It is always problematic
when an American social studies text, specifically one designed
to be used by pre-service teachers, is reviewed through Canadian
eyes. For the most part, my own professional past experience has
demonstrated that the typical historical examples cited (Mayflower
landing, American Revolution, Civil War, Civil Rights Movement,
etc.) along with picturesque geographic features such as the Grand
Canyon, the Everglades, and the Mississippi River Delta have little
relevance for a would-be elementary teacher anywhere in Canada.
Additionally, detailed chapters dealing with the American Constitution,
government and legal systems as well as issues related to state
rights, are foreign to the practical educational realities of anyone
north of the forty-ninth parallel. If nothing else, the narrow and
specific foci of many of the diverse provincial and territorial
elementary social studies programs in Canada are themselves out
of synch and offer no commonality, level playing field, or any sort
of pan-Canadian national program upon which major pedagogical and
curriculum notions can be examined. Therefore, it was with some
reluctance that I agreed to tackle a review of Constructing a
Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social
Studies [abbreviated hereafter as CPA]. This hesitation
is further heightened by the fact that I am, deep down, a closet
Canadian nationalist; use Kirman (2002) as a required text in my
own social studies methodology course with second year education
students; and periodically refer to Wright (2001) for additional
collaboration.
Unfortunately, as if
I did not already have enough reticence, CPA is accompanied
by a sixty-seven page Instructor's Resource Manual (ISBN:
0-395-88788-7 supplement). This raises a whole new concern as I
am always a tad insulted by those who feel that I am incapable of
knowing, deciding, and discovering how to teach my own classes.
The notion that I need an instructor's manual is, in my mind's eye,
offensive. My memory harkens back to my beginning elementary teaching
days when teacher's manuals were all the rage; especially in the
mathematics and science domains where the obvious assumption was
made that I (as an elementary school teacher) was incapable of solving
grade 4 to 6 problems and needed an answer key disguised as a teacher's
edition.
The following review,
then, will treat the core text separately from the accompanying
manual and will be divided into three sections: text, instructor's
resource manual and summary.
Text: CPA is
specifically targeted at budding pre-service elementary teachers-in-training
as well as newly minted elementary classroom practitioners. The
authors clearly note in the opening sentence that they wrote this
book "because we were dissatisfied with the elementary social
studies textbooks we reviewed for our courses" (p. xi). They
go on to state that the other books that they did review (unfortunately
not listed) "failed to capture the vibrancy and power we see
in school classrooms where the subject of social studies is well
taught" (p. xi).
With tongue in cheek
and based on my thirty-five years of dealing with elementary schools,
I also would certainly like to see social studies "well taught".
My own professional experience suggests that social studies/sciences
is not a discipline that most elementary teachers (and pupils) rank
as important. Let us not forget that in the majority of provincial
and territory educational jurisdictions in Canada, the social studies
domain is not even a part of the prescribed elementary curriculum!
Additionally, based on field reports from my third and fourth year
teacher candidates, most of their classrooms eschew the teaching
of social studies. Even though it can be argued that Quebec is the
only province that includes social studies in some meaningful and
integrated manner at every grade level from one through to six,
curriculum space is always decided in favour of 'the big three',
namely, English language arts, mathematics and French as a second
language.
CPA is a tightly
written volume! The book is focused, visually sparse (thank God!),
and stays away from unnecessary tangents. In some ways, the text
is a solid classroom pedagogical voyage as many of the more practical
and concrete planning and organizational notions can easily be applied
to other academic areas within the elementary curriculum. Centering
Joseph Schwab's "common place" concept, grounded in reliable
research, and realistically placed within a total elementary curriculum
environment, CPA provides a classroom blueprint for the neophyte
teacher at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
The strength of the
volume is its philosophical grounding. This is not a low-level 'idiot-proof'
kind of how-to workbook. There is no collection of ready to use
on a Monday morning generic social studies lesson plans. There are
no easily duplicated worksheets for a dreary Friday afternoon. Rather,
this book forces the teacher to think of the place of his/her own
educational philosophy and to ground social studies instruction
within a much wider philosophical landscape. There is no question
that this book was written for the professional educator, and is
specifically designed to augment many separate orientations.
Instructor's Resource
Manual: Oh God, a t-shirt handout for a class slogan! While I would
strongly recommend the text, I must express many misgivings related
to this so-called instructor's manual. Flimsily produced, its very
structure screams 'cheap' and 'of no importance'. I am unsure why
publishers feel that course instructors are to be treated in such
a manner, but if the manual is so important, make the product of
paper that does not rip at a glance, use a cover that will endure
more than a couple of openings, and try not to make the manual appear
to be something that was produced in the 1970's by a basement Gestetner
and run-off as an after school program.
Instead of taking some
of the exciting notions that are introduced in the text, the authors
of the manual appear to have fallen back on the same old tired and
misguided concepts that drove previous manual designers. The assumption
is that the reader of the manual is slightly slow (in intelligence)
and old (with dwindling eyesight); hence, large black print, lots
of margin space, simple sentences, nothing controversial, and trite
statements as guiding principles. For everything that is positive
about the text, the reverse is true for the manual. While great
care and energy was clearly put into the design and organization
of the main volume — this is evident in dealing with concepts
such as the Treads Approach and Creating a Genuine Classroom Community
— the manual shows none of this enthusiasm and offers no additional
insights. This reader can only assume that it was thrown together
somewhat belatedly by an in-house staff that did not understand
the concepts and originality of the textbook.
On the whole, Constructing
a Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social
Studies is a valuable volume. It is worth reading as its underlying
philosophy is so appealing. Clearly, Grant and VanSledright have
some understanding of the realities of the elementary practitioner
and have grounded their particular social studies interests in a
framework that would fit with many emerging trends. Further, the
authors are to be congratulated for providing an overall structure
that meets the student centered and individual accountable orientations
that are being exhibited in many emerging curriculums. This book
will appeal to classroom practitioners as well as those who instruct
soon to be elementary teachers. The volume is grounded in time-tested
research and not based on the limited experiences of a special group
of teachers in a specific school with an abundance of resources.
This is a professional book whose ideas and teaching strategies
can be implemented by creative classroom practitioners.
References
Kirman, J. M. (2002).
Elementary social studies: Creative classroom ideas, 3rd
Ed.. Toronto, ON: Prentice Hall.
Wright, I. (2001). Elementary
social studies: A practical approach to teaching and learning,
5th Ed. Toronto, ON: Prentice Hall.