Unit 3: What is Social Studies?

        From the very start The Social Studies Wars by Ronald Evans takes the reader into the mind of many great thinkers and influential people in the education realm from throughout curriculum history.  The idea that first struck me from the very beginning was how deeply engrained teaching social studies is to our history and how much of an evolution it has had.  As a modern-day teacher, I do not spend as much time thinking about the past and path the standards I teach today have taken.  After reading, I found myself curious and wanting to know more about the evolution of the standards I teach in other subjects as well.  I feel that learning more about this would has an influence on how I view what I am teaching today. 

        The Social Studies Wars explains to the reader the ideas of some main groups interested in implementing their ideas into the curriculum that students will learn.  Those include the traditional historians, Mandarins, social efficacy educators, social meliorists, and social reconstructionists.  As I mentioned in a previous discussion, I find the connection to unit 1 and citizenship to again impact and ground my thinking when learning about these interests involved in different social studies learnings.  I feel that these ideas about citizenship can be discussed and compared to Evan’s thesis as he presented in the introduction.  Evans says, my thesis is that what began as a struggle among interest groups gradually evolved into a war against progressive social studies that has strongly influenced the current and future direction of the curriculum (Evans, 2004). 

       As it would be monotonous and repetitive to rehash the book from the Committee of Ten to the National Council for Social Studies, I wondered how do these ideas presented by these groups fit into our definitions of citizenship.  In addition, I found myself curious about what disagreements may have played out in other content areas in developing their curriculums or does the controversial nature of many social studies topics influence this.

      From reading I found that early traditional history centered curriculums seemed to have a focus on the very basic principles of American citizenship and were often reflective of ideas taught more often in personally responsible citizenship.  Evans quotes of the traditional history, the value judgment is their stock in trade: love of country, love of god, duty to parents, the necessity to develop habits of thrift, honesty, and hard work in order to accumulate property, the certainty of progress, the perfection of the United States.  These are not the be questioned (Evans, 2004).  Though as a reader, one might find these to be quite good qualities to teach students, you wonder what more could students learn beyond this. 

        As with many things, these ideas by the Seven and Ten went out of popularity and more progressive ideas were put into place by theorists such as John Dewey and David Snedden.  These ideas swung the pendulum the other direction more toward current issues and social justice, potentially creating more social justice citizens.  John Dewey was quoted saying, “education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform (Dewey, 1899).  It is clear his ideas as discussed previous, focus on pushing students beyond the traditional history. 

       Harold O. Rugg became a large influence in social studies curriculum leading up World War 2 and created the textbooks that many students interacted with daily.  This created a more unified social studies plan across different states but still drew criticism from many.  As his creation of textbooks sold in mass amount came onto the scene, World War 2 was just beginning and the focus on American education changed in preparation of war bound students.  Many students were focused on life as citizens that would soon become soldiers.  Evans states, preparing students to give their lives for democracy became a real purpose for many educators (Evans, 2004).  This leads me to believe that a focus for many educators again was on creating personally responsible citizens. 

        Another large change came to social studies education following World War 2 and surrounding the Cold War.  The impact of the fear of communism changed the way many taught and interacted with their students.  The National Defense Education Act in 1958 even created a focus solely on what now we would call STEM and social studies was pushed toward the background.  Though this took place in 1958, I feel that with acts such as No Child Left Behind this often happens knowingly or unknowingly to many students today.  As focus continued on STEM, the little amount of time spent teaching social studies into the 1960s and 1970s created scared and personally responsible citizens.  Teachers taught with a fear of bringing up controversial issues of Civil Rights and Vietnam.  Evans quotes Barrow, Gross and Sobel to go so far as to say, schools were institutions of conformity that destroyed the souls of children, coerced them to sit through hours of boring classes, and neglected the needs of individuals while oppressing the culture and history of students of color (Evans, 2004). 

        Again, as I read this I wonder how much of what we do today has really changed from then as many teachers including myself find it challenging to teach controversial issues that includes a full range of ideas and opinions.  As we continued into the 1980s and 1990s it seems that again the pendulum swung to include more social studies, though the focus was on history almost entirely.  As the National History Standards in 1994 were put into place and our current view of social studies with more of a focus on character education and global education went into place teachers still struggle with the best way to teach social studies. 

       As the reader can see social studies education has taken a long road to get where it is now, but as with anything the trip is not over.  I do not feel that we are at a perfect place with social studies education currently and wonder how current events such as war or economy may change our ideals as they did in the past.  I also wonder how we will know what the best approach is or if changing with the tides is the best idea to fit the current societal ideals.  As I said after reading, I wonder how much influence current issues of the time had on curriculums other than social studies.  This makes me want to investigate content area curriculums that I thought before this were black and white and wander into what may be actually a gray area.