Okay, in NY State and NYC, there are no standards for elementary social studies. They just never got around to writing them. A large reason for that is that the focus is now purely on math and literacy. The science standards exist but they're largely ignored anyway. A friend of mine who just graduated from 5th grade had a social studies textbook last year which covered the Americas. The child didn't know the difference between a country and a continent, and she was being asked to comment on poverty and social injustice in Central America. That is not what I'm going to teach, especially considering I'll probably have total freedom in designing my social studies curriculum. So my question is, what, typically, do students learn in 5th grade social studies? If I assume my students come in knowing nothing, what core concepts should I try to get across to them? If they do know the basics which they should have learned in 3rd & 4th grades, what specific areas should I then have them focus on? I'm really in the dark here. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
In Georgia we learned US history in 5th grade, we learned the basics like the constitution, colonies, decleration of independence, revolutionary war, civil war, ww2, important presidents, and state capitals. As a big test we needed to memorize the preamble to the constitution. In third grade we learned the basics like the difference between country, state, capital, how to read a map, and how other people in the world live. 4th grade we learned state history. For the most part almost all of the students already knew a lot of waht we learned in these grades. Hope this helps.
I'm envious! What do you have to work with? Maps, atlases, that kind of stuff? Good or bad Library? All that will have a lot of bearing on where you go with it. Also, if you have an ethnically diverse group, have them all work on teaching the others about where their ancestors come from. Lots of cosutmes, artifacts, food, that kind of stuff. They'll have so much fun they won't know they are learning. Or you could do a current-events themed units. Not that you should spend a lot of time on current events with fifth graders necessarily, but, since they keep hearing about all these strange countries, so you could go in depth teaching about the location, history and culture of these places. You're lucky to have this opportunity.
Yeah, we had to memorize the states and their capitals and make topographical maps of the U.S. in the fifth grade. Our big test was to be given a blank map of the U.S. and have to fill in the name of as many states and capitals as we could. Everybody got Hawaii and Alaska right - but only Oran Bungrumchart got every state and capital correct. Our teacher was big into geography - former contestant in that National Geographic contest they have. We also were assigned a state on which we had to do a big term long research project and presentation. I still remember the state motto and nickname of Kentucky that way - although I've never been there.
I love 5th grade. Every time I subbed 5th, I always wondered if I should have been k-9 instead of 6-12. Pretty much every time I subbed fifth grade, what you listed above is what they were doing. Heavy emphasis on internal state stuff... Chicago... Illinois, etc. They did quite a bit of mapping... reading, designing... drawing. They did interesting activities on the colonization of the US. Speaking of what 5th graders should know... did anyone ever take a look at E.D. Hirsch's What Every Child Should Know? That guy needs to be clubbed.
My mom's a 6th grade social studies teacher and her response to this thread would be something along the lines of "a hell of a lot more."
Thanks for the info, everybody. To be honest, I found out yesterday that NY State does in fact have social studies standards, so I can use them as a guide too (there are just no city standards). But your comments are still really helpful. As for being lucky to have this opportunity, I have to disagree with that. I can only assume that my classroom will have no resources except what I bring myself. Also, the math and literacy curricula are so demanding, and my students will be so far behind in both subjects, that I'll be lucky if I can fit in 30 minutes of social studies once a week. I really think it's an important subject and I want to do whatever I can to make sure my students learn the basics.
You just summed up most of what's wrong with public education. And the reasons why I'm actually thinking of practicing law, which I've been avoiding since 1998. That said, I've been trying to quit this job for five years now, but I keep going back. Dammit.
Math is the least important subject in school, in my mind the most important subject is Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Math. But Social Studies is by far the most interesting and fun when it come to class.
The problem with ranking math as the least important is that many sciences (especially non-biological sciences) which you rank second, require a decent math background...chemistry, physics, etc. For that reason, at least algebra and some trig are pretty important if you want learn science. Sorry for veering off topic....social studies was always my favorite as well.
I just took chemistry last year and came to the conclusion it wasn't important, you do need basic algebra for physics which is in my opinion the second most importatn science behind biology. But I had to take Algebra 3 the past year and it was a waste of time, but hay you need them to graduate.
Every subject is important, although depending on each student's individual strengths, some may seem unimportant. I hated math. I knew I would never have a job requiring advanced mathematical abilities. Therefore, I saw algebra as a waste of my time. Some of the kids in my algebra class are now engineers though, so I'm sure they saw it differently. That's part of the idea behind a comprehensive public education. It exposes the kids to a little of everything, so that the students can find out what their strengths and weaknesses are. Ranking the importance of the subjects usually does little more than show the strengths of each individual student, or show a simplification of the intent of the subject. For example, txt, you ranked language arts as first, though I've seen elsewhere that you hate to read. Did you list it because it is essential for people to learn to read to function in society? If that were the only purpose of language arts, schools would stop making it a requirement once a student showed basic mastery. Instead, it remains a requirement through high school, as students learn how to analyze and interpret literature, and how to express themselves better on paper. Every subject is multifaceted like this. They have a basic purpose, and a few more higher-order purposes. In my view, no subject is more important than another (and I'm looking at the big 5 of English, Science, Math, History and Art here) and we're in trouble the moment people stop treating them as equal in terms of importance.
Chemistry is extremely important. I admit that I suck at it but that's only b/c I'm weak in math and couldn't memorize the formulas I needed. I think biology is the least important of the three. Chemistry is the most important though.
Math is underappreciated. I never got it til someone explained it to me from scratch... They should try and make it more fun by giving more background info on mathematics, what it is and why it's so damned useful. It's really a quite interesting thing. But social studies are more fun because everyone can relate to (part of) the topics. I wouldn't mind teaching for a job. As long as you're not getting shot in the head by an angry student it seems fun to me. I wouldn't put to much weight on the importance of History. Face it, our history books are full of facts but a lot of stuff is conveniently left out. I dropped chemistry after a while, I also dropped physics. I sucked at both but I liked physics for the most part. I think I'd be pretty good at it now. Strengths, weaknesses and ideas vary greatly from age 6-30. Out of a 100 people who know what they want to do at 17 maybe 0,5 will have realized their wishes at age 37. You know what's really important? Learning to be happy.
Two organizations that can really help you out with resources and advice. NCSS - http://www.ncss.org (National Council for Social Studies) and NCHE - http://www.nche.net (National Council for History Education) I would also contact the University closest to you and ask for their Social Studies Methods instructor in the Education Department and the History Department chair. In addition, your district probably has a Social Studies curriculum coordinator (usually at the secondary level) but they can point you in the right direction also. Many states at 4/5/6th grade teach State History so you should also contact your State Historical Society for resources. PM me if you need more info. As you can tell I do this for a living
hmmm, you think about giving them one of those "what do you know" assessments on the first day? Tell them it doesn't count for a grade, it's just to let you know what they know/don't know.