Philosophy Perspectives in Teaching Social Studies.

Teachers need to have much knowledge and skill when implementing diverse philosophies of teaching and learning. Philosophy provides guidance and direction to the teacher when choosing objectives, learning opportunities, and evaluation procedures for ongoing lessons and units of study in the social studies.

There are diverse philosophies of instruction which the social studies teacher needs to study and analyze, to come up with a necessary synthesis. The synthesis is needed to use in providing guidance in teaching the social studies. A teacher needs to be, among other things, a philosopher who knows different philosophical schools of thought and can implement these in a favorable manner. Perhaps, a thorough investigation of philosophy in education can provide avenues of instruction to meet personal needs of pupils. Too frequently in teacher education, educational philosophy was taught from the point of view in preparing teachers to do well in the midterm and final test in the course rather than for utilitarian purposes. Philosophy can be taught in teacher education whereby application might well be made of its tenets. I have had a philosophy of education course in higher education in which use was made in the classroom of its inherent values (See Ediger, 1995, 246251). Thus, the instructor demonstrated how each school of thought might be implemented in the classroom. Let us look at philosophy of education from the point of view of teaching social studies in the elementary school.

The Project Method in Teaching Social Studies

The project method (Kilpatrick, 1918) was made famous by William Heard Kilpatrick (1874-1965), late professor at Columbia University in New York City. Dr. Kilpatrick emphasized the project method after experiences students had in vocational agriculture and in Future Farmers of America (FFA) organization in rural areas.

As a high school student in a small rural high school, in Inman, Kansas, I took three years of vocational agriculture and made the rank of State Farmer in FFA. The State Farmer rank was open to two per cent of the FFA members within a state. I had projects in registered Milking Shorthorn cattle and registered Duroc Jersey hogs on the farm. Careful and accurate record keeping of income and expenses was necessary in maintaining these projects. I was very careful in tending to these projects since they were also shown at the county and state fairs in Kansas. I learned responsibility, effort, and quality work habits from the projects of caring for livestock.

Dr. Kilpatrick transferred the ideas from agricultural education to the public school curriculum. School and society were not to be separate endeavors, but become one. In developing a project in social studies, the pupil first needed a purpose. The purpose arose within a context of the unit being taught. If pupils, for example, were studying a unit on The Middle East, with background information provided for the unit of study, a pupil or committee may wish to make a replica of the wall around the old city of Jerusalem. The purpose then was a reason, goal centered by learners with teacher guidance, to complete an activity. Wholehearted involvement by pupils was necessary. The purpose did not come from textbooks, nor from the teacher. The pupil must do the learning and needed to perceive purpose or reasons for learning.

Once the purpose for action is determined, learners individually or collaboratively need to make plans for achieving the purpose. The plans then for making a model walled city of Jerusalem involved the following:

1. securing a cardboard box, about three feet by four feet in dimensions.

2. cutting eight entrances or gates leading Into the old city.

3. cutting turrets to look like the top of the wall around old Jerusalem.

4. shaping the walls as much as possible to appear as the wall surrounding Jerusalem, completed in 1542 by the Ottoman Empire which governed this area at that time.

5. using tempera paint to design the large blocks of natural rock in the wall.

A student teacher and a cooperating teacher, whom I supervised In the public schools, assisted pupils in doing the above planning within the involved committee. After the plans had been developed carefully, the pupil/committee is ready to pursue the plan and the purpose. Here, pupils encountered situations involving problem identification and needed solutions. Some of the problems encountered included the following:

1. who was to do what in working on the project.

2. the proportionate size of each entrance or gate leading into the walled city.

3. the spacing of each gate in relationship to reality.

4. the making of the Golden Gate which is closed until the Messiah returns to earth again.

5. redoing parts as evidence indicates to have a representative model of the walled city.

After the model walled city of Jerusalem was completed, pupils with teacher help needed to develop criteria to appraise the quality of the product. Among others, the following guidelines were developed by the pupils involved, with the assistance of the student teacher and the cooperating teacher:

1. neatness and accuracy.

