Giving elementary teachers tools to think about and plan their teaching- better.

Today, I interview Dr. Fran Spielhagen about our collaborative book, "Catalysts for Change: Baby Boomers Reflect on Their Legacy to Public Education." Our book explores the mindset of the baby boomer generation and their commitment to giving back through education. We discuss how the assassination of President John F. Kennedy influenced the Boomer generation's desire to make a difference. We also touch on the current challenges in education and the hope that our book will contribute to the dialogue on transforming public education.

Today, I’m going to share some insights I believe all elementary teachers should consider before assigning a common back-to-school writing assignment.

Welcome to Season 2 and Episode 37 where today we are going to talk about what’s new for Season 2 and where we’ve been for the past few months.

Today, I will discuss each of the 4 Dimensions from the C3 Framework for social studies published by the NCSS. These Dimensions will help you plan for and create deeper, more connected learning experiences in social studies for your students. And I’ll include some additional tips and questions to help you get started.

Today, we are going to discuss the National College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards more in depth so that if you need them, these standards are useful during your social studies unit planning. The C3 Standards will also help justify taking the time every day (or almost every day) to teach social studies. Because our kids deserve it and schools nationally aren’t doing enough teaching of social studies.

Today, we are going to discuss the teacher’s role in the social studies curriculum taught in schools. All to talk around our basic question: What is social studies? See, now you understand how much deeper that simple question really is. And in this whole process of discussing social studies, you, teacher friend, matter a great deal.

You may already know the answer, or an answer to this question- Who controls the social studies curriculum? because it’s printed in the textbook you were handed to teach from or on the outside of the curriculum box sitting on your shelf as you’re listening to this podcast. But I firmly believe it’s important to go beyond the printed obvious and dig a bit deeper. Because who knows, maybe we are headed for a radical change in this sector of education in the near future (my humble prediction) and having this information will help anyone involved in education to make the best choices we can about what we teach our students, why we are teaching that topic, and what materials will best serve that purpose.

I think the term “curriculum” is important to understand because it dictates how social studies is debated, taught, and ultimately learned in our classrooms..

Social studies is an active, breathing, changing discipline.