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As a student I actually really enjoyed learning social studies. Till this day I can still remember in elementary school learning about Hawaiian culture and history; I was always so excited to go to these lessons because it was refreshing to learn in a non-traditional classroom setting. We would go out into the common area of the building and we would sit on the ground for the entire lesson. We never had to write down any notes, instead we learned everything strictly by listening to what Kumu had to share. However as I grew older and began to progress into my academic journey, reading textbooks, watching films, and listening to lectures became the routine ways of my social studies lessons. It was during this portion of my schooling that I began to lose the interest I once had for the subject- I began to realize that all I had to do to succeed in these classes was to memorize the information that was being presented to me. Therefore my excitement for social studies was fading and I began to favor other subjects like science instead.

I think one of the issues I may face when teaching social studies is being able to cater to all of the cultures of my students. As a teacher one of my goals is to incorporate the cultures of all of my students into my social studies lessons. I also want to stray away from relying on textbooks, and lectures to teach my content and want to design my lessons to instead be more interactive and engaging for my students. I plan on using methods like station teaching, which is how one of my high school teachers taught social studies- I remember being able to learn more in a short amount of time, and the content being more hands on.

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EDEE 402 Personal Social Studies History

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EDEE 402 Personal Social Studies History

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Social Studies wasn’t taught to me in elementary until the sixth grade in middle school where I started learning in school about Social Studies. In elementary I remember only taking classes for math and reading. I self-taught myself on social studies through elementary because my parents gave me history books. Although, I mostly studied to myself on Greek Mythology such as the various gods/ goddesses on what the each represent. In middle school, I remember being taught on the first day on the seven continents. Usually in social studies from middle to high school, I was taught from the book but incorporated powerpoints and/or watching videos. There was also a time, while living in Oklahoma, about the history of Oklahoma or Oklahoma studies such as Indian tribes famous people and how their land was stolen.

I think the main issue I see is what important historical events should I teach to my students. History as everyone knows doesn’t change, but it is expanding everyday. Not only learning about the past historical events is essential for students to learn and understand, such as how everything came to be or how this person became a historical figure, but also the current events that are impacting our lives everyday. So I’ll can try to give as much information to my students.

Social Studies was my least favorite subject while taking it in middle and high school. I struggled with remembering people, events, and the dates for a test or a quiz. My goal for myself is to be charismatic and passionate for each of my students, so each one will be willingly to learn and enjoy rather than be bored of it.

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Personal Social Studies History - Erna Rasay

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Personal Social Studies History - Erna Rasay

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I don't remember studying social studies back in Elementary nor Middle School until I freshmen and sophomore year where I learned about WWII, Anne Frank, the Nazi's, Hitler, and the government system. Those are the only topic I remembered and I just have a basic idea of what its actually about.

To me social studies was never interesting but my freshmen would sometimes teach it using videos and those were the only times I would pay attention. And my sophomore teacher taught from textbook and would discuss it. It wasn't boring because he used variety of methods such as bubble map, group discussion, and taking notes by ourselves from the textbook. And there was a time when I took HIST 151 at Leeward, where the Professor asked us to make a video about a certain topic. I thought that was a good idea because it keeps the students engage and be able to recall and demonstrate what they have learned.

I think one issue that I may face teaching social studies is by poorly delivering the topic/lesson resulting in the students not learning because despite the knowledge. I want to be able to deliver the topic using various methods to get the students interested.

My goal as a social studies teacher is to try and make the lessons fun and interactive where they actually get to do something with the information rather than just reading about it.

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When I think about social studies my initial reaction is “ugh!” I honestly hated social studies in school because to me it was boring. I think that this was because majority of my social studies teachers solely taught from the textbook. I cannot recall much from what I have learned from social studies besides the basics of how government works, some geography, and certain presidents. The main things that I remember from social studies were all of the fun, hands-on activities such as a mock assembly line, and mock barter activity. I also remember taking a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance in 8th grade where we learned about the Holocaust. All of these events came from the same teacher and I appreciate the time and effort she put in to making social studies fun!
I think one issue I may face while teaching social studies is trying to keep it interesting and refraining from just teaching from the book. I remember most of my social studies classes being book assignments were we defined key terms and answered the questions that were at the end of the chapter. I don't think any of that information stuck with me because I was reading to find answers and not dealing to learn/understand.
My specific goal for myself as a social studies teacher will be to keep social studies fun and engaging.

