Student centered education

This week has been one of those when you really wonder WHAT the heck social studies is, and how on earth it is possible to teach it without a Masters degree in every social science discipline and a PhD specialising in about 5 areas of educational theory. The "Shifting the Focus - the consequences of now" topic has fallen by the wayside a bit. I couldn't help but feel that all the concerns and questions the students had given me were firstly, too many to form a coherent course of learning, and secondly, not all were very related to student's lives. Finally one student asked: "if New Zealand went to war, would we have to fight?". This was the first question that really seemed to have some genuine meaning behind it so I am in the process of developing a unit from the bottom up based on this question, (using the social inquiry model) which will lend itself to a future focused topic as well as a conflict topic, both of which James Beane recommends as being consistently successful for a student centered, integrative curriculum. Students gave me some great material to work with after a series of provocative questions I threw at them based on this question. Now it is a matter of turning this into a sustained and meaningful unit. Hopefully it gets easier and more manageable because only one of the two year 10 classes asked this question! The other class decided that all the things we had brainstormed about the future were simply too depressing and they wanted to do something 'happier'. This wasn't quite the same cue as the NZ draft question but I have taken the fact that New Zealand was the first country to enfranchise women as a start and I will try and get them to organise a rally - 1 pro suffrage and one anti suffrage, based on the information and evidence I give them. Then we'll have a period looking at women's changing role over the 20th century and how they are 'represented' in the 21st century. After that, I'm not too sure. Perhaps New Zealand's nuclear role. It isn't quite gelling though. And again, the time it takes to put together.... My main concern though is that integration has gone out the window. I guess you don't always need it and the reality is that there are only so many hours in the day to meet and think with other teachers.

The main problem with my approach this term has been the lack of stimulus material. Had I had some better stuff before asking them the question about their concerns and questions of the future, something coherent could have come from it and they would have taken more ownership of the topic's title. As a complexiy theorist would say, I didn't create enough internal redundancy, there was no common learning experience that we could all relate to and learn from together. Perhaps that way both classes would be on the same page and I wouldn't need to be doing completely different units with them!!