1.The standards are too broad in nature making them too difficult for teachers to understand and present in age appropriate ways.
2.The standards stress low-level thinking and memorizing of trivia or facts that are not meaningful to children, youth, or adult life and fail to promote in- depth examination or learning.
3.There are too many standards to complete in a year’s time.
4.The standards are static and/ or archaic and do not allow for local needs, current events, or unique occasions to be examined.
5.The standards are too dictatorial and undermine opportunities for students’ and teachers’ decisions to be incorporated into the curriculum.
6.The standards are too open and encourage teachers to make too many of their own decisions, so there is no continuity in the social studies curriculum from year to year.
1. Write a response in regard to the six concerns listed above, giving examples from your state’s standards indicating whether the concern is or is not justified.
Grade 3:
1. I think that the NYS standards are very complex. There are different levels for each standard and I feel they get very confusing. I do not think they are too difficult to figure out an age for them because the standards go by grade level.
NYS Grade Three Standards
NY.1. Strand / Standard: History of the United States and New York Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in the history of the United States and New York. <---- This is the main strand of the standard. This is what the teacher will be focusing on for her lesson.
1.1. Strand / Performance Indicator: The study of New York State and United States history requires an analysis of the development of American culture, its diversity and multicultural context, and the ways people are unified by many values, practices, and traditions. <----This is what the students will be studying in depth. It is a piece of the top strand.
1.1.1. Performance Indicator: Students know the roots of American culture, its development from many different traditions, and the ways many people from a variety of groups and backgrounds played a role in creating it. <----This is an even deeper level of the standard. This piece is one section from the strand that is listed directly above.
To me having all those levels for standards make choosing very difficult. There are so many options that it seems very time consuming to read through every single strand to get the right one for the lesson.
2. I feel that the standard speaks for itself. I think it is up to the teacher to promote in-depth life learning. The standards are only there to support your lesson but it is up to the teacher to make the lesson real.
3. I think there are way to many standards to complete in a years time. I feel this way because of all the different levels one strand has. There are five main strands many performance indicators and sub performance indicators.
4. I feel like the standards are not archaic because it is social studies. History does not change because it is the past. If anything new standards can be added (even though I feel there are a lot already) for the new current events that happen.
5. I feel like the standards are very straight forward. Look at comment 2 for response.
6. I feel like there is continuity from year to year because each school year connects on each other. Every time you move up a grade all the history you learned in past years link to the new year of social studies. I feel like the standards explain their purpose well enough.
2. Conclude your comments by describing a social studies idea, value, or skill that you might teach at this grade level to address one or more of your state’s standards in a positive and meaningful way with students. Many states include twenty- first-century technology standards and reading / literacy standards as a part of the standards for each of the school subjects.
Students need to learn values that last a lifetime. I would teach third graders Civics because I feel that is the basis of social studies. I would teach it in a way for the students to be interactive and stay interested.
3. Do you find evidence in the state’s standards at this grade level that indicates a teacher is to relate technology or literacy specifically to the content and the special skills used in the teaching of social studies? If so, give examples of such evidence.
No I do not see standards that integrate technology or literacy.
4. Do you conclude that the emphasis on learning skills in your state’s standards is or is not focused on mastering social studies with its essential and unique skills and values?
I do not think the standards focus on mastering social studies because there are too many standards to keep track off. I have an example of the state standards listed in the above questions. The standards have so many levels but they all seem similar hence the reason I feel that the standards too confusing.
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