Social+Studies+is+the+Best

This is a place where we can discuss anything having to do with Social Studies. I would like to have many of the discussions focus on what is happening in the world. You can find many articles about world news in the newspaper or on [|http://www.cnn.com.] Feel free to explore other world news websites and post your feeling about their articles here in our wiki. Enjoy catching up with the times. AUTHORED BY RENEE PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHO YOU ARE WHEN YOU REPLY.

Renee, I know how you feel about your content area and you are so knowledgeable. I think that your use of cnn.com is a wonderful way to express national and world information and news with an "unbiased" feeling as to what your beliefs may be. Especially if you are to use this in the classroom setting! (Sara)

What's nice about Social Studies is that there is a lot of reading and writing so ELA is automatically involoved in anything we do here. But being able to discuss what's going on in the world opens a lot of students' eyes. There are so egocentric and removed from society, except the small one they create.(Renee)

I actually really love learning about and teaching Social Studies. The CNN site is a great resource for students to learn about what is happening in the world around them. I always like to have some sort of current events discussion in my SS class. I also like to compare events in history to how the world is today. Kids are always good at coming up with similarities and differences between past and present. My students are also very interesting in the world around them..... they are very amazed by everything in 5th grade. I have traveled a lot and love to share my stories about how people live differently than we do in other parts of the world. SS is also great because it lends itself well to many fun projects and activities. (Heather G)


 * Why do you hate history?

OK FOLKS LET'S HEAR IT!!!!!!!!!! WHY DO PEOPLE HATE HISTORY?** Speaking of egocentric, is not history many times interpreted through the eyes of the beholder? It is open to all sorts of interpretations and discrepencies according to who is recording it. Why do people hate history? History per say is fascininating, its the lessons of history that can be be disturbing. **We are** **doomed to repeat our mistakes without learning from the past; Global warming and social studies wars based on religous intolerence through the ages just to name a couple.**

Wow ok so you don't hate history persay but you do hate the people who write our history. What do you love about learning history?__**
 * __Ok so the previopus response is filled with some passion. Hopefully we can get and equally passionate response.

There are reasons why individuals hate history. The early European Colonists/immigrants to the New World/Americas eliminated and destroyed the historical accounts of native peoples because of cultural and religious bigotry. Religious intolerance can be reactionary to advances in science ,the arts social studies/history. Events tend to repeat themselves throughout the ages.History is fascinating.It defines humankind. ( KeithBurnett53)

Individuals may not necessarily hate history they may just not like the history they have or want to change it to benefit themselves. Howard Zinn wrote the book __A People's History of the United States__ which gives a far different view of history as seen through the eyes of largely forgotten participants. These groups include Indians, slaves, women, and the poor. The popular telling of many of these people’s histories doesn't accurately portray what happened just what the people in power at the time had to say on the topic. (Dave Telgheder)

I never liked history for two reasons. The first reason is because I have a terrible memory and therefore have a very hard time following history (important dates and names). The second reason is because I am the kind of person who needs the hard evidence to believe something. History is ofen written in many different point of views. I think historical stories create a lot of unnecessary stereotypes in our world. On the plus side of things I have really enjoyed teaching and learning about the fourth grades social studies curriculum containing education on New York State, Native Americans and the Colonial Period.

As a history teacher there is only one way to peak the interest of your students in the subject matter. You must make it personal and heartfelt. This is not possible for many topics that we teach. But when teaching about people and places and wars, they cannot be just a list of distant facts. Make the students understand that they will one day "be history." How do they want to be remembered? Do they want students 100 years from now to not care about them or their time period? Should the soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, or those that lost their lives on 9/11 be forgotten in 100 years the way they wish we could forget the Civil War now? I have found that in some cases this helps students to appreciate those that have come before us, in the same way that we hope to be appreciated one day. (B. Kiernan)

I have never liked history as a subject in school. It has always been my worst subject, even in college. I think that one of the reasons is because throughout school, in history classes, I had always been asked to memorize facts, names, dates and places and I am not good at memorizing information like that. I am great in math and I think it is because I can work out a math problem and see where my result is coming from and in history I can only read about it in books, I don't actually get to see it happening. A cousin of mine is a history teacher and when he introduces a new time period he dresses up in costume and has students act out different battles. Mybe if my teachers had presented history that way to me, I would have been able to have a better time in history class. (Patti McGibney)