Abstract:In our rapidly changing world, students not only want to know Where in World is Carmen Santiago? but also where Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and the other -stans are. Could world studies compete with the ...In our rapidly changing world, students not only want to know Where in World is Carmen Santiago? but also where Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and the other -stans are. Could world studies compete with the World Series for students' attention this year? is this world coming to? The terrorist attacks on September 11 and subsequent events have forced a reexamination of the role of the United States in the world and have led some educators to suggest changes in the social studies curriculum. Many of the early proposals have emphasized patriotism. Some have called for prayer. Some have proposed that we teach more about democracy. A few have sensed a need for reexamining what we teach about the Diane Ravitch, a former assistant U.S. secretary of education and frequent critic of social studies, writes, If curriculum reformers agreed on more time for the study of world history, that would be a major improvement in all of our schools. But she goes on to say, What they have in mind is not more world history but more multiculturalism ... -- to which she strongly objects. (1) In the middle grades, students commonly take courses on ancient history, world geography, world cultures, and world history. Many curricula call for a selective in-depth study of some region of the world or time period, and this focus can be rewarding. In their haste to cover a huge curriculum, however, many teachers feel compelled to skip across the curriculum like water bugs over a murky pond. It's clear in September that not everything can be learned by June. Students often feel the resulting lessons are tiresome, shallow, and remote, like the radio news report that promises its listeners: You give us twenty-two minutes, and we give you the world. Imagine studying the United States, state by state: New York this week, California next week, and so forth. Or imagine studying New England, then the Southern states, then the Northwest. Few educators would believe that this approach would allow students to understand the history, geography, or culture of the United States, but isn't this the format of many world study curricula? There is no study of the world; it is the study of individual countries or regions. Does this approach provide a sufficient understanding of today's world? There's more to the Earth than the sum of its parts. And if we strive to capture student interest by incorporating today's events into the classroom, we run the risk of unwittingly adopting a curriculum of crisis, highlighting horrors from East Timor to Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to who knows what's next. We need a framework or criteria for deciding how, what, and why some things are important enough to put into the curriculum. …Read More
Publication Year: 2002
Publication Date: 2002-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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