蜜桃影视

Get essential education news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox.聽Sign up here聽for 蜜桃影视鈥檚 daily newsletter.

In our polarized society, social studies instruction is a political landmine. For evidence of this, look no further than the current to restrict how teachers discuss topics like racism. But we can’t let a handful of state legislators looking to score political points mislead us: Democracy can鈥檛 thrive without an informed and engaged citizenry.

What鈥檚 more, we actually have consensus around how social studies should be taught. New efforts like the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, established guidelines like the , and revised state standards all 鈥�.鈥� It’s a call to move social studies toward the hard sciences: to lead with questions rather than conclusions, deeply investigate multiple perspectives rather than a single source, and apply acquired knowledge rather than memorizing it for a test.

It鈥檚 time to answer that call.

But it won鈥檛 be easy. It鈥檚 much easier to tell students what to think and believe, then to slowly and methodically help them learn how to question and investigate. And with only standards and frameworks to work from, it鈥檚 like asking teachers to prepare a gourmet meal but only giving them the five-star menu. Curriculum companies and education leaders must begin to support teachers with the recipes as well: high-quality, inquiry-based instructional materials in social studies.

Without high-quality materials, . The materials they gather and use haven’t been vetted for accuracy or bias, and in some cases are proving harmful to students. A recent incident in , in which teachers used a lesson that asked students to 鈥榩unish鈥� slaves, reminds us of the grave misjudgements that can occur when teachers use unvetted resources.

New textbooks aren鈥檛 solving these problems, either. The textbook model hasn’t changed much since I was in school, probably because it meets a district鈥檚 need to provide one resource that 鈥渃overs all the standards.鈥� But despite the addition of words like 鈥榙igital鈥� to their name, the model is sorely outdated. With flexible technology, these resources could integrate primary and secondary sources, embed continuous improvement cycles to keep materials up-to-date, or provide tools for teachers to customize content to reflect their students鈥� lived and historical experiences. But they don鈥檛. Take a look at any of the top 鈥� products and you鈥檒l find that often the only difference between the physical textbook and the digital companion is an additional image or video. And regardless of format, these textbooks don鈥檛 just lack cultural relevance, they are often

While social studies curriculum has remained stagnant, other subject areas have responded to the demands of national standards by embracing the use of high-quality materials. In literacy, math, and science, these materials include fully developed lesson plans, cohesive units, multimodal assessments, and integrated professional learning. Their use is leading to improved teacher practice and student outcomes. One found that providing an average teacher with high-quality materials puts them on par with highly skilled teachers rated in the 80th percentile. Another demonstrated that highly rated instructional materials resulted in student achievement gains of 3.6 percentile points.

So how do we replicate this model in social studies? Curriculum companies, education leaders, and advocacy organizations must take several key steps.

Avoid the pitfalls of politics

In a world driven by click through rates, polarization sells. Politicians seem intent on making it seem like instructional materials that focus on topics like racism and sexism abound. But the truth is if social studies teachers have any materials at all (and that’s a big if), the resources these politicians are represent a tiny fraction of what educators are actually using in the classroom. Controversy might sell but we can鈥檛 let ourselves be distracted by it.

Set the bar

We need to define what high-quality instructional materials look like in social studies and agree on a process to evaluate them. While that task might seem daunting, thankfully, we can look to other subject areas for guidance. Third-party evaluators like have created metrics to vet ELA, math, and science materials. Take a look at the they use to evaluate materials, and imagine the same rigor applied to social studies.

Let teachers focus on students

Especially after this year of distance learning, teachers’ inboxes are bursting with links to free tools, special lessons, freemium services, and lists upon lists of sites to visit and things to download. We can鈥檛 expect teachers to have the time to vet, curate, and adapt all of these resources for their classroom 鈥斅爀ven if some of them are high quality. Rather than drowning them in resources that amount to a jigsaw puzzle, let鈥檚 make sure we鈥檙e supporting them with comprehensive, culturally relevant, vetted materials. When teachers don鈥檛 have to spend hours upon hours digging through resources, then they can focus on facilitating high-quality social studies instruction in the classroom.

Commit to the work

Social studies leaders, educational organizations, and fellow curriculum companies: join me in making the plea for definition and evaluation. Let鈥檚 support organizations like EdReports in helping us hold each other accountable for creating and implementing high-quality instructional materials in social studies. It won鈥檛 be easy. But if we want our students to experience the kind of social studies instruction that builds life-long democratic habits, we鈥檙e going to have to leave politics behind and do the hard work of building consensus, the necessary work of democracy.

Shanti Elangovan is the CEO and founder of inquirED, which offers inquiry-based social studies curriculum and professional learning that engages students and supports teachers.

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 蜜桃影视鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.