2. effort put forth by the individual/committee.

3. quality attitudes shown by the individual(s).

4. cooperation shown by pupils in working toward completion of the project.

5. volunteering to do extra work such as making a model of the Dome of the Rock (a beautiful Moslem Mosque built in 691 AD), The Church of the Holy Sepulcher (believed to contain the tomb of Christ), and the Western Wall (the only remaining part of the ancient Jewish temple), all located inside the walled city of Jerusalem.

In his project method, Dr. Kilpatrick then stressed pupil purposing, pupil planning, pupil implementing, and pupil evaluating. With the project method, pupils identify the purpose or problem area. Learners are strongly involved in sequencing their very own experiences to project completion. Active Involvement by pupils is advocated with high intrinsic pupil motivation. The teacher is a guide and encourages learner achievement and progress.

Project methods have been important since Dr. Kilpatrick's day. Social studies teachers include pupils making many projects as well as participating in other kinds of learning opportunities. Why are numerous projects made today by pupils in the social studies?

1. content is made clear and meaningful through the project method of learning.

2. interest in learning is fostered.

3. purpose or reasons for learning are clarified.

4. group cohesion is stressed in making and doing.

5. child centered learning is being emphasized.

6. active engagement in learning is being stressed.

7. psychomotor skills are in the offing in ongoing lessons and units of study.

8. a psychological sequence is inherent in the making of projects.

9. social development is in evidence when pupils work collaboratively on a project.

10. individual styles of learning are being emphasized (See Welton and Malian, 1996, "Engaging Students in Active Learning," 250-274).

Humanism as a Philosophy of Education

Carl Rogers (1902-1985) advocated humanism as a psychology of learning. He believed that pupils needed to Identify questions to have answered, so that curiosity is involved in learning. These questions from pupils indicated too that there is a need for Information. Studying is done to obtain information from identified questions. The questions raised by pupils motivate learning. Dr. Rogers believed that too frequently teachers lecture to pupils on subject matter that does not encourage pupil learning. A child centered curriculum is then not in evidence. The content in the lecture may be completely unrelated to what pupils wish to know and do.

The teacher then needs to set the stage with interesting learning opportunities which encourage pupils to identify questions. What is desired in learning should come from the pupil. It is the pupil that must do the learning and purpose resides within the learner. The teacher's role is to assist pupils to find information to their questions. Carl Rogers, as a child, had tremendous interest in moths. No child had these interests. Young Carl thought the teacher would ridicule his interests as other pupils had done. The teacher was very sympathetic and assisted him to obtain more information about moths. Carl Rogers called these unusual "odd ball" ideas, which teachers needed to respect and encourage. Each pupil is different and has diverse interests. The unique interests of pupils individually has been minimized or ignored by teachers so that "more important subject matter" may be studied. Dr. Rogers would say that teachers need to make use of and build on learner individual interests and purposes (See Rogers, 1961).

Presently, good social studies teachers incorporate pupil's questions and interests into ongoing units of study. Pupils need to be encouraged and stimulated to become curious in wanting to learn. Once the interests have been developed, pupils might then inwardly have a desire to learn. Dr. Rogers differentiated between teaching and learning. He believed that no child could learn from teaching. The child could, however, be motivated to learn. Pupils do the learning. They need a stimulating environment whereby pupils can achieve, grow, and develop. The teacher must always respect the pupil and his/her interests. Ridiculing and minimizing pupils would definitely not be a part of the educational beliefs of Dr. Rogers (See Rogers, 1965).

The admonition to build on the child's interests is often made as a corrective for educational programs that neglect them as sources for curriculum, aims, and content. Traditional educational programs developed out of principles that identify educational values within particular subject matter or disciplines to be learned by pupils. Becoming educated meant learning subject matter-This approach has two educational devastating consequences. First, it is often irrelevant to the child. Second, it fails to cultivate the child's idiosyncrasy by providing few opportunities that are of particular importance to the child (Eisner, 1985).