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In elementary school, I was taught social studies by the book. I remember in third grade while we were learning about the presidents, I did my research paper on John F. Kennedy. This was the first proper, informational paper I have ever written, it had a title page, headers, and page numbers just as if I were writing a paper for college. Another scene of social studies that I recall is fifth and sixth grade. Between these two grades, the two teachers would switch classes where the fifth grade teacher would teach social studies to sixth graders and the sixth grade teacher would teach science to fifth graders. It was pretty cool how they thought of switching classes because it was clear that the fifth grade teacher enjoyed teaching social studies while the sixth grade teacher enjoyed science. Social studies was not subject for me throughout my years in school because there were too many dates, people, and details to remember about a certain part of history.  I know for a fact that all throughout elementary school, social studies was taught through a book.

One issue I think that I may face teaching social studies are what topics to talk about and how to actually make that relatable to the students that I currently have. For instance, when I was in elementary school I wish that the teachers would make social studies a little more enthusiastic. I would have love to have done skits and creative projects rather than more of writing papers. I understand that writing papers will show the teacher that you do know the structure of how to write an essay, but there are certain topics/subjects that should be taught through more hands on and creative work.

One specific goal that I will set for myself when it comes to teaching social studies is that I will incorporate a little bit of culture, neighborhood, anthropology, and more of what the students can relate too. I feel that when students are able to relate a topic/subject to themselves, it is easier for them to grasp a concept. I am currently at Royal Elementary School for my placement and the fourth graders are learning Hawaiian History, which is a pretty manageable social studies standard because I do have prior knowledge about Hawaiian History. If there are questions that the students are stuck on, I try to reword the questions or come up with new sentences for them that relate to their lives here on the islands. For example, when talking about volcanoes, we could look at Kīlauea and how that volcano works and how it is affecting the people who live there.

I understand now that social studies can be integrated into pretty much every subject and every subject can be integrated into social studies. I look forward to making a social studies lesson plan!

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A Comparison of 4th Grade Social Studies in 1999 and 2018 - Justine Mercado

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A Comparison of 4th Grade Social Studies in 1999 and 2018 - Justine Mercado

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During my first field placement, the students were learning about the land division during pre-contact Hawaii. It began to jog my memory when they were talking about the different animals, plants, and roles and responsibilities of each person in each division. To my surprise, my mentor teacher asked the students to bring in cardboard beverage trays so that they can make their own ‘ahupua’a system. I thought to myself, “wow, nothing changed since I’ve been in fourth-grade.” I made my way to all the nearby convenience stores on my day off and asked the workers if they could spare their trays. There were 27 students and each student needed two trays for this project. I managed to collect enough for the entire class and notified my mentor teacher that I will be at the school shortly.

When I came in for my next session, the teacher had the class start gathering their things so they can start on their project. She told me that I had a choice to go with the group that is making their ‘ahupu’a in the creative room or I can go with her and the other group making theirs in the computer lab. Being short on time, she couldn’t explain how they were using the computer lab for this project so I went to the creative room with the first group. The kids were working in groups of three and each person was responsible for their land division. It gave me flashbacks of doing my project on my dining room table. I thought, “I wish our teacher let us do our projects in groups. It would’ve saved me all the tears from procrastinating.” I spent half the class time painting and molding clay when I decided to pay the computer lab a visit. My head tilted with a half-smile and confused look on my face when I walked in. It looked like a scene out of PC Gamerz, rows of kids playing games on the computer. My mentor teacher looked up and was saying how nice of me to join and she began to try explain to me how they were trying to incorporate differentiated learning into this project. Suddenly, “SOMEONE DIDN’T REINFORCE THEIR PEN! THEIR PUA’A GOT LOOSE!” And then from across the room, “SORRY! I FORGOT TO BUILD THE OTHER FENCE!” I began laughing out of confusion so my mentor teacher explained they are using Minecraft to build their ‘ahupua’a together. I walked around the room seeing where I can offer my assistance, but I had no idea what was going on. The students were trying to explain to me, but I couldn’t get passed how funny and genius this all was.

