What do you remember learning about (the disciplines) in school? by Lisa Buchanan

Abby Remis

aremis1 — 2025-09-02 16:46:49 UTC

In school, I remember learning about history, geography, and civics. The way it was often taught to me, felt like just memorizing facts. However, after reading Chapters 1 and 2 made me see that social studies is really about understanding the world and how people are treated differently. For example, Chapter 2 talks about helping students understand inequality and injustice, which showed me that social studies can teach empathy and encourage action in real-life situations.

Lily Whitehead

lwhitehead46 — 2025-09-02 17:33:09 UTC

In school, I moved around a lot, so when I look back at my education and think about how social studies encompasses all the disciplines (history, geography, civics, economics, and behavioral science), I notice that I have quite a few gaps or missed instruction. I never took a civics class, I think, because I moved schools so much, I just missed that course. I also think back to COVID-19 and how it has dramatically impacted the education of many students, including myself.

Elizabeth Johnson

ejohnson82_2 — 2025-09-02 21:47:58 UTC

After reading chapters one and two I realized that my social studies was based on memorizing facts and dates more than learning about the world around me and how social studies can open up for discussion. Something that I remembered when reading about the disciplines was that when I was in school I never went through a civics course. I went to middle school in Texas, so we took Texas history. When I moved to Florida I learned that almost everyone takes a civics course except for Texas. So, when it comes to different curriculum being taught, I think it is very eye-opening to see that some states do not teach certain courses, and I think that could lead into a much larger conversation.

Alli Brandon

2025-09-03 13:00:17 UTC

Reading these chapters, I realized just how many social studies disciplines were not explicitly taught at my high school. We had a difficult time keeping history teachers, and social studies classes were not required beyond sophomore year. We did not have explicit civics, behavioral science, geography, or financial literacy instruction. What was taught was rooted in memorization and promptly forgotten, and never presented in the context the learning about the world to make it a better place. Because of the significant lack of anti-oppressive social studies content, the problems it aims to address were relevant in my community, and I can see the direct correlation between those two things.

Leah Brooker

2025-09-03 16:06:10 UTC

After learning more about the five main disciplines in this chapter, I realized that my experience with these topics were very surface level. The history I was taught was mainly dates, names, and specific facts. There was much less of an emphasis on the stories that were being told, and I only truly had the opportunity to consider the counternarritives in high school and college. As for economics, my middle and high schools had an online economics module we had to complete. This instruction only outlined "good and bad" financial practices, rather than the larger systems that influence these decisions. The civics instruction I recived was very limited to government structure, and did not discuss the power that the people hold in the democratic system. In my own classroom, I plan to dive beyond the surface of these diciplines and create a comprehensive social studies instruction that is interdiciplinary.

Sam P

sphillips29_2 — 2025-09-03 16:20:10 UTC

In school, I was provided with mainly empirical questions that could be answered with straightforward evidence coming from a text. Within the disciplines, I dreaded economics/civics/geography because of these types of questions that I would be tasked with answering. I was told to memorize maps and facts without even fully understanding why I was learning it. Since I did not have any personal connection to this information, most times I would forget it after a test. However, this chapter inspired me to do things differently in my classroom and while these questions are still important, there is so much more to each of these disciplines that would have added so much to these classes and my overall Social Studies knowledge.

Grace Muschett

gmuschett — 2025-09-03 16:21:39 UTC

In school, the only two disciplines that were explicitly taught were geography and history. My experience with geography was primarily based in memorization of maps and terms. However, I took a combined English and history class called American Studies which was a deep dive of American history through story telling. This course was extremely thorough and insightful because it told the stories of American history from different perspectives. Although I had a great experience in this class, I am now aware that its focus on different perspectives was primarily prompted by the teacher and not in the course format. Civics, economics, and behavioral science were all electives at my high school that you could take if you wanted. Therefore, many students, including myself, did not take any courses in these areas.

