It all seemed too abstract. It was the classic problem of plenty - coupled with the freefall of fantastical freedom. The teachers' resource cupboard had files overflowing with photocopies equivalent to teacher's reading and reference material. I was new to the subject. I was even 'newer' to teaching. After a five-year long hiatus – and especially after seeing what lay in store for me, literally in these cupboards - it almost felt as if I were new to learning itself!
“What have I got myself into?” I remember muttering under my breath as I leafed through the ton-heavy pile of sheets. I haven't confessed this to anyone yet, so here it is for the record: I jettisonned all of those sheets – with all due respect, though (I promise you that!). I asked myself to rebuild the wheel were I to learn to drive. So I began with the fundamental question that I felt like shrieking to all my teachers for donkeys' years, “What is the purpose of this subject?”
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
I turned to Google. The National Council for Social Studies defines the subject as "the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence." What would civic competence mean to class 6 children, I wondered. Another definition says “The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups, animals and individuals including anthropology, archeology, communication studies, cultural studies, demography, economics, human geography, history, linguistics, media studies, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology.” I graduated in Commerce. I rested my case and went out for a long walk.
I turned to senior teachers, my mentors. Lots of discussions and a couple more articles left me somewhat blurry-eyed. But hey – 'blurry' is good news to the blind! And so I entered my class on a Monday morning and continued to review the question by activity and by chapter, by week, by month, and by term. One year thence, I'm wearing rose-coloured glasses as I stand at the threshold of my second innings, somewhat happy that I've unravelled some of the clues to a final answer, if there are any!
I asked myself two questions to clarify my initial question – and thereby, find my raison d'etre for being a Social Studies teacher for grade 6!
What must the subject teach the children - what could “social studies” mean?
What could the children learn from the subject? Are there any skills or experiences that for the kids for them to grow - personally, individually and as students?
SLICING AND DICING THE NAME
To the first, here's the flow of my thoughts:
Social studies must literally mean 'the study of society'.
Wouldn't that mean the study of 'cultures' – past and present, “mine” and “theirs”?
How would you study various cultures? How would I 'teach about culture'? What does that mean? What does that include and what does it exclude? At this age, particularly, what should it comprise of?
Studying a culture would mean the making of cultures and the differentiation of a culture from another. So:
What are the factores that influence and/or contribute to the making of any culture?
What are the factors that differentiate one culture from another, perhaps making it unique?
Social studies therefore would loosely (and hopefully surreptitiously) include the study of History, Geography and Sociology (if I must rely on names of discipline to refine my understanding) of a culture. So I NOW know which section of the library to make my home-away-from-home for a while at least!
SMOOTHENING THE TRANSITION
Really – why should any child learn about Social Studies? Expectations were bound to steep in the minds of the little ones – it was the only year they study anything by the name. What would want ten-year olds to learn between a year spent learning about Environmental Studies and another where they bifurcate their questions between Geography and History. Isn't the gap too wide between learning about your environment on one hand and learning about what the world literally looks like today and its thoughts and choices made yesterday? Hmmm... “What have I got myself into!”
But since the gap seemed particularly wide, does that not give me a large variety of colours to choose from before I paint the canvas? How should I play peekaboo with these kids with concepts that disciplines like Geography, History, Sociology, Economics, Behavioural Sciences, Political Sciences and Psychology may bring about in later years? A lot of these subjects are best understood by a student of Curiosity, regardless of age. How do I give my children facts and trivia about the world we inhabit without running the risk of channelising or (Heavens, NO!) stifling their natural flow of questions? I'd want them to be so inquisitive that they'd keep me on my toes forever.
FINE-TUNING UNDERSTANDING
Can the subject take up the responsibility to help the children gradually transition from purely sensorially pleasureable learning to experiential and research-based learning? Should I – can I – help them sharpen their skills in information-assimilation? How do children sort the wheat from the chaff amongst a plethora of information contained in a couple of sheets of paper? What are various ways of making sense of these pieces of information through their inter-connectedness? Can they reflect on their knowledge and 'write their heart out' without fear?