The content being taught in social studies didn’t change, after all, history doesn’t change. What changed is their accommodations and modifications to exemplify their understanding and meet the needs and interests of all students. What I foresee being a challenge for myself is keeping up with what children are interested in and somehow incorporate them into lessons. Kids are tech savvy these days and despite how against I am towards them being glued to the screen all day, it seems to work in their favor. I’m not going to rely on computers to ensure they are learning, but my goal is to constantly be aware of what the current trends with kids are. If they like doing those weird dances seen on Fortnite, sure, I can try do something with kinesthetic pedagogy in English or math. If breaking things to demonstrate gravity will catch their attention, why not? Let’s throw different things off the 2nd floor.

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When I hear the term social studies, I automatically think back to elementary school and middle school where the literal term “social studies” was used more often than “history” like in high school. As I became more educated, I realized social studies can be related to multiple fields and not just history. With in mind that it has been many years since I was in elementary, it is difficult to recall exactly what I learned in social studies. However, the social studies lessons I remember well are ones that involved a big project, field trip or interesting film. For example, the Lewis & Clark expedition I remember watching a film about it and I was fascinated about Sacagawea being a key asset to the expedition. I also remember learning about branches of the government and law because we went on a field trip to the state capitol and role play in a courtroom.

In my experiences, social studies was not the most exciting subject to learn. I think an issue I may face when teaching social studies is making it exciting and engaging enough that my students will remember it even years later, unlike me. When I was learning social studies, most of the time we referred to the textbook, which was not fun at all. Not to mention, textbooks only tell half of what really happened. I think in times where I may teach social studies dealing with conflicts, it might be hard trying to teach it unbiasedly. I also feel like social studies is such a broad subject, there multiple ways for approaching content areas and such little time.

My main goal as a social studies teacher is to make it fun. I want to be able to provide my students with exciting hands on activities rather than just reading a textbook and answering questions. If the social studies lesson I best recall from elementary were the fun ones, I want to make every lesson fun and memorable for my students.

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The most memorable lesson/project that i’ve done was in Middle school. We were learning about the Oregon Trail. Now, I don’t remember much about what we learned exactly, but I do recall going on a walk with my whole class down to McDonalds from Mililani Middle School. It was the final project that we as a class had to do together in order to pass. The only key things I remember from this was that we all had to hold onto a rope and we all had to decide on which path we were going to take. I think this stuck with me because it was kind of like a field trip, but instead of taking a bus we walked, and instead of going somewhere educational we went to McDonalds. I’m guessing McDonalds represented a destination on the Oregon trail? Like I said, I don’t remember much of the content, but I do remember that because I basically got to leave school and walk to McDonalds with my friends. Other than that activity, everything for social studies is kind of a blur, which I hate, now that I’m thinking of it. I know that learning about our past and our history is important so that we don’t make the same mistakes, but I think because there is so much information, not many people have the capacity to remember all of it.

Social Studies was never a favorite subject of mine, but there were a lot of things that caught my interest. I fear that this may happen to my students when we go into our social studies block during the day. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to create fun and engaging activities to where they want to learn and they want to participate. A goal that I have for myself is to do at least one outdoor activity a week during my social studies block. If I used to find social studies boring, I know it’s highly possible that my students might find it boring as well, so change that, I will change our scenery and environment. Doing this may give students a chance to have some fun while learning and being in a new environment.

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Being that I haven't been in elementary school in a very long time, it’s kinda hard to think back to what I learned. After talking with a few people, I did get a little bit of my memory back. When I think of social studies, the first thing that comes to mind is US history. I remember learning about the states/capitals, slavery, presidents, colonies, explorers, Native American tribes, and all that fun stuff. Then I think back to around 4th grade where I learned a lot of Hawaiian history and culture. I’m not sure if this was a topic that was discussed a lot in public schools and other private schools but I attended Kamehameha Schools where the Hawaiian culture and Hawaiian language was discussed in depth. I learned some Hawaiian language, the monarchies, the islands, and a lot about how the ancient Hawaiians lived. I also learned a lot about genealogy. I remember having to recite my Mo’oku’auhau (which is my genealogy in Hawaiian) many times in elementary, middle, and even high school. Aside from reading books and handouts or listening to my teacher talk, I learned a lot of this stuff through music. Again, I’m not sure if all schools are like this, but at Kamehameha they really utilized music in teaching. We learned a song to teach us the states in alphabetical order (a song that I still remember to this day), a song to teach us the capticals, and a song to teach us the presidents. We also learned a lot of songs in Hawaiian to teach us very valuable life skills which I believe is something that we are taught in social studies at younger ages. One song I still remember is Alu Like. This song teaches about working together with righteousness to achieve goals. Not only this but we used songs to learn about the Hawaiian islands. Besides music, we used to learn things by doing plays to demonstrate the knowledge we have gathered over a course of time. We would research topics and eventually display it in a performance. In 4th grade, we did a small play to display Hawaiian history. I remember I played the part of Queen Emma. So I had to learn all about her before performing in the play. In 5th grade, we had a huge production where each class had a specific topic and would put on a play for the whole school. My class was responsible for Harriet Tubman and the whole conversation of slavery. These are the experiences that really implanted in my brain. This is why I think diversity in lessons is important in teaching social studies. I don’t remember much about things that I just learned from reading from a book. I remember much of the lessons where we incorporated many different things such as music and performing.

