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You want a platform plank? I have a good one for you to consider (Original Post) Stinky The Clown Jun 2016 OP
The reality: LWolf Jun 2016 #1
Submit platform LiberalFighter Jun 2016 #2
When I taught Social Studies, we studied the American Revolution and the events leading up to it. Hoppy Jun 2016 #3
Exactly the problem and the goal felix_numinous Jun 2016 #4

LWolf

(46,179 posts)
1. The reality:
Sat Jun 4, 2016, 10:45 AM
Jun 2016

I agree with your plank.

Since high-stakes testing has taken over public education through the privatization-based education deform movement, here are some exact quotes from my last two principals:

Principal 1: "You're spending too much time teaching Social Studies. It's not tested. You need to stop teaching Social Studies and focus on teaching to the state tests." (This was the man in charge of my annual evaluation.)

Me: "Then what do I do with the Social Studies section of the report card?"

Principal 1: "Do a few things now and then; leave some SS lessons with the sub when the district pulls you out for committee meetings and trainings."

Principal 2: "Do our middle school students really need Social Studies? Don't they get that in high school?" (This in response to me complaining that the new schedule cut out the time I'd spent on Social Studies for my students."

Yes. We need extensive teaching of ethics, civics, government, and history in all publicly funded schools. Many of us see the need, and have fought a losing battle to keep these subjects a priority as the deform movement has effectively reduced us to testing factories.

 

Hoppy

(3,595 posts)
3. When I taught Social Studies, we studied the American Revolution and the events leading up to it.
Sat Jun 4, 2016, 11:09 AM
Jun 2016

---Quartering Act
---Lexington and Concord as an attempt to confiscate colonial arms.
---John Peter Zenger

and so forth.

Then we connected those and other events to the complaints in the Declaration of Independence and protections in the Bill of Rights.

This was in New Jersey.

Now, the N.J. Department of Ed. has all but gutted studies of U.S. history before the Civil War.


And forget about teaching critical thinking. That would result in the end of the Republican Party as it now stands.

felix_numinous

(5,198 posts)
4. Exactly the problem and the goal
Sat Jun 4, 2016, 03:12 PM
Jun 2016

when people don't understand democracy they won't recognize when it is threatened or lost, or know what programs were ever put into place to preserve our rights. This has been going on since before Reagan.

This is why both parties have totally collapsed, there are too many who simply do not understand or respect what they are fighting for, and just as well can be supporting tyranny because they cannot discern the difference.

Civics and social studies should remain a permanent requirement for high school graduation.

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