When asked to define authentic intellectual work of social studies for my “Teaching Elementary Social Studies” class this semester, I first thought of the idea in a broad sense. The idea that students are learning some type of information and then thinking even deeper. I compared this way of thinking to either an “inch deep and a mile wide” or “a mile deep and an inch wide”. Authentic intellectual work would be digging a mile deep into a subject or topic to truly understand the meaning and significance behind it. This way of thinking promotes many ways of learning within the classroom. During our Social Studies class, we focused specifically on what authentic intellectual work within an elementary school classroom would look like. It is very similar to the broader definition but broken down into specific ideas.
In Social Studies, when students learn about different religions, they are also learning about the beliefs, cultures, and values that go along with them. In Mary Cowhey’s book, “Black Ants and Buddhists”, the students begin to crush a family of black ants in their classroom until Som Jet asks them to stop because, “they are living things” (3, Cowhey). This moment starts an open class conversation about life and values of different religions that continues throughout the year. The crushed ants started a year long growth for the students. They began to learn about different religions, hear from parents and community members who walk with these beliefs. The students are learning a “mile deep” from an “inch” of a moment because they can connect the ideas in class about religion to their own lives outside of school. Another example of this authentic intellectual work is within Ms. Temple’s classroom when she talks about gender issues head on. She explains, “that broadening my students’ ideas of what was acceptable for boys and girls was an important first step” within her classroom. The first step was to engage students, she started by reading a book that could be traced to things the students were experiencing in their lives. Then she brought the discussion back around to gender roles within their classroom.
Social Studies can be done in a variety of ways. So what does it look like for social studies to be “done” in a multitude of ways? “Doing” social studies is being actively engaged in community, news, social justice, and every other piece that fits into puzzle that is social studies. Every day students are “doing” social studies, whether they are watching the news with parents or talking about the hurricanes in the Caribbean. In my life I “do” social studies every day, sometimes consciously sometimes unconsciously. Every morning, I read through my New York Times daily briefing and another news source called The Skimm. I get the gist of the important events and recently I have been focused on the weather more than usual. Having family in the Bahamas makes me hyper aware of the hurricanes and what the effects of the storms are. Truthfully, I tend to “do” social studies unconsciously throughout my day. I think most people interact with social studies on some level each day. In the “Black Ants and Buddhists” book I mentioned earlier, most of the piece is her class “doing” social studies throughout their day without even realizing. In my perspective people are interacting with social studies even after they graduate from primary grades. Every day people watch the news, talk about social justice issues, or what is happening within the their communities every day. For example, I volunteer with a student organization on campus called, Midnight Run. Every week we head out into our surrounding community and volunteer in many different ways. The organization offers reflection sessions where students are then able to reflect and talk about their experiences, Without realizing it, Midnight Run, has created a space for students where they are doing authentic intellectual work AND “doing” social studies all at once. This type of work happened at my field placement during my sophomore year of college.
The students I worked with were engaged with a community project within their school. They were collecting food and clothes for a drive they were doing as a school. There was a kick-off assembly and flyers passed out so everyone was fully involved with this activity. The students spent the next few weeks spreading news of their drive and collecting donations. When the drive came to a close they talked about what they collected and what types of things people donated; comparing things they had at home to what they were giving away and what was missing from their donations. The teacher encouraged students to research and discover how many people were considered below the poverty line within their community. This single activity spread over the course of a few weeks and kept students engaged with their community and actively “doing” social studies. Students and youth are always involved in social studies, whether it is Kid President telling us about how we should be treating others and running our country or students completing a food drive for their school.
As a teacher, however, it can be tricky to assess what students are learning from doing social studies in such a multifaceted way. There are ways to discover what students know without giving a written exam or paper. They create a project showing what they learned. For example, the class that participated in the food drive can give a presentation on what they learned about their community, the amount of food raised, and where everything is being donated too. If a class hasn’t done a large scale project such as that, students can complete other types of assessment. If you are only asking them to follow along with news sources. Then they can create a current events piece on what they have been learing.
You can asses they understanding of good news sources and how they report on what is going on around the world. For a deeper connection, students can connect pieces they write about to events happening within their hometown community. There are many ways to assess what students are learning from their social studies expierences. Social studies give students a wide range of topics and ideas to work with and explore within their lives outside and in school!
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