Social Studies Framework
Teaching social studies in school ensures that the students get to travel around the globe without the need to leave their classroom. They get to gain an understanding of the world and the perspectives that define it. With that, I believe that instructors have the task to ensure that 4th graders get to understand global perspectives of the physical surroundings. In the perspectives, they are to get in contact with a history of their surrounding and founding fathers as well as their accomplishments. In learning of their surroundings and the history that defines them as people, their geography comes into play. They have to better understand aspects of the physical world around them, being able to recognize most elements of the world from maps. Another aspect that instructors should have their 4th-grade students learn is civics that has an alignment with the local government and its functioning. Instilling that knowledge will be the preparation for future studies of the same but in separate disciplines.
In my opinion, the most difficult to teach 4th graders in social studies is the local, state, and Federal Governments. The difficulty arises from the theoretical aspects of the study concerning the fundamental aspect of the studies where what gets taught sees constraints in real life that prove otherwise. For instance, there get to be rights of individuals stipulated in the teachings, having all the individuals equally enjoying their rights. However, the real world proves to have a different opinion having certain groups of people enjoying their rights while others get by everyday by chance. It gets difficult to educate a 4th grader of their rights when back at home, they go through a different experience and therefore hindering their learning experience. They get to see such campaign as Black Lives Matter that call for the rights of the African Americans who do not get to enjoy their rights and hence a challenge to have an effective teaching process.
Additionally, it is without a doubt that teaching Missions, Ranchos, and Mexican War for Independence would be the most exciting and the funniest to teach the 4th graders. The excitement and fun arise from the resources and the effort put in effecting the study where the students get to be part of presentations for a better understanding. The students love being part of interesting studies where the presentations calling for dressing up and role-playing tends to be the students’ exciting aspect of the study. Therefore, the topic proves to have an alignment with class activities of dress-up and thus exciting and fun.
The longest to teach standard would be The Gold Rush and Statehood that sees to point out the discovery of gold and its consequent change in California alongside how California got to be part of the United States. The length of the standard tends to arise from the resources that would have an effective teaching process as it gets to assess California in the before the discovery and after the discovery that includes contemporary California. Besides reading and researching the internet alongside enacting the study in dramatically elements, they get to have a glimpse of the evident differences that are continuous in the society and thus need more time as accuracy is required. On the other hand, European Exploration and Colonial History agrees to be the quickest standard to teach. Besides being short in length, the standard is an introduction to European exploration and thus regional, not needing an in-depth analysis. Also, most of the concepts align with those of concepts in other broader standards that get easily understood when tackled in unison and thus quick to complete.