One issue that I might face while teaching social studies in my own classroom is that I might not be too familiar or comfortable with the curriculum. To be completely honest, there are so many things that I learned in social studies in elementary school, that I have completely forgot about. So it’s as if I will have to reteach myself everything before teaching it to my students. Obviously, not all things will pose a challenge for me. But social studies topics that are taught in upper elementary such as US history are really gonna challenge me because I honestly don’t remember a lot of it. Considering that I am currently placed in a 5th grade class for this block, I better get on it before my lesson plan!

One goal I have as a social studies teacher is to simply make time for this subject. I have spoken to a teacher who said that some teachers are so busy with language arts and math that they often forget about social studies and science until it’s time to teach, then they don’t have anything fun and different planned. When I become a teacher I hope to make time for social studies planning so that I can teach fun and creative lessons rather than just reading from a book.

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Thinking back now, Social Studies was never my favorite. It was never something that was made exciting for me in elementary school. There were only a few lessons that I can really remember that were actually fun and memorable! It was mostly taught in the text book which I think is very boring. We were always to read and listen to the teacher then take a test later. One lesson that I actually remember is when we learned about the explorers. I had Juan Ponce de Leon. He went searching for the fountain of youth and so I made a game board that showed his journey and taught about his life. Every student made something board games but with different people.I thought this was a great way for me and other students to understand the life and exploration of the people we researched in a fun way! This would be one of the few things I remember doing for Social Studies in all my years of elementary. Another lesson I recall is when we were learning about different cultures. I was doing mine on China and I did a cooking show on who to make Chinese wontons. I did a lot of research on how these were made and I learned a lot about the culture just by doing this. I brought food for the class to share as they watched the video on how I made them. This was another good example as to how Social Studies should be learned. I really don't remember much after these two projects I did, and I wish I could remember more.

I think one issue that I may have when teaching Social Studies is the fact that there is so much information to remember. Since I remember just learning from the textbook and having to write a lot, I want to be able to make it a little more exciting for my students. I want to be able to step away from the textbook and teach more with interactions. The standards would make it a little difficult for me to want to have memorable lessons because there are so much information that I need to cover. There is really nothing much we can do when the standards get in the way of us teaching the way we really want.

One goal that I have is to make sure that all my students are able to remember what I teach them. I think it is pretty bad that I don't remember that many lessons I learned. I want my students to be able to recall what I taught them and tell their kids when they learn about the same thing. I will really try to search for different ways to teach my students to make sure they get the full amount of information they need.

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Being a student learning social studies in Hawaiʻi, it was a unique experience that I feel like is different than that on the continent. I was in a Hawaiian Immersion program K-12. It is a program where everything is taught in the Hawaiian language, specifically the core subjects such as math, science, social studies, and language arts. The program also puts emphasis on Hawaiian Culture and includes teaching styles of such. I believe that I learned the most social studies from that, by reviewing history, issues, and significant events (old & current) for Hawaiians. But I do feel limited in the sense that we did not learn a lot of other cultures. I do recall during high school learning about other cultures and social studies from classes like history. My school did things like school wide cultural dishes where each class made food from a different culture outside of Polynesia. When sharing the food, students explained a little about the culture it comes from. I think social studies is a class not really focused on by high schools. Social studies was usually taught by one teacher in the general education setting, but Hawaiian Immersion Schools it is the focus and is usually focused on just the Hawaiian culture or indigenous cultures.

