Past Social Studies Teachers

One of the main goals of this class is to help each other become better social studies teachers. In light of this objective I decided to look back on my own social studies teachers and make note of a few that were impressive and some not as much.

To start, none of my favorite social studies teachers were elementary school teachers, as social studies wasn't dealt with all that much in elementary school, a topic I will discuss in another post.

One of my favorite social studies teachers was my 11th grade teacher Mr.W.  What made him a great teacher was his passion.  He was a total history nerd and made you feel the same way he did about the subject.  Another great teacher was my 6th grade history teacher Mrs. B.  While she taught global history, a tough subject to get people excited about, she was able to make it fun with many group projects, and fun activities.  It's also worth noting that she was my only female history teacher I ever had in all of my secondary schooling.

Some of my other teachers were not as spectacular as these two, most notably a global history teacher I had my freshman year of college.  He was an older man, who sat at his desk the whole time and more or less, read from the textbook.  This of course is not a great way to teach as your students aren't engaged, the teacher lacks passion, and your classes become predictable.  When teaching social studies, students need to be involved, connecting history concepts to real life, and collaborating with peers to achieve better results.

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