The day of simply lecturing and rote memorization is gone. A good Social Studies teacher uses cooperative learning, group projects, service learning, and primary sources, not just a textbook, to help his students learn. Through studying social studies, students begin to define truth, democracy, and justice. Social science requires students take a stand on issues that matter and which effect their lives now and in the future. Our students are the future leaders of not only the local community, but of the global community.
Students learn what role they play in defending truth, demanding justice, and ensuring democracy.
Students should be disturbed at violations to these principals. They should get uncomfortable and upset when injustice is observed in the present and in history, and encouraged when it is observed. As students begin to grasp why the world in which they live is the way it is, as students make the connections and understand how and why things came to be, they naturally will begin to challenge those things that they see as being wrong in the world and recognize they can act to bring about change. I love teaching Social Studies because it gives students the understanding and knowledge they need to make the world better than it is, to demand that it not stay the same, to insist that democracy, truth, and justice prevail. And in the process, students become better writers, readers, and thinkers.