An issue I think I will have teaching social studies is focusing on one specific culture, because I know a lot about a certain culture I will probably lean more towards teaching it. I feel like my focus will probably be on Hawaiians and Native Americans, those two indigenous cultures are ones that I am most knowledgable about and share a lot of perspective in. It definitely also makes me part bias and may make it difficult to teach students who may have a different perspective on it.

A goal I have when I become a social studies teach is to include every culture of all my students in our lessons throughout the year. I feel like the best way to teach is use what students already know and can relate to, to learn new information. I also feel that learning about ones culture could help a person understand them more. I would like my class to feel like they understand and are understood by others. My hope is that this will make a great learning environment and will allow students to feel comfortable.

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If I’m being honest, there isn’t much about social studies that I remember when I was in elementary. The only thing that I really remember is that I did two big projects in third and fourth grade for social studies. In third grade, I remember doing a project that took many weeks to complete. My teacher had us pick a historical figure in US history that we either learned about or was on the agenda to learn about throughout the quarter. I picked Rosa Parks to do my project on. This was a part research-part speech project. Once we researched enough about our chosen figure, we were to write up a speech as if we were the historical figure ourselves. We had to record ourselves speaking prior to our presentation date. When we presented, we had to be dressed up as the chosen figure and sit still as if we were in a wax museum type of situation. As we sat still, we played our previously recorded speech that included a background and major contributions. At the time, I didn’t think much of this type of lesson; however, thinking back, I realize that this is the type of lesson and project that I’ll forever remember about social studies and history because it was structured in a way that made me personally connect with who I was learning about. When I was in fourth grade, the curriculum for social studies was based on Hawaiian studies. I remember doing another project that took weeks to complete and was split up into different parts. One part of the project was to research about Hawaii as a whole. All the research we found was to be creatively displayed in a scrapbook. The second part of the project was to research a specific city on Oahu. Surprisingly, no one chose to do Mililani, despite our school being located in that city; therefore, I did this part of the project on Mililani. We had to do a lot of background research on our chosen city and include our findings and personal pictures in the scrapbook. In addition to the scrapbook, we also had to give a verbal presentation about our research via powerpoint. While I don’t remember much about social studies other than those two projects, I do remember some specific history classes that I took in high school. Nothing about these classes stood out to me, but I remember that for almost every history class, lessons were taught either straight from the textbook or from a powerpoint slide. To me, this didn’t have the greatest impact on me because I would get too focused on taking notes that I wasn’t really listening to what the teacher was saying or it was so boring that I would zone out at times.

Although social studies is very complex because it includes different areas other than just history, it’s also very straightforward. For example, history and geography aren’t popular subjects by many because of how it’s all just a bunch of textbook facts. While I enjoy history, I can admit that learning about history has been a challenge because of how it was always presented in almost every grade. It’s hard to be excited about something if the teacher isn’t excited or presenting it in a different and exciting way. A challenge I may face this semester with teaching social studies in my field placement is creating the lessons. The class I’m in utilizes PBL for social studies. First, I’m not experienced with PBL at all. Second, my mentor teacher said that creating lessons can be difficult with PBL because a lot of their lessons are day to day, based on what the students collaborate and decide they want to learn more about. I’m hoping that by being in the class, I can become more aware and knowledgeable about the class dynamic and figure out a way to lessons. Another challenge I may face in the future is relying too much on the textbook to create lessons. I would hate to continue to make social studies plain and boring.

One goal I have as a future social studies teacher is to be able to make social studies rememberable. I don’t want my future students to look back and remember nothing about social studies like how many of us have. I want students to be able to connect to what their learning, like how I was with the two projects I mentioned in the beginning. I want to be able to take the standards given and present a lesson in a way that will excite and encourage the students to learn. I also would like to leave my students with the understanding that social studies is more than just one thing. Reflecting back for this assignment, the first thing I thought of about social studies was history. Being in my field placement and looking up current social studies standards in Hawaii, I’m reminded that there is more to social studies than just history. I’d hope to find a way to remind students the importance of social studies because of its wide variety of topics that it covers.

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I have a hard time recalling social studies lessons that I learned in elementary. I have a very few memories of social studies activities I've done. One of them that stuck to me most was learning about the Ahupua'a (Traditional land dividing system in Hawai'i). I remember learning about the ahupua'a in the fourth grade in Elementary. I recall my teacher showing us a picture of an ahupua'a and telling us about the different land divisions and roles in the ahupua'a. I remember having to make our own individual ahupua'a picture and I remember writing about it but I don't remember why. I feel like that's how my social studies experience was overall, I learned things but I don't recall why and why it related to me.

