Social Studies Coordinator - the Maytag Repairman of the School District

Someone finally came out and said it. It was a school district coordinator, so I guess it counts for more. I was at a training and he said, "There's not enough time in your school day to teach the entire core. So social studies is pretty much relegated to whatever a teacher can get around to." The legislature in Utah along with the federal government has mandated this and mandated that to the point where teachers have little say in how their day is organized. Reading - important. Math - really important. Science - sort of important. Social studies - way down there. (Don't ask about the arts.) This is a sad state of affairs as we are supposed to be raising the next generation of citizens. With the push to pass reading and math tests no teacher has the time luxury to present social studies (or any other topic, for that matter) in any depth. Sure, we try to integrate history and civics into our reading lessons. But we no longer have a learning environment in which children can explore the richness of American culture, or the importance of its history. We say the pledge (mandated), but we can't take time to explain what it means. We post a sign in our hallway saying, "In God we trust," (mandated) while not trusting teachers to do their jobs. We'll celebrate Lincoln's Bicentennial (mandated), but without the requisite understanding of why his life and death were important. It's kind of social studies fast food. Spit out the salient points and dump the rest.

It may sound like I'm disheartened by what the man told us today. I'm not. It was the first time someone spoke the truth about this issue. Doing so put this district specialist on our side. He is willing to help find resources and help us carve out a little time to take back a subject that is incredibly important. No one should dumb down history.