Veronica Montanez

vmontanez5 — 2025-09-03 16:40:34 UTC

Reflecting on my school experiences, I remember mostly learning about history, as said in the article, history is usually the discipline most people associate with Social Studies. Especially at the high school level, but also in middle school and elementary school I remember how facts were spewed out to memorize for the next test. It seemed like a lot of the times we were just rushing through time periods without ever having the time and space to question or really think about a topic or place. Another discipline that I believe is lacking in many curricula is geography. I, myself, have always been very interested in geography, but I remember there were times when my peers could not identify certain midwestern states in middle school. I think it is very important to be aware of the places in your own country, as well as the geographical locations of different places in the world. Lastly, I would like to touch upon civic education. When I think about civics in elementary school, I think of learning the branches of government, doing a mock election, types of government, etc, but not really going into any civil responsibilities besides voting and jury duty. I know some states have a required civics course, but I did not receive an extensive education on civics in my K-12 education. I believe the curriculum is changing to adhere to all of these disciplines more, but there is a lot of room for us to become more educated in this manner.

Cara Cesario

ccesario2_1 — 2025-09-03 16:49:54 UTC

I remember learning social studies mostly through history lessons, timelines, and memorizing facts about important people or events. A lot of it was centered on topics like the American Revolution, the Civil War, and early U.S. presidents, but it didn’t always go much deeper than names and dates. What stood out most to me were the times when we did projects, like creating posters about different states or researching a famous leader, because that felt more engaging than just reading from the textbook. Looking back, I realize that the lessons often focused mainly on the accomplishments of white men, and I didn’t learn much about other perspectives or cultures until later. That makes me think about how much more meaningful social studies could be if it included a wider variety of voices and stories. I think it is important to dig deeper and create a larger conversation about more difficult topics.

Ava Aanestad

aaanestad — 2025-09-03 17:24:37 UTC

I remember caring lots more for STEM subjects and finding these disciplines very unstimulating and dry. I had to take a history class every year of schooling, the chronology bored me and didn't stick in my brain. I enjoyed the story telling aspects of events and that was it. I've never taken an econ class. I have had classes that dealt with ethics but I would definitely put those more into the behavioral studies discipline. I enjoyed the debates and discussions in those types of classes. Geography just got rolled in interdisciplinarily throughout my education. I didn't enjoy content based classes that didn't include some kind of discussion/a lack of interaction. I also lived in a variety of places (TN, VA, CA, South America) so the disciplines always had different focuses.

Xander Fignar

2025-09-03 17:44:53 UTC

After reading these two chapters, I realized that a lot of my social studies instruction growing up was history based, and didn't cover much of the other disciplines (economics, civics, behavioral science, and geography). It was mainly memorizing facts, dates, and events for exams. Economics classes were offered in my high school but it wasn't required and wasn't built into other courses that were required as part of the social studies curriculum, so I still have a lot of unanswered questions. I did a lot of traveling as a child and have been to almost all of the 50 United States so I have a really good sense of geography, but I can understand how a child in my school system might not have the best sense of geography. These chapters were definitely eye opening about how poorly constructed some social studies curriculums can be, and how that can affect individuals, and was overall very eye opening to me.

Lily Ragals

lragals — 2025-09-03 20:02:57 UTC

I really enjoyed reading these two chapters about the disciplines, specifically history, as they discussed multiple narratives to teach. I remember my history lessons growing up to be very monocultural, with single perspectives and being taught solely out of textbooks. When I got to high school, I took AP US History, and my teacher was the first teacher to truly make me criticize US history because of his incorporation of multiple perspectives and types of sources. His main focus during the class was for us to critically evaluate US history and analyze how it affected us as US citizens then, rather than memorize dates and information. This was also happening while January 6th occurred, which sparked many interesting conversations and debates in our classroom that I found fascinating, and I didn't feel like I could have anywhere else. I think this was truly the first history/social studies class I took where I felt as though I learned holistically. I hope to provide the means for my students to create a foundation of critical analysis of US history in a way that my APUSH teacher did for me.

Elizabeth Small

esmall5_2 — 2025-09-03 20:18:34 UTC

I remember learning some about each of the disciplines in school and while reading these two chapters, it really made me think deeper about my personal experience with each of them. My school had a big focus on history and it was taught in middle school and high school. It was basically just repetition and we would learn the same things over and over again, although, we had a AP US history course and a virginia history course which gave us some variety. We had the option in high school to choose between geography or history and I had chose history so I never really got to learn much about geography. With Economics and Civics, we took this as a required course in 8th grade. We talked a lot about personal finance and court cases in this class although I feel like I wasn't able to take much away from it. Lastly, senior year of high school, we were able to take a combined course of sociology/psychology as an elective. To sum my experince up, there was a lot of room for improvement from my school system and although we had some variety in the courses, we were taught straight out of a textbook.