I think one issue I may face teaching social studies is understanding the curriculum and what kind of lessons to plan. I feel that what I thought was social studies and what students are learning now are completely different. I thought social studies did a lot with history. However, spending time in my student teaching classroom social studies is a bunch of things. Another issue I may face will be understanding the standards and how to really specify what target I want to teach students. Looking over some of the standards I noticed how broad they are. I think just breaking it down and choosing one specific topic to teach will be my best route and I can go from there.

One specific goal I want to achieve as a social studies teacher is having students take what I taught and really apply it to their life. I don't want them to have the same experience that I had which was learning and not understanding how or why it related to me. I think that students really learn when they are able to take what they learned and apply it to different aspects of their life. I don't want to teach them something and have them think "Okay, I can use this at school, that's all." I want them to be at home and think "Oh, I learned about this, I can use that at home because...."

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It is hard to recall things I have learned and how it was taught as a social studies student. However, I do remember a few things I learned because it was done kinesthetically, by memorization, and it fit with personal interests.  One of the activities for social studies I remembered doing in Kindergarten was creating a family tree. I believe we did this to show the past/history of our family. Our teacher had us bring pictures of our family to school and then we created our family trees and presented it. In the fourth grade, I remember our whole social studies curriculum was centered on Hawaiian studies. I really enjoyed this subject because it was interesting to learn about the place I live in and the people who were here before me. I remember learning from the book, “From the Mountains to the Sea” and “The Hawaiians of Old.” We also had those colorful books about the different Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses of Hawaii. One of the hands-on learning that we did was learning about Kalo and how to plant it and take care of it. We actually had a garden on the middle school side where we were able to create our own taro patch and we took care of it throughout the whole year. We also learned about Kukui nuts and the many uses of it. We were able to see how the Kukui nut oil could be used to start a fire and we learned how it was used for medicine. Lastly, we learned how to make the Kukui nut into a spin-topper. The last thing I remember learning about social studies was in the fifth grade. During the first few weeks of school, we had to memorize the preamble. As we were memorizing the preamble, we learned about the history of the preamble and why it was important. This then lead into learning about the constitution. I do not remember much about the constitution, but I do remember learning about the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments). I remember this because my teacher kept explicitly telling us that there would be a test on it in a few weeks and one way I learned it was by being familiar with the amendments and memorizing them. The last thing I remember learning about was Ronald Reagan. One of our big projects was to select a United States President and write a report on your selected President. This report had to include who he was before presidency, what his life was like during and after presidency, and what important things he did for the United States. After writing the report, we had to create a poster board about our President and then present it to the class. I enjoyed this project because I loved that I was able to do research on the computer and with books about Ronald Reagan. I also liked that we got to make a poster because I loved doing arts and craft projects.

One issue I may face while teaching social studies is being unfamiliar with the curriculum and standards. I had trouble finding the Social Studies Standards for Hawaii and after finding it I felt unfamiliar with it because I could not remember much about the standards when I was in elementary. But I do remember the activities and lessons that happened when I was in elementary and I think I could guess which standard went with it. This is an issue that I would like to resolve because there are different standards for each grade level. Since I will not know what grade level I will have until a job is offered, I should try to fix this issue beforehand. Another issue I may face teaching social studies is creating lessons. Since I am unfamiliar with the Social Studies Standards, I feel that I have to really know and understand these standards before creating lessons and activities. Also, since the Social Studies curriculum is not like the Reading or Math curriculum, where it is Common Core, I will need to create my own curriculum that will align with the standards.

One goal I want to achieve as a future social studies teacher is to collaborate with my mentor teacher and learn from her about how she teaches Social Studies in a Kindergarten class. I think it is important that I collaborate with my mentor teacher because there are things that I can definitely learn from her. Also, teaching Kindergarten is new to, so I am excited to learn from her. Another goal that I want to achieve is to be familiar with the Social Studies Standards for Hawaii from Kindergarten to sixth grade. Like I said in the previous paragraph, I will not know what grade I will teach until I am offered a job and because of that I want to be ready when that job offer comes. The last goal that I have is to find different ways to teach social studies. I learned it in many ways, whether it was from a book, researching or doing something hands-on, and I would like to do the same in my classroom.