Humanists believe that pupils should be involved in determining what to learn (the objectives), as well as the means of learning (the activities and experiences to achieve objectives). A psychological curriculum is then In evidence In the classroom (Ediger, 1988).

The thinking of humanists is very close to the philosophy of existentialism. Existentialism stresses very strongly the individual and his/her pursuits for making sense out of everyday situations. The emphasis here is upon the unique individual being faced with making choices in the environment. There are multiple choices that need to be made. In fact, the number of choices to be made are overwhelming. But choosing is a part of being human. The individual actually makes his/her own world. To be an existentialist, the teacher needs to encourage uniqueness among persons, not conformity behavior. Thus, the teacher needs to plan with pupils what the latter wishes to learn. The individual may experience an individual learning activity or work collaboratively with others. The choice is up to the individual pupil. The teacher assists pupils individually to choose and to make choices. The teacher values diversity of pupil interests and purposes. The child then develops his/ her own personality through choices made in terms of personal goals and learning activities.

The Basics In the Social Studies

Emphasis upon the basics has always been stressed. Few, however, know what the basics are. However, I believe firmly that the basics in knowledge, skills, and attitudes should continually be sought by educators, individually and/or collaboratively. What is essential needs to be identified and learned by pupils, be it inductively and/or deductively. In the history of education, William Chandler Bagley (1874-1946) was a strong advocate of teaching the basics or the essentials. He wrote the Essentialist Manifesto (Bagley, 1938) whereby essential knowledge for all pupils to achieve was to be identified led and taught. A common set of objectives would then be available for all to attain. Dr. Bagley was strongly opposed to any elective system. If electives are available, pupils would lose out on basic subject matter to be acquired. Knowledge identified led as the essentials would be stable and not subject to continuous change. Exacting subject matter should be taught and not subject content consisting of opinions. Dr. Bagley did not believe in teaching the social studies, since the subject matter was too subjective and amounted to a watered down curriculum. Rather, history and geography should be taught since these two separate academic disciplines have stood the test of time. Then too, history and geography have exacting content. Other social studies areas are too subjective to be called academic disciplines. Bagley believed in a kind of discipline whereby teachers could teach and pupils could learn. Pupils were to b prepared for the adult stage of development.

Bagley was opposed to the lax discipline of pupils in school in his day. He also opposed the correlated and fused curriculum; rather, history and geography should be taught as separate subjects in the curriculum. Bagley, further, opposed an activity centered curriculum in which pupils constructed models and objects of what was being studied. Dr. Bagley also was against pupil/teacher planning of the curriculum. Rather the teacher decided upon objectives, learning opportunities, and evaluation procedures.

Today, there is still considerable emphasis upon the basics or the essentials, although under a different name. Thus, state mandated tests are emphasized, and teachers are to teach toward a given set of objectives for pupils to achieve. The state mandated test, also called a criterion referenced test, is aligned with the objectives, also written on the state level. The content in the curriculum then becomes standardized in that pupils within a state basically learn the same subject matter. Test results indicate how much each pupil has learned. Objective results are then wanted from each pupil. The quantified results generally are expressed as percentiles, such as a child being on the fortieth percentile. If a state, such as Iowa, mandates the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, a standardized test, pupil results are also given In numerical terms. There are no objectives for teachers to use in teaching that harmonize with a standardized test, also called a norm referenced test. Standardized tests also attempt to measure the basics in the curriculum,

The Structure of Knowledge

During the 1970s and 1980s, there was a strong movement in attempting to identify structural ideas within the curriculum. These key ideas were to emphasize core ideas within an academic discipline. The key ideas within a discipline were then available to teachers to emphasize in teaching. Professors at the college/university level cooperatively were to identify the structure of knowledge within their academic area of specialty. The classroom teacher would then select learning activities so that pupils might achieve the structural ideas.

