The Social Studies Leadership gathered for third and final time this school year to reflect on the successes and challenges of the 2017-2018 school year. Some of our elementary classroom have been implementing more literacy based skills and strategies into their SS Units of Study. Another teacher commented on how grateful they were to have the First Grade SS curriculum written out on the district’s teacher curriculum resources drive. It helped them make their adjustment from teaching 2nd grade to 1st grade much smoother. Teachers mentioned how collaborative the Library Media Specialists have been by implementing different units of study or supporting their current units.
Teachers in the middle school talked about being pleasantly surprised after their students’ first attempt at an enduring issues essay and wanting to look for ways incorporate more writing in conjunction with what is being done in ELA. Finally, the high school teachers commented that new Regents exams and new standards are actually more aligned with what we are currently doing and the shifts we have already made in recent years.
Ms. Ramirez and Dr. Culot shared their recent visit to the Princeton Public School District for a Tri State Review of their social studies curriculum K-12. There were some noticeable similarities to South Orangetown in demographics, successes, challenges, and some key areas of focus such as the redesign of instructional spaces, a move away from traditional assessments to problem-based assessments, connecting more current events to social studies, an emphases on persuasive and argumentative writing, incorporating inter-cultural competency or racial literacy, and a commitment to service learning that ties to the curriculum.
Some of the essential questions to help frame the Princeton visit were: to what extent is our approach to teaching Social Studies evident in an accessible, consistent progression of content and skills for all students; that is student-centered, rigorous, and authentic; and prepares our students to be active, empathetic, global citizens?
We also learned about two former Princeton High School graduates, Priya Vulchi and Winona Guoof, who recently wrote a book and led a TED Talk about Racial Literacy, which is a collection of personal stories combined with research and statistics from across the United States. They identified two fundamental gaps in our society: the heart gap (ability to understand each of our experiences and unapologetically be compassionate and empathetic), and the mind gap (ability to understand the larger, systemic ways in which racism operates). A discussion ensued about how we can call on real stories from the present day to connect to issues from the past and our own set of questions began to develop: How can we implement and elevate standards for racial literacy? How can we focus on more than “the winners” in history? How can we teach social studies (not only history) from multiple perspectives? How can we leverage our service learning to create more opportunities for students?
Our team began planning for our visit from the Tri-State Consortium Team that will be held in March, 2019.
By Mark Stanford and Joe Onativia, Instructional Literacy Coaches