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The earliest memory that I have with learning social studies would probably have to be in kindergarten or first grade. Each grade level was assigned their own kumu (Hawaiian teacher) that would come to visit from time to time. Each kumu would tell stories about the ancient Hawaiians. Some of the things that I remember were stories about the goddess Pele and how Maui brought up the Hawaiian Islands with his hook. Some of the content was also taught using a hands-on approach. We learned various hula dances as well as do arts and crafts that related to the Hawaiian culture. A few crafts that I remember doing were learning how to make rope from coconut fibers, making a bracelet from lauhala leaves, and making flower lei’s with colored paper. This was one of the many things that I looked forward to while in elementary school because it was pure fun. Little did I know, I was being taught history without even knowing it.

As I progressed with my schooling through middle school and high school, I took courses such as world history, U.S. history, Hawaiian history, and economics. I began to see less hands-on activities during class as majority of the lessons would come straight from the teacher lecturing all period or us reading pages from our assigned textbooks. During this part of my life as a student, all the history/social studies classes are a blur. I remember being so frustrated with the content, not only because it was being taught straight from a text book, but there was too many things for me to remember like specific time periods, people, places, etc. I just couldn’t grasp the information and I became less interested in the subject. With that being said, this is probably one of the biggest issues that I will encounter when teaching social studies. As an educator, I would need to figure out how to make lessons more fun and interactive while trying not relying on the text book so much.

Referring back to the challenge of teaching social studies that I just previously mentioned, this is a particular goal that I would like to learn and accomplish for myself as a social studies teacher. My goal is to show my students that the content of social studies extends far beyond simply memorizing a large quantity of names, dates, and numbers. As of now, I probably would want to teach my students in the same, if not similar, fashion that I was taught before I began to lose interest in social studies.

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Social studies in elementary school was a very broad subject. I remember having social studies maybe two or three times a week. But, sometimes the things that we learned during social studies could be categorized under a different subject, like geography or history, sometimes even art. If I’m being completely honest, I don’t really remember what I learned in social studies from kindergarten to second grade. What I do remember is having a heavy, red hard cover social studies book in third grade. From what I can remember, the content in the book described different people in history, different countries, different cultures, and even included economic information on various countries from around the world. I don’t really recall any specific social studies lessons that have stuck with me. I do remember trying to compete in National Geographic from third to fifth grade. To prepare for this, our teachers would encourage us to take our social studies book home and read it to soak everything in. They would also bring us to the library and we’d read the fancy encyclopedias stacked up on the bookshelf. It wasn’t until sixth grade that I really remember having social studies consistently throughout the week. For my sixth grade teacher, art was his thing. He integrated his passion for art into all of our subjects. During social studies, he’d use that time to focus on art, and artists from around the world. We would have a daily example of an art piece, or view a picture of an artist (modern or historical) and then, we’d do our own research to find out more information about the piece. For example, if we researched “Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh, we’d get out our computers and take notes about how we think Van Gogh felt when he painted it, what might’ve influenced him to call his painting “Starry Night,” etc. Then, we would have carpet time to share our thoughts. This is when our teacher would teach us about the history, or the time period, that the painting was made, or when the artist was alive. He’d teach us this through various mechanisms like reading a short book, or snippet of an article, showing us videos, or making a PowerPoint presentation for us. After, he’d challenge us to use the information that we just learned to try and understand why the artist painted like they did, or named their paintings certain things. Although a lot of his lessons were art-based, I can say that I learned a lot about the history of these places. I definitely learned a lot about European countries, and some of the facts I’ve learned in class still stick with me today. Like for example, Van Gogh slipped into depression and even had to stay in a mental hospital, which ultimately led to him using darker, dreary colors in his paintings. This is why “Starry Night” is gloomy looking, and is very blue based, color wise.

After deeply reflecting on my experience with social studies in elementary school, I think that the biggest challenge I’ll face is just getting my students to understand what social studies is. It’s not completely history, nor is it just a mix of many subjects. Another issue that I could think of is finding what kind of content to teach. I know that at my field placement, they don’t have any assigned social studies textbook, which leaves it up to me to decide what’s valuable for my students to learn. I think in situations like that, I would have to get very creative with my lessons, but also be prepared, so I’m not scrambling to figure out what to teach next. One of my goals for myself as a future social studies teacher is that I want to be able to teach memorable lessons that will stick with my students for as long as they can remember. I would hope that I am able to teach not only interesting, but helpful social studies lessons that’ll strengthen my students knowledge of the world that we live in. Another goal of mine would be integrating my own interests and strengths when teaching social studies. I think that that will totally make my lessons unique to my classroom. It could also help the students to view social studies in a different light, and see things from different perspectives; just as my sixth grade teacher did when teaching us.

