subject is so relevant to everyone. Additionally, I will enjoy integrating current events into my lessons. During an election year, my eighth grade social studies teacher taught us so much about voting and the importance of being an active participant and a good citizen. Even though we were not eligible to vote, we learned skills that we were able to build on in the future. Without this foundation, I would not have understood how voting makes one a good citizen and why not voting is irresponsible. While elementary students may not understand everything that I was able to understand in eighth grade, they are able to understand the basics. I believe that it is so important to start teaching kids how to be good citizens as early as possible, and I am excited to teach that within my social studies lessons.

Without social studies, students would have no idea how to live in their world. It saddens me that this subject is being taught less and less in schools because I think it is just as important as reading and mathematics. If we do not teach life lessons in schools, we are setting our students up to fail in the world. One would not be asked to run a marathon if they had never trained. Neither should we ask our students to live in a world for which we have not prepared them. I think as teachers we should work harder to integrate reading and math into social studies lessons. This will make school more interesting for our students while teaching them lessons of which they should not be deprived. Social studies should not be put on a back burner, but it should be equal to the other subjects in the elementary curriculum.

My mom taught sixth grade social studies for a few years before moving to an elementary school. She was one of the best teachers I have ever seen. I distinctly remember her working hard to create fun, engaging lessons for her students. One of my favorite of her lesson plans was “Edible Maps” in which her students made a country out of graham crackers and icing. Also, she and her teammates, who taught the other subjects, worked hard to integrate the material even though this was not required of them. For example, when studying the Germany and the Holocaust in social studies, they would read books about Anne Frank and other historical books about the Holocaust. Also, my mom brought in a Holocaust survivor as a guest speaker. She definitely went above and beyond for her students, which is exactly how I want to teach social studies.

While I am very excited to teach elementary social studies, I am nervous that I will fall into the bad habit of teaching to the test. From this course I hope to gain the knowledge of how to really integrate reading and math into social studies in a way that I will be able to do it on a regular basis when I have a classroom of my own. I also hope to gain a deeper understanding of how to teach social studies effectively. I am very curious about assessments as well. Even though social studies is not part of standardized testing, should it be tested within one’s classroom in elementary grades? If so, how are some effective ways to test social studies knowledge? I look forward to being able to use the knowledge I gain from this course to be a great social studies teacher.

As I begin teaching elementary social studies, I believe the two most important characteristics to have are curiosity and passion. I think anyone that is attempting to teach elementary school must be passionate about it. If not, they will just become tired and pessimistic. With passion, however, you can make a difference in kids’ lives every day. I think curiosity is important in social studies, in particular, because in order to teach it effectively, the teacher should have a deeper knowledge of the concepts that they are teaching. If one is not curious about the subjects they are teaching, then they are not going to go above and beyond the provided materials, which is necessary to be the best social studies teacher.