I personally love colourful notebooks – and that helped! We made drawings where we could have written an essay, made caricatures where we could have made a two-column table to compare two cultures, truly experimented with mind-maps and mimed a scene from the lives of people of the past instead of reading the chapter! More interestingly and more fulfillingly, after the first few weeks, the children were overflowing with ideas to re-present a newly learnt facet of ancient people depending on their own likes and dislikes in art!
WHAT THEY CALL 'NEED-GAP'... IN LEARNING!
The second question, though, posed more strenuous initially. What could the children learn from the subject? What should the children learn from the subject? On a larger canvas, what must the children learn at this age? Are there any subtle lessons and 'take-aways' for them that are auxiliary to the objectives of other subjects and that can largely be met by this particular subject? Apart from the written and oral comprehension and expression provoked by the Languages, logic and observation skills encouraged by Math and Science and aesthetics and dexterity propelled by Fine Arts and Crafts, can Social Studies step in to help the children to grow individually and collectively, as students and as people?
GETTING PERSONAL – LOOKING IN
Not as stringent and didactic as my own 'moral science' classes of 10 years ago and without trying to affect their thoughts through a personal or institutional philosophical stance, can this subject provoke the fine art of introspection? Can my classes be a space for loosening up solidifying ideas, attitudes, values and beliefs that are gradually going to soon become a strong part of their sense of identity? Can we get “personal” in this subject? Can some strong questions be dared to ask, without the pressure or assumption of seemingly 'big' answers? Through my year in the classroom, the number of discussions (call them 'war of words'!!!) that have oftem lent themselves to some memorable notes in the notebooks have been a source as much of my learning about kids as of answering my fundamental question to my position in their academic year.
“Who is God?” A simple question for children. Yet it took us 3 classes to have them all have their say. It's not so much about what they think as what followed. Some of them wrote to their parents about it, asking them about mythical stories that they had narrated to them. Some of them wrote to me, confessing they were confused, but weren't sure if it was okay to say so. They were 'big enough' to know, they assumed! Many of these led us to long walks, discussing other things that were confusing them about life. Little issues, but certainly not trivial.
LOOKING OUT
Just as they are learning to watch their thoughts and putting their opinions forward in class, a lot of other inter-personal issues surfaced. Some of them giggled every time one particular child would answer. Some of them would give a patient hearing to a verbose classmate, regardless of the quality of his contribution to the discussion. Were there already 'images' that they had formed of each other? Did they already have undercurrents of prejudices for each other, others adults on campus and closer home, their neighbours in the building?
'Society' in its most limited sense for my children, begins with their classes, their dormitories, their school, etc. Can I trigger them into working on their own and then in small groups to cooperatively accomplish personal and other goals? Can these experiences attempt to help them in being a tad more thoughtful, a trifle more affectionate and somewhat more accomodating as they make way for the coarse of their own lives in the world? How are we all inter-dependent? Do my children know how many people make an impact on the smooth functioning of their daily lives without receiving a 'thank you' from these little benefactors? How do people in general make space for another people? How do people arrange themselves and function as a society?
Whether it was the interview that they took for some of the various 'significant but unseen' contributors to their student lives (the guard, the dairy-worker, the women in the dining hall, etc.) or the debate about how to decide our holiday homework to understand the rationale and the loopholes of democracy as a decision-making mechanism, it was fun watching them almost shriek 'Eureka' each time! Learning about your value in relation to another is a kick in itself, that children must be exposed to!
LOOKING FORWARD
I've had fun this past year, teaching with a conscience and learning with the child in me – and in my class. Thankfully these questions have not been answered with any finality. I'm still thinking why I'll be giving my children the freedom to go anywhere on campus tomorrow afternoon and let their imagination run riot with what they think our ancient town would be like!