Jerome Bruner (1961) was very influential in advocating pupils learn structural ideas in each academic discipline with his well known statement, "Any subject matter can be learned in some honest intellectual form by any child at any stage of development. Thus, the structural idea to be learned would be presented in some honest intellectual form varying in difficulty, depending upon the child's present stage of achievement (page 33). I agree with this statement. Certainly, very young children learn about certain historical events at a very young age. They may not be able, for example on the kindergarten level, be researchers in the social sciences, but they have heard about recent presidents of the United States and can orally communicate selected ideas pertaining to this topic. Sequentially, as pupils progress through the public school years, they will build upon preceding ideas obtained. Readiness for leaning the new content will then be in the offing.

Since the publication of Jerome Bruner's influential book in 1961, much emphasis has been placed upon organizing content within academic disciplines. Bruner's thesis is that within any discipline there is a network of ideas that contain the major relationships within the field. Bruner's statement of the advantages of the structure's principle has been taken seriously by many of the leaders of the academic reform movement. Following Bruner's lead, curriculum developers in several areas are using the structural principle ... Bruner sees four advantages in this approach:

1. The structural ideas provide a conceptual map of the field that aids memory. The learner, in a sense, has an organizing structure on which to hang incoming information.

2. The student who masters the structural ideas has a sense of control over the discipline that is not yielded by factual coverage alone.

3. Organizing ideas provide a basis for applying learning to practical situations. One has the ideas needed to manipulate information in problem solving situations.

4. Organizing ideas are what the scholar uses. By teaching them to students, we enable them to think using the same tools that the advanced researcher employs. This will undoubtably lead to more scholarly careers (Joyce, Bruce R., Richard M. Hersh, Michael Mc Kibbin, 1983).

Since the above quote of 1983, the structure of knowledge philosophy might go under a different name, including

1. the basics, such as essential ideas developed by academicians in their academic area of specialty.

2. the elimination or minimizing of peripheral content which seemingly too often has a center stage.

3. the selection of vital content, on the local level, for pupils to achieve in teaching and learning.

It is of utmost importance to choose subject matter for pupils to achieve with utmost scrutiny and care. With the explosion of knowledge, it behooves teachers, administrators, and curriculum directors to identify content meticulously that learners are to acquire. The subject matter chosen may be achieved by pupils inductively, deductively, and through problem solving procedures. Having supervised student teachers for thirty years in the public schools, many classroom teachers have said that it is surprising how often learners come up with Important (key) ideas to achieve when using pupil/teacher planning in the social studies. With the use of structural ideas, higher levels of thinking may then be used in problem solving activities for pupils in the classroom.

Philosophy of Unit Teaching in the Social Studies

Unit teaching has had a rather long history of importance in teaching and remains salient today. An early advocate of unit teaching was Henry Clinton Morrison, Professor at the University of Chicago in the 1920s and the 1930s. Dr. Morrison advocated the following steps of teaching using the unit plan:

1. Exploration whereby a per-test and a discussion was used by the teacher to determine where learners were presently in achievement.

2. Presentation in which learners were given an overview of what would be taught in the new unit of study. The presentation emphasized motivation of pupils and securing their interests.

3. Assimilation which stressed using a guide sheet for pupil learning. Here, the teacher would supervise pupils in completing the guide sheet and give a mastery test to notice what pupils had learned, or assimilated.

4. Organization which emphasized pupils outlining subject matter learned.

5. Recitation which stressed pupils showing what had been learned from the unit of instruction (Morrison, 1926).

Presently, unit teaching emphasizes a more flexible approach in teaching. The resource unit contains a collection of more objectives, more learning activities, and more evaluation techniques than can be used with a given set of learners. Additions and deletions may be made in the resource unit as needed. The goal for the social studies teacher Is to select and choose which are relevant and vital to each classroom of pupils. The purpose is not merely to collect objectives, learning opportunities, and evaluation techniques, but to have available in teaching and learning what would assist a class to learn as much as possible and achieve optimally in the social studies. Individual abilities, talents, and Interests need adequate provision (Ediger, 1997).