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When you hear the word social studies, what often comes to mind is the word “history”. This is how I remember social study in elementary. However, social study is more than just the word history. Social study is the study of the world, society and nation through science, history, economics and geography. I believe that social studies is taught so students can learn and understand what is else is out there in this world.

I don’t remember much from elementary but I remember being taught the word “culture”. Culture are values, languages, beliefs of different ethnicities around the world. I believe culture was first taught in first grade. I remember my teacher gathering the students in front of the classroom. She asked what makes each of us special and had us share it to our classmates. As children, we blurted out different answers. My teacher then explained that everyone is different in their own unique and special way. When we were done discussing, the teacher picked out a few student to speak out and share their answer with the class. Then, she showed different pictures of people from different countries as an introduction to what a culture is. She explained that culture is how other spoke, dress and celebrate.

I believe third grade was when I learned geography and history. I remember learning about other countries and how fascinated I was at how much countries existed around the world. We were provided text books to read then my teacher would elaborate the book we were reading. The teacher created an activity where we compare the cultures and physical features of the United States to other countries. In third grade is where I learned to identify places on a map, using directions, and where the equator, north and south poles are located. In history, I remember learning about the presidents and why the government is created. We learned to use charts and diagrams in different activities. History wasn’t always my favorite subject and until till’ today, I still don’t really have much interest on the subject.

As a social study teacher, some issues that I may face when teaching the subject is in what ways can I make the topic interesting. I remember social studies consists of a lot of writing and as a child, no one really likes writing paragraphs. As a teacher, it can be tough to cover a lesson without relying on too much lectures and group discussions. Another issues that may come up is teaching history that revolves around places, names and dates. It limits the teacher on what can and cannot be taught. One issue that I had with my elementary teachers that I can recall is when they relied too much on textbooks which I’m afraid I will end up doing. Some of my teachers back then would assign us to read the textbook for the entire class then answer the questions provided. Lastly, some students come in disliking history. Others say its boring and some complain that the subject has no connection with their lives.

As a future social study teacher, my goal that I would like for myself are finding ways to promote active learning. Social study is a lot of reading itself, so I would like to find a way in designing a course or lecture where it encourages students to see every assignment as an active work where they can relate and want to learn more from it. My goal is to always remind myself to “focus on teaching the students and worry less on the content that needs to be taught”, teach what matters most.

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If we are being honest, I do not remember much about how social studies was taught while learning in elementary school. What I do remember is doing projects on a California Mission, a State, and a Country. All these projects were writing a report and making a visual aid about it. I did the Mission project in 4th grade, but I do not remember what California Mission I did it on. I do remember making a visual that looked like the Mission. I built the Mission with my dad from scratch because we were not allowed to use the pre-made Mission build. In 5th grade, I did the State project. The state that I was given was Alaska. In this project we had to write our report in cursive. The components were to write as much information as we could about the history of the state. For example, when it became part of the U.S.A and how. In 6th grade, we had a Country project. The country I got was Mexico. I really enjoyed this project the most because I am half Mexican and I could really learn about my country of my ancestors. In all of these projects we had to do a presentation to the class as the last part of the project. Another thing that I remember is learning about the Oregon Trail. We had a computer lab at my elementary school and that is where we could play this game called the Oregon Trail. You had to go on a trail like the American Pioneers. If it was not science lab day, it was computer lab day or p.e. It was a switch between the three.

One issue I had when learning about social studies was that it was so boring. I feel like my struggle would be trying to make social studies exciting and engaging so the students will enjoy the subject. History is not my subject of choice so if I can make the subject fun for the students, I am hoping that they will actually like and enjoy history while in elementary, middle, and high school. Another issue that I think I may have is the content of the subject. I feel like history can be complicated for many students. So trying to make the subject simple and then get more complex. Because honestly, I think this subject is a difficult one to learn.

The goal I want to give myself as a social studies teacher is to make the lessons fun to keep the students focused. If I can make the lessons fun the students will not get bored like I was when I was in school.