April Aira C.

Comia

BEED 2-A

Teaching Social Studies in Elementary Classroom

Typically, students take general Social Studies in elementary school and move to more specific
areas of study in middle school. Social Studies defined as the integrated study of social sciences and
humanities to promote civic competence. Teaching Social Studies is not that easy because one of the
longtime goals of teaching Social Studies is to produce young people capable of participating in the
democratic process. Yet, Social Studies lessons have been pushed far back on the list of academic
priorities, especially in early grades. It always described as a very boring subject and students will
become not interested at listening about history, geography, government, etc.

Children needs to explore the variety and complexity of human experience through a dynamic
and meaningful education. Thus, teaching and learning in elementary classroom should be meaningful,
integrative, value-based, challenging and active. It should be more than collection of enjoyable
experiences. Children are also curious about the world around them and love to discover why things are
the way they are. We to base our social studies instruction on current events and student interests as
much as possible. Many teachers have more freedom to teach what and how we want in social studies
than in any other subject. In that way, students will surely engage themselves because of so much
curiosity.

All in all, teaching social studies is not that difficult nor that easy. Teachers have state
standards that students need to master, but they don’t have to use the (boring) textbook provided. In
fact, kids don’t even keep the texts in their desks because we only reference them a few times a year.
Students will think or write independently about how they would have responded to a historical
dilemma. Social studies helps to enable students to understand, participate in, and make informed
decisions about their world which is the purpose of this subject.