Catherine

ccrawford131 — 2025-09-03 21:23:10 UTC

In elementary school, the disciplines were largely integrated together. In high school, I took them all as separate classes (with the exception of geography), though I'm now seeing how they are all entangled and can't really be fully pulled apart. This article was super interesting to read because I typically think about history when I think about social studies, but seeing all the different disciplines, as well as the many different types of overlap between them, really demonstrates how important social studies is in school curriculum. My social studies education, especially as someone from the US South, has definitely centered dominant narratives. What I've learned in these classes, even up until high school, has contained partial truths if not full inaccuracies under the guise of being "age appropriate". Up until 8th grade, I had only ever been taught the narrative that Christopher Columbus "discovered" America and then had a nice meal with the Native Americans. This pattern was prevalent until I got further into high school/college.

Hannah Fishberg

hfishberg — 2025-09-03 23:21:13 UTC

In school I remember history as learning specific events that happened, the dates, who was involved, and why it was "important" based on what I thought my teacher would want to hear. It was full of memorization and focusing on passing a test rather than questioning what was happening or diving deep into our past. I didn't even know behavioral science is part of the disciplines and I never remember it being actively taught to me. Learning social studies in my experience had thorough empirical questions and lacked normative questions. There is so much history that I always felt rushed to learn about and quickly take a test and then move on. We didn't really link our learning, it felt very separate than cohesive.

Jocelyn Anderson

janderson66_1 — 2025-09-04 00:16:20 UTC

The majority of my social studies education was based on historical facts and knowledge. Virginia has a required economics course for high school graduation, but it is focused on personal finance with no focus on the social studies aspect of economics. As for behavioral sciences, the only delve into that realm was in my AP Psychology class. Civics was our required 7th-grade social studies class, but I remember it not feeling much different from a regular history class. Finally, geography is second to history as being the social studies discipline with the most devoted class time. I remember in elementary school not truly understanding the term "social studies" because social studies lessons just felt like history lessons.

Rebecca Webster

rwebster6 — 2025-09-04 02:19:24 UTC

Out of the five disciplines listed in the reading; history, economics, civics, geography, and behavioral sciences, I remember learning about most of these subjects, but not in the depth and complexity in which the chapters wrote about them. For me, history was the main form of social studies that I learned. I remember having to memorize dates and important historical events. In elementary school, I was mainly given the dominant narrative of history, and didn't spend a lot of time learning about counternarratives. Once I got to middle school, civics and geography we're introduced and caused me to think more critically. It wasn't until high school that my social studies course started to go into more depth and provide multiple perspectives. In general, in Virginia I only had to take an online economics class that wasn't very informative and only when over basic economic interest. It was interesting to learn more about the disciplines, how I can introduce them in my classroom, and how I can inspire my students. I used to believe that some topics were too old for young children, because that's how my education was, but after reading the articles, I now believe that any topic can be introduced to children if done so properly.

Sinead Longsworth

slongsworth2_2 — 2025-09-04 02:30:58 UTC

In my school experience, I was mainly taught history, and it was very empirical based with little influence of normative questions, especially at the elementary level. There was some geography, which involved memorization of states on a map and facts about who inhabited places, lacking discussions about what places mean to certain groups of people. In high school, there were opportunities to take classes in behavioral sciences and economics, but none were required. I took psychology and sociology, and both were more empirical based and focused on memorization, culminating in a test of the material. These classes did have more opportunities for normative questions, but were still empirical in nature. I also think that the experiences I did have that were more normative were at the discretion of the teacher, meaning they weren't inherently normative within the curriculum.

Molly McGrath

mmcgrath112 — 2025-09-04 04:54:25 UTC

After learning about the 5 disciplines in these chapters I recognize that I am missing part of the disciplines. I think a lot about the civics,, and behavioral sciences, as those were not focused on until high school, and the only way you would be able to take those courses was through an AP Class. I opted to take some of these classes, but was not able to take all. I was able to focus on the behavioral sciences through a humanities course, and AP Psychology, and sociology course. These courses allowed me to see part of the disciplines, but they were not required, nor full classes. I think about civics and economics and how we were not explicitly taught these disciplines. We would go over them when it related to history, but besides a brief unit in 7th grade where we compared our future job sallary to trying to live somewher, and buy food, we did not revisit these topics. I think these oppurtunities were usefull, but not available for all students. I was able to take these, but courses like this were either very limited, or had no standard curriculum. The teacher based what we learned off of what they found interesting in the content topic and taught us based off of that.

