Lessons Learned

I started this blog six weeks ago as a requirement for my Social Studies class. Although this is the last official blog posting that I have to do, I hope it won’t be my last. I was asked to reflect on if using this blog has enhanced or hindered my learning. At first I didn’t think it had either affect on me, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided I’ve learned from blogging. At the beginning of the semester when I heard that I had to post a blog each week, I was not thrilled. I was nervous about the fact that what I wrote, anyone could read. However, the more I posted, the less frightening it became. This is a valuable lesson. I will have my students peer editing and publishing their work, so reflecting on a blog puts me in their shoes and reminds me how they may feel. I can now share my experience and empathize with them, but also stress the growth that I saw through the process.

I was also asked to think how my view of teaching social studies has changed since the beginning of this course. Man, has it ever! Thinking back to my high school years of social studies, I don’t remember much except for reading chapters from textbooks and answering questions at the end. My social studies classroom will be much different. I recently read a chapter about integrating social studies in the classroom (Chapter 1 in Lindquist’s book Seeing the Whole Through Social Studies) and it is amazing how this teacher has made social studies “the core of the day—the essential integrator”. For example, for reading, she will have students read different types of stories (legends, folktales, etc); in social studies, she will teach geography and what part of the world these folktales are from; in science, she may talk about environmental aspects of these parts of the world; in language arts, she will have students create a book of their own folktale; and in art, the students will illustrate their books. This, to me, is a fun social studies class! I look forward to these days.