Carlson 1

Sarah Hope Carlson

ELED

Dr. Schaich

26 April 2017

Rationale Synthesis Paper

Social Studies is slowly being hedged out of the modern curriculum. Time and resources

set aside for its instruction are being limited, and teachers are struggling to cope with these

changes. As difficult as it is to adjust, they must rise to the occasion and put up a bold fight not

only for Social Studies instruction but for Social Studies instruction that is engaging and

integrated. Educators must use Social Studies to craft students who are cared for, who

themselves care, and who are heard in order to foster a healthy, engaging learning environment.

Not every child will have a loving home, it is the task of a teacher to be a loving adult

influence in their life. For students to be able to be excited and engaged in classwork, they must

first be cared for emotionally, for how can their mind be fed if their heart is starving? Ogle,

Klemp, and McBride write in their book Building Literacy in Social Studies, “Recent brain

research has shown that a student’s emotional attitude has a profound effect on engagement,

learning, and retention” (p. 5). As educators, one of our primary functions is to be caring leaders.

We need to create a safe and emotionally healthy environment for our students. We should be

asking our children how they are doing, showing them genuine care, doing what we can to lift

their spirits on bad days to give them the very best shot at learning every day they sit in our

classrooms. Speaking of classroom management and self-management, Ogle, Klemp, McBride

(2007) also write, “Some students live in home environments where the only model of

management is coercive in nature. Self-management is neither modeled nor taught.

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Consequently, these students may replicate their home management style in aggressive forms,

such as intimidation or bullying” (p. 55). Not every child is going to have the home or the

parents that they deserve, and it is up to us as teachers to do what we can to give them an adult to

emulate. We should aim to love them as they ought to be loved, to model for them what it is to

make tough choices, to teach them self-discipline, self-control, and kindness, so that none of our

students will ever have to be victims of the households they were raised in because they were

raised in our classrooms, too. If teachers care for their students and feed their hearts, they will

have a much better chance of effectively feeding their minds as well.

If students are cared for, they in turn will care about what they are learning. Students

need to be engaged and involved in what they are learning. This starts by equipping them to

understand what they are learning. Ogle, Klemp, and McBride (2007) record a teacher-student

conversation: “’Did you read page one?’ ‘Yes, but I don’t understand what it’s saying, man’” (p.

4). It is hard to mobilize people (children as well as adults) for a cause they cannot understand.

Take science, for example. Most people, especially grown-ups, think they cannot understand

science, so they leave it to the experts, but those experts are working to invent an easier or better

life for the average person. Still, this idea that science is irrelevant or incomprehensible to the

common man has become so popular that it’s becoming true. Scientists have grown to believe

that only other scientists will care or understand their work. Consequently, they have developed a

jargon and language that only experts can have even a remote shot at comprehending. They’ve

forgotten how to talk to the rest of the world, and the rest of the world has forgotten how to care

about science. Children feel that same way about many other school subjects as well. It is the

role of teachers to make these topics accessible and understandable, to take the lofty textbooks

and the incomprehensible subjects and translate them, make them accessible, make them
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relevant. How is a student expected to care about something he/she cannot understand? “An

issue central to this book is how to get students to engage with history. A second issue is how to

ensure that they do more reading as part of that engagement” (Ogle et al., 2007). Again, getting

students to care and be engaged in what they are learning is crucial. Students should be so

enthralled that they are compelled to read more about a subject. We should inspire them so much

about social studies (or language arts or science or math) that they ask to read more about it. As

such, we should make sure that we are teaching in an engaging manner and that we have reading

materials of good quality, appropriate reading level, and with interesting facts to present our

students with. It is our role to create students who care. We can do that through making social

studies comprehensible, and we can foster that interest by presenting them with opportunities to

deepen it, e.g. reading resources.

Children are more likely to engage and be excited about what they are learning when they

feel heard and respected by their teacher. “One of the easiest ways to involve students more fully

in thinking about history is to make their ideas and thinking more central. Teachers who begin

new topics of study by asking students what they already know about the topics using KWL+,

for example, show interest in students’ ideas and experiences and respect for them. Students

learn that their voices are honored” (Ogle at al., 2007). As a teenager, one of my greatest fears

was that I wouldn’t be heard, that adults with careers, years of experience, and families would

take one look at my birth date and would discount what I had to say as naïve. I think this greatly

limited my willingness to voice my opinions and step forward. However, the seasons I

blossomed most in were those in which I felt heard and seen by individuals in authority. Our

students need to feel this, too. They need to know their instructor sees and respects them as

individuals. They need to be given trust and ownership and room to come up with their own
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ideas. They need to be able to trust that their teacher will take them seriously because “a person’s

a person, no matter how small” (Seuss, 2016). “It is crucial for the future health of American

democracy that all young people, including those [from groups] who are usually marginalized,

be knowledgeable, engaged in their communities and in politics, and committed to the public

good” (Ogle et al., 2007). This quote reminds me of my generation. A lot of people my age feel

discouraged and down-trodden. We don’t feel heard, so we don’t speak, thinking that we are

punishing someone other than ourselves, thinking that if we sulk and pout long enough the world

will realize it hurt our feelings. This paragraph in particular strikes a resounding note because

more often than not, the people not voting are from minority, poor, or marginalized groups. They

see the government as something that will not stand up for them and therefore, treat it as

something irrelevant to them. However, they are the ones the government should hear from.

They are the ones with the problems that need to be fixed. They are the ones the government

should be standing up for. Teachers are where students learn most their opinion about the

government from. If an educator listens, encourages, and respects their students, the students will

learn their voice is heard. They will make it count. They will expect other adults and institutions

to respect them as well. We need to encourage our students to speak and reinforce their opinions

by genuinely listening if we want them to care about what we are teaching them.
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References

Ogle, D., Klemp, R. M., & McBride, B. (2007). Building literacy in social studies: strategies for

improving comprehension and critical thinking. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, Association for

Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Seuss, D. (2016). Horton hears a who! London: HarperCollins Children's Books.