Engaging All Learners in the Diverse Classroom , Second Edition, contact the Customer Consultant in your region. The dominant image of social studies instruction as portrayed in educational research and popular culture is not flattering. Students passively listen to teachers lecture.
Students transfer facts and ideas from the textbook to worksheets.
Students are marched methodically through time, chapter by chapter, and must commit to memory fragmented lists of people, events, ideas, dates, and places. The past is not connected to the present. Controversy is avoided. Multiple perspectives are missing. While the above portrait misrepresents many outstanding history teachers, it is a recurrent theme in the research on classroom practice, and it helps to explain survey data indicating that a disproportionate number of students find social studies to be their least favorite subject.