Social

Science Teaching Rationale

Sean Johnston | Professor Paul Zanazanian | EDTL 633 - 001

My undergrad studies were equally centered in English and History to my

mind, they are two approaches to understanding the same whole. Though I hope to
eventually teach in both subjects, I primarily identify as a Social Studies teacher
because I believe it offers a wider breadth of approaches and a more direct form of
analysis. I have never waited to be compelled or coerced towards addressing the
issues and subjects to which I hope to become an educator: as the fine arts and
humanities constitute the overwhelming bulk of my interests, they are an outgrowth
of how I choose to spend my time and focus; they are a reflection of, and central to,
my identity and self-conception. This is what I do, and would do regardless of
whether I was granted the privilege of teaching. If I can gain the means to convey
the richness and absorbing dynamics of these subjects the friction and
contentiousness, the ambiguities, the indeterminacies (if not the determinacies), the
contingencies, the complexities of power, the nuances of human existence and
expression, and so on then I believe I have one of the most important building
blocks to develop into an effective educator.

Yet, these hobbies and interests do not exist in a bubble only for the purposes

of indulging in brain tickling exercises. The consequence of these curiosities, and the
ongoing outcome of this process, has been the development of a social
consciousness, and, as Max Van Manen correctly identifies: "a socially conscious
person" ought to engage in "social criticism of all forms of hegemony including the
authority of the knowledge and value orientations taught in school" (Case & Clark,
2008, p. 31).
Thus, while general mention of participatory democracy and the notion
that a foremost role of a Social Studies educator is to empower and prepare students
for civic engagement - is welcomed and to be encouraged, it is, as Case & Clark
(2008, p. 25) correctly identify, ultimately devoid of content and, therefore,
meaningless if no further inquiry or suggestion is made. Yet Brandes & Kelly (2001),
and educators and theorists generally within the tradition of Critical Pedagogy,
seem to be more than willing to inquire, and to suggest that:

Schools are not apart from the wider society; they are themselves sites of
struggle and social change. Both inside and outside schools, societal
inequalities (based on class, race, gender, or sexuality) place limits on the
actual practice of democracy (Brandes & Kelly, 2001, p. 438).

Therefore, I would argue that this institutional reality necessarily becomes
the primary obstacle for the proactive and socially conscious Social Studies teacher,
and calling attention to this reality becomes indivisible from ones praxis in the
classroom. Yet, what is stated in writing is by no means easy to situate in the
material. Social Studies teachers who are concerned with these concerns and values
face an extraordinary uphill struggle, one that certainly requires a conscious
theoretical pedagogical approach. As noted education theorist Henry Giroux has
pointed out:
Most of our students are very comfortable with defining themselves as
technicians and clerks. For them to be all of a sudden exposed to a line of
critical thinking that both calls their own experience into question and at the
same time raises fundamental questions about what teaching should be and
what social purposes it might serve is very hard for them (Giroux, 1992, p.
16).

My limited time in the classroom has already sadly confirmed this reality. A world
suffused with ideology - ideology that is seldom identified or recognized as such -
has historically had a profound accumulative societal cost, and always threatens
further entrenchment or pernicious mutation. This poses very real risks to the
necessary, deepest conceptions of democracy. Undoubtedly, the educational-
institutional frameworks, disparities in the goals and funding of private and public
education, hidden curricula, as well as standardized testing share no small part in
the blame for this. However, the individual Social Studies educator has, within him
or herself, extraordinary agency to play a vital role in challenging presumptions and
developing students sense of personal and intellectual autonomy:
[I]f participatory democracy is to become a reality, it will need an educational
foundationit will mean "a change in people's consciousness (or
unconsciousness) from seeing themselves and acting as essentially
consumers, to seeing themselves and acting as exerters and enjoyers of the
exertion and development of their capacities" (Osborne, 2008, p. 4).

This prior quotation, I believe, is key. Though social reform and intellectual
development are placed on separate axis within the Citizenship Education Matrix
(Clark & Case, 2008, p. 28) and thus, by their orientation, does not preclude a
teacher from combining both, I would argue instead that social reform is unlikely to
occur without intellectual development. This speaks, perhaps in part, to my
underlying frustration with some of the literature I have read in the tradition of
Critical Pedagogy: it sometimes presumes we can simply discard or ignore the
official history and direct our focus and attention instead on narratives of
marginalization, oppression and exploitation. Students are presumed to develop
autonomously, directed by their whims and limited experience, without even first
having a sense of whats out there, without being exposed to concepts, subjects and
topics. Yet, I am reminded of critical theorist Herbert Marcuses insistence that you
cannot criticize or transcend the canon without first knowing it (Novak, 2013, p.
107). Jacques Derrida, the key figure in deconstruction and often blindly assumed to
neatly align with postmodern traditions that foreground the tearing apart of the old,
himself stated: I dont start with disorder; I start with the tradition. If youre not
trained in the tradition, then deconstruction means nothing (Gale, 1996, p. 156).
We teach the tradition not because it is correct or that it contains a superior wisdom
that is unobtainable otherwise, but rather precisely because it is often wrong: that it
contains distortions, inaccuracies, oppressive assumptions, and cultivated
ignorance. My primary desires as a Social Studies educator are to provide the official
narrative(s), profound critiques of it, offer alternative, historically verifiable
narratives and have students develop an expansive sense of the world and of
possibility; but my deepest desire is for students to develop the necessary skillset to
be able to navigate the world themselves as truly autonomous individuals who have
the capacity to discover the satisfactions of true critical thinking.


References


Brandes, G. M., & Kelly, D. M. (2001). Shifting Out of Neutral: Beginning Teachers

Struggles with Teaching for Social Justice. Canadian Journal of Education 26,

4: 437-454.

Case, P., & Clark, R. (2008). Four Defining Purposes of Citizenship Education. The

Anthology of Social Studies: Volume 2, Issues and Strategies for Secondary

Teachers. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press, 25-31.

Gale, X. L. (1996). Teachers, Discourses, and Authority in the Postmodern Composition

Classroom. New York, NY: State University of New York Press.

Giroux, H. A. (1992). The Hope of Radical Education: A Conversation with Henry

Giroux. Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education. New

York, NY: Routledge. 9-18.

Novak, M. (2013). Writing from Left to Right. New York, NY: Image.

Osborne, K. (2008). The Teaching of History and Democratic Citizenship. The

Anthology of Social Studies: Volume 2, Issues and Strategies for Secondary

Teachers. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press, 3-14.