Learning activities to achieve objectives in unit teaching need to stress those which are varied and provide for diverse learning styles and make provisions for multiple intelligences. Unit teaching emphasizes the importance of integrating content and not stressing a separate subjects social studies curriculum. Within the unit, there is something there for each and every pupil to achieve in a more optimal manner (Ediger, 1996).

Problem Solving in the Social Studies

Problem solving was made quite popular as a philosophy of education as developed by John Dewey (1859-1952). Dr. Dewey established a laboratory school in 1896 at the University of Chicago, in which his Ideas on problem solving were used. He stressed a functional curriculum whereby pupils might use what had been learned in a practical manner. Furthermore, what was learned in school was directly related to solving societal problems. School and society were not to be separated, but integrated into the school curriculum. Thus in context, pupils with teacher assistance would identify a problem, lifelike and real. The problem chosen would relate to reality with its many problems that needed solutions. Thus, with a unit of study, pupils with teacher guidance identified a problem. The problem needed to be clarified so that meaning was established. After clarifying the problem, pupils gathered information in order to arrive at a solution. The solution here was a tentative hypothesis. The tentative hypothesis needed testing in a lifelike situation, not within a paper/pencil test. If the hypothesis held up, acceptance was in order. If more, additional data needed to be gathered for a more accurate hypothesis, then this was emphasized. Testing the hypothesis was again in order. The hypothesis may need modification or revision.

Dr. Dewey was an experimentalist in that his philosophy stressed experience as the basis for all activities. The individual then cannot know ultimate reality, but can experience that which exists in the environment. Reality is not stable but changes rather continuously. With changes, problems arise. These problems need identification and necessary solutions. Problems will continuously arise in the environment with changing situations. Problem solving then is necessary in school and In society (Dewey, 1916).

Conclusion

There are selected philosophies of teaching which might well assist the social studies teacher to improve instruction. These are the following:

1. the project method which is an activity centered approach whereby pupils with teacher assistance are fully involved in planning the curriculum.

2. humanism in which the focal point is on the pupil in planning the curriculum, but may not necessarily be an activity centered curriculum.

3. the basics which tends to emphasize a subject matter centered curriculum.

4. unit teaching which stresses a variety of learning opportunities for pupils in achieving objectives, with more teacher direction as compared to the previously named two philosophies, numbers 1 and 2 above.

5. problem solving which stresses a practical curriculum in which school and society are one, not separate entities.

The teacher needs to analyze each philosophy and stress those which assist individual pupils to achieve as optimally as possible.

References

Bagley, William C. (1938), "An Essentialist's Platform for the Advancement of American Education, Educational Administration and Supervision, 24: 241-246.

Bruner, Jerome (1961), The Process of Education Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 33.

Dewey, John (1916), Democracy and Education, New York: The Macmillan Company.

Ediger, Marlow (1988), Curriculum Improvement Kirksville, Missouri: Simpson Publishing Company, 174.

Ediger, Marlow (1997), Social Studies Curriculum in the Elementary School fourth edition. Kirksville, Missouri, 185.

Ediger, Marlow (1996), Elementary Education. Kirksville, Missouri: Simpson Publishing Company, 215-229.

Ediger, Marlow (1995), Designing the Curriculum, The Progress of Education, 69 (12), 246-251, published in India.

Eisner, Elliot W. (1985). The Educational Imagination New York: The Macmillan Company, 70.

Joyce, Bruce M., Richard M. Hersh, and Michael Mc Kibbin, The Structure of School Improvement New York: Longman Inc., 257-258.

Kilpatrick, William Heard (1918), The Project Method. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Morrison, Henry Clinton (1926), The Practice of Teaching in Secondary Schools University of Chicago Press.

Rogers, C. R. (1961), On Becoming a Person Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Rogers, C. R. (1965), Client Centered Therapy, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Welton, David A., John T. Malian (1996), Children and their World fifth edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 250-274.

Dr. Marlow Ediger, Professor of Education, Truman State University, Kirksville

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Marlow Ediger, Route 2, Box 38, Kirksville, Missouri 63501-9802