Debating the Future of Social Studies ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Social Science Docket 2 Winter-Spring 2005 Debating the Future of Social Studies The essay by Chester Finn , Jr. is from the introduction to Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong? by James Leming, Lucien Ellington and Kathleen Porter. It was published by the Fordham Foundation and the full text is available at their website (http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=317). The response to Finn is by Alan Singer, editor of Social Science Docket. His book, Social Studies for Secondary Schools (published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ) was one of the social studies methods texts critically reviewed in the Fordham Foundation study. The introductory essays are followed by responses from members of the New York and New Jersey Councils for the Social Studies. Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong? by Chester E. Finn, Jr. For a very long time, the deterioration of social studies in U.S. schools resembled the decline of the Roman Empire: protracted, inexorable, and sad, but not something one could do much about. Evidence kept accumulating that American kids were emerging from K-12 education and then, alas, from college with ridiculously little knowledge or understanding of their country’s history, their planet’s geography, their government’s functioning, or the economy’s essential workings. Evidence also accumulated that, in the field of social studies itself, the lunatics had taken over the asylum. Its leaders were people who had plenty of grand degrees and impressive titles but who possessed no respect for Western civilization; who were inclined to view America’s evolution as a problem for humanity rather than mankind’s last, best hope; who pooh-poohed history’s chronological and factual skeleton as somehow privileging elites and white males over the poor and oppressed; who saw the study of geography in terms of despoiling the rain forest rather than locating London or the Mississippi River on a map; who interpreted “civics” as consisting largely of political activism and “service learning” rather than understanding how laws are made and why it is important to live in a society governed by laws; who feared that serious study of economics might give unfair advantage to capitalism (just as excessive attention to democracy might lead impressionable youngsters to judge it a superior way of organizing society); and who, in any case, took for granted that children were better off learning about their neighborhoods and “community helpers” than amazing deeds by heroes and villains in distant times and faraway places. Continued on page 3 Defending Social Studies by Alan Singer In college I majored in history. My master’s degree and Ph.D. are in history. I planned to be a history teacher. Yet in the battle over whether we should teach history or social studies, I stand on the social studies side of the great divide. According to the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS, 1994), “The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.” The NCSS (National Commission on Social Studies in the Schools, 1989) emphasizes that “content knowledge from the social studies should not be treated merely as received knowledge to be accepted and memorized, but as the means through which open and vital questions may be explored and confronted. Students must be made aware that just as contemporary events have been shaped by actions taken by people in the past, they themselves have the capacity to shape the future” (3). I like the NCSS conception of social studies because it is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. It recognizes the complexity of our world and a democratic society’s dependence on thoughtful, informed, active citizens. Because the purpose of social studies is to engage students in an examin-ation of “open and vital questions” so that they “develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions,” social studies teachers focus on enhancing student analytical skills and what John Dewey (1938) calls intellectual “habits of mind.” Content knowledge is crucial for these understandings, but at the center of a social studies curriculum are the students and what has meaning to them, rather than particular prescribed information. Continued on page 6Debating the Future of Social Studies ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Social Science Docket 3 Winter-Spring 2005 Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong? by Chester E. Finn, Jr. (Continued from page 2) The social studies problem seemed hopeless. And so I and many others concluded that serious education reformers were well advised to put it on a raft and push it into deep water somewhere in the despoiled rain forest or maroon it on a glacier whose melting is caused by the excessive carbon dioxide emanating from prosperous societies. Put it somewhere far away and hope it will vanish. Putting Social Studies Aside As recently as September 10, 2001, we at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation were throwing up our hands in frustration-and turning to other challenges. This, despite enormous earlier efforts by us and our antecedent Educational Excellence Network to diagnose and cure the problems of social studies. We had helped with the work of the Bradley Commission on History in the Schools and the launch of the National Council on History Education. We had worked with the National Geographic Society to restart geography as a legitimate school subject. We had served on boards and committees beyond counting. We had evaluated state social studies standards. Back in 1987, Diane Ravitch and I had penned What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?, which helped expose the breadth of historical ignorance among high school juniors