Month: April 2019

From this class period about teaching hard topics, I learned about the different levels of teaching hard topics and what decisions teachers have to make. Level one begins with the decision of telling students the truth or dancing around the truth, also depending upon the grade level. For example, what we talked about in class about the First Thanksgiving and the Native Americans and the Pilgrims. Starting in Kindergarten, should the teacher tell the truth right off the bat or let future teachers do that? I think even starting in Kindergarten the teacher should start to say how the Pilgrims did not “treat the Native Americans with respect.” I think the next level of teaching hard topics refers to whether the teacher will allow discourse and discussion in their class. I think a contained and respectful discussion of certain hard topics should be encouraged. But how does a teacher facilitate this? And what does the teacher do if it gets out of hand? Another important consideration that teachers need to make note of is the student’s upbringing and their parents. Like what was reiterated in class, it is important to send a note home with the students ANY time that there may be something controversial discussed. It is better to involve parents beforehand than face criticism and frustration after the fact. There are many different steps to take into consideration when teaching hard topics, which was brought to my attention during class this week.

Todays class allowed me to realize some of the tough aspects to teaching social studies. When teaching history and analyzing events that happened decades ago, like the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, it’s hard to comprehend how similar acts like the burning of churches in Louisiana are happening today. My history teachers would always say to me and their other students that the reason why we are learning about these things that are in the past is so that we can see how our nation and world has formed and even learn from the nation’s past mistakes. But when I am a teacher, how can I tell my students that things that happened so long ago in the 1960s are still happening today in 2019? How will I be able to teach my students that history is studied so we can learn from our mistakes when the same mistakes are still being made around 60 years later – that is more than half a century! How are these events still happening?! It disheartens me that I will have to be the one who has to relay these revelations to my students. But, that also ties into next classes’ lesson on how to teach tough content to students, so maybe I will be able to gain some insight from that. But for right now, leaving class today, I was feeling curious and interested from the different techniques we learned about questioning but also feeling very frustrated and defeated.

I really enjoyed the jigsaw activity. It allows students to learn a variety of information through other mediums than PowerPoint. Students are given the opportunity to master the primary source they are given and then relay and teach the information back to their group. Along the lines of what Dr. Stohr said about her son and his hatred during social studies, that was exactly me in middle and high school. I do not remember any fun activity we did in class. I only remember PowerPoints including dates, names, and places. I think it is important to point out that activities like the jigsaw activity or even read aloud picture books should be utilized in middle school and even high school. High school students would be able to glean ample amounts of information from these activities that go beyond reading their textbook and regurgitating that information on a monthly test. I am excited to use activities like the jigsaw in my future classrooms to turn around the stigma of education being boring and not worth students’ time. My question is how often should you implement the jigsaw activity in your classroom? I understand that it takes ample time to organize so is it something you do once each unit?