Time, Continuity, and Change
2) Social Studies teachers should possess the knowledge, capabilities, and dispositions to organize and provide instruction at the appropriate school level for the study of Time, Continuity, and Change.
I think that Time, Continuity, and Change is a no brainer in the field of history. Anything that is taught in history, whether it be history, geography, economics, or government, is the study of how things changed to the way they are today. Change is engrained into the very being of history, without it history does not exist. Therefore examples of Time, Continuity, and Change were prevalent in my teaching.
I can think of three prime examples in the spring that deal with Time, Continuity, and Change. The first was during my Legislative unit and dealt with the implied powers. In this lesson I was trying to teach students that government is really about power. It is the struggle of two or more groups to gain all power. I told students that the Founding Fathers understood this and tried to limit the power that any one group could have. However, they knew that in the changing world, the legislative branch would need to broaden its horizons from the simple 17 clauses in the Constitution. I used the Air Force as a prime example of this change. From this introduction I started my lecture about how since 1787, the legislative branch has tried to broaden its powers through the implied powers. I discussed the changes in war, technology, and civil rights. Civil rights was the one change I tried to emphasize the most. While it was outlandish and devilishly brilliant to use the commerce clause to defend the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this was a power that the Congress needed in order to govern.
The second example was also used in my reflection on Culture so I will only briefly mention it. However, the jigsaw and FRAME I used to portray the party factions was a fabulous way to depict how political parties are not set in stone. The students had a hard time understanding how Democrats used to be the conservatives and vice-versa. I discussed how Abraham Lincoln founