Social Education articles from November 2008

Social Education archives from November 2008

Editor's notebook.
November 1, 2008... Recent events have made one thing clear: there is no historical force that guarantees American success in the twenty-first century if Americans lack the knowledge, skills and competence needed to deal with the challenges that face them in the...

Letters from George Washington and Samuel Cabbie, and Speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.(Teaching with Documents)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... On March 21, 1781, General George Washington sent a single-page letter, featured in this article, to the president of the Confederation Congress. From his headquarters in New Windsor, New York, Washington wrote two paragraphs. In the first, he...

An interview with author Firoozeh Dumas.(Interview)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 2001, with no prior writing experience, Firoozeh Dumas wrote Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America. The book became a best seller, and was followed this year by Laughing Without an Accent:...

Embrace the future: NCSS and P21.
November 1, 2008... Recently one of my 12-year-old students was organizing one of my shelves when she asked, "Mr. Yell, what the heck is this?" I turned around and discovered that she was holding a three-quarter-inch computer disk. It hadn't seemed that long ago...

Poetry and postholes: making history instruction deeper and more personal.(Social Studies Disciplines)(Critical essay)
November 1, 2008... Artists and poets are the raw nerve ends of humanity. By themselves they can do little to save humanity. Without them there would be little worth saving. (1) These words from Jackson Pollock's headstone reflect some of my latest musings...

Geography: the essential skill for the 21st Century.(Social Studies Disciplines)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... As we head further into the 21st Century, we are living in an every changing and interdependent world. The toys that our children play with are made in China. The clothes we wear or the shoes on our feet, the bedding we sleep on, or the drapes...

Economic and financial education for the 21st Century.(Social Studies Disciplines)
November 1, 2008... The Partnership for 21st Century Skills places an important emphasis on fundamental social science subjects including history, geography, government and civics, and economics as well as a stress on other important subjects such as English,...

Scaffolding social studies for global awareness.(Social Studies Disciplines)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... Today's students are entering a world increasingly characterized by economic, political, cultural, environmental, and technological interconnectedness. (1) More and more, their lives will be shaped by the dynamics of a global economy,...

Explore the past to understand the present and shape the future.(Social Studies Disciplines)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... In Robert Heilbroner's prophetic book, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect, published in 1974, he examined three threats to the survival of humanity that he believed world leaders would have to address in order to avert disaster--nuclear...

A voice from the Congo.(Social Studies Disciplines)
November 1, 2008... As Susan Graseck pointed out in the last article, increased knowledge and understanding of the outside world are essential for twenty-first century students. Teachers can benefit from the fact that the United States is a haven for prominent and...

Democratic education to reduce the divide.(Democracy Education)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... We should laud the Partnership for 21st Century Skills for highlighting civic literacy. Today, we have a much more robust understanding of what constitutes high-quality democratic education than we have ever had in the past, and this framework...

Teaching the Constitution to twenty-first century students.(Social Studies Disciplines)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... Civic education in public schools faces major challenges. Under No Child Left Behind, many schools have favored teaching math and English rather than civics, which undermines one of the purposes of public schools-to educate students to be...

Citizenship must not be the last of the three "C's".(Point of View)(citizenship, college, and career)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... NCSS is nearly 90 years old, and in all of these years, it has been the goal of the organization and its members to prepare students to be effective citizens. There has not always been universal agreement on specifics, but few would dispute...

Teaching and learning about skills for the 21st century using the Internet.(Surfing the Net)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... Those of you that have read previous columns have heard me say, after discussing a curriculum topic or issue and the relevant websites and other Internet resources, that "I wish I was a classroom teacher again! I would love teaching using these...

Technology: an integral part of students' learning and lives.(Making the most of Technology)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... Fourth graders Darrell and Sonya use a laptop to access their school online account. They download the digitized videos that they and their classmates recorded the previous week of school buses unloading students at school. The existing traffic...

21st Century learning: law-related education in South Tucson.(Making the most of Technology)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... The Partnership for 21st Century Skills describes an ideal 21st century education this way: it teaches skills through both core subjects and interdisciplinary themes; it uses innovative, inquiry-based learning methods that are supported by...

Critical thinking in a world of accelerating change and complexity.(Teaching Thinking Skills)
November 1, 2008... We live closely intertwined with our fellow humans in a world in which we must learn to think critically about important social issues. As we move into the future, the issues before us will become more and more complex, making increased demands...

Asking the right questions: developing thinking skills through Wisconsin's Grade Level Foundations.(Teaching Thinking Skills)(Essay)
November 1, 2008... The 21st century is here. How are we preparing our children? We began to address this issue in Wisconsin by bringing together 30 social studies teachers from across the state, across grade levels and across disciplines to answer the questions,...