Erin Wheeley

2025-09-04 07:17:07 UTC

After reading I have realized that many of these disciplines seemed to be absent from my elementary education (as much as I can remember). I can remember a focus on history, geography, and possibly civics but nothing particularly about economics or the behavioral sciences. I can remember learning time lines, and important historical figures and bits about learning about how stories can differ from culture to culture but not much. I don't think these social studies disciplines had much weight in elementary school but they did in middle school where again we'd go through historical time periods of the middle ages and the wild west which now looking back certainly seem to be soaked in a dominant narrative of whiteness and eurocentricity, while also learning about American History that also seemed to hit the points of colonialism, slavery, the gold rush. etc. But I do remember us focusing on the lives and stories particularly of Native Americans. Highschool is where these really took full affect as I had personal finance, which like chapter 1 notes didn't really go any deeper than personal budgeting and the stock market. I also had psychology, civics and economics, and world history. Not so much a focus on any behavioral science except for the standard information you learn in a psychology class. My civics and economics class focused on history such as the branches of the government but also highlighting how the civics and economics of this country can cause suffering in our people and I remember this by the two films we watched, The Pursuit of Happyness and 12 Angry Men. Again most of my World History was focused on Europe with brief glimpses into the history of Asia which ultimately just pointed back to Europe. Most of any counternarratives that I have learned has been in my college courses. Making me realize the importance of taking a deeper look into how our standards are formed and the information we are expected to teach students that doesn't really suit their needs in terms of knowledge and identity.

Ava Menn

amenn — 2025-09-04 12:07:20 UTC

Reflecting back on my experience in social and my social studies instruction was so interesting. I found that I only focused on three of the five disciplines, geography, civics and history. In my middle school years there was a lot of focus on geography and I till this day feel extreamly well-versed in the topic. Overall, history was the main discipline that was covered in my classes. There were a lot of exams focusing on dates, places and people when I was in middle school. As I progressed throught highschool the focus switched to primary sources. As for civics, my senior year I took a class called Democracy in Action. This class focused on politics, fightinf for juctice and connecting with your direct community. I felt like this class was an amazing experince and helped to deeped our understanding of civics before going into the real world of college! I am looking forward to diving deeper into Behavioral Sciences and Economics. I know that with all 5 disciplines under my belt, I will feel more successful as a learner and an educator.

Sabrina Plachter

splachter2 — 2025-09-04 12:42:06 UTC

When I think back to middle and high school, my experience was very similar to some other responses I have read. I had one teacher in 9th grade that really tried to immerse his students into the material but overall I do not believe I was exposed to every discipline in the chapters. I remember history and geography being bigger parts of my education but have never taken a true economics or civics class. It made me realize that my education gave me a stronger background in certain areas but there are important parts of social studies that I have missed out on. After reading chapters one and two, I began to think about how different curriculums/ curriculum choices shape what students know and what perspectives they develop.

Sarah Copenhaver

2025-09-04 13:28:44 UTC

I realized that within my schooling I was taught predominately the dominant narrative for historical events. Such as with Christopher Colombus who I was never given the space to academically question how he first discovered despite there already being indigenous people already there. A second take away I had was that if students are discussing controversial issues, questioning them, or making fun of particular groups that means it is time for them to discuss that controversial issue because they are already forming opinions before understanding the impact of those. The third takeaway that I had was that in my own personal schooling the idea of scarcity was taught a lot through being sustainable for the planet Earth, but not on how to address scarcity within communities. Three concepts or terms that I would like to learn more about: educational malpractice, ethnography, and authoritarian patriotism.

Miranda Bradshaw

mbradshaw5_2 — 2025-09-07 15:06:55 UTC

After reading these two chapters about the disciplines, I realized that my prior understandings and experience of learning these topics is very low. As I reflect on my past social studies education, and I can say that I only remember history and geography being taught. The social studies education that I received was very shallow in that it had us focus on dates, people, impactful events, and where those events took place. It didn't open up to further discussion of these dates, people, or events which makes the information feel meaningless/doesn't allow you to think about the true importance or significance of what you're being taught. Reading about the disciplines has made me mindful as to how I should look at and understand future social studies curriculum, and how I can effectively integrate these disciplines in my classroom.