by PRP Group, on 03/07/2024
It is no accident that the new National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) definition of social studies is focused on “human experiences and the spaces in which we interact as humans.” The culture and climate of the social studies classroom has changed, and the way teachers teach social studies has to change with it. The modern social studies classroom should now be a classroom full of student inquiry and choice. Students should be learning the contextual background of a subject and working on the skills they need to critically analyze social studies content.
Personalized paths, oral histories, and local histories are strategies that resonate with the NCSS definition to bring the human experience into the K-12 classroom, because these strategies allow students to determine how their life fits into the story of history and to discover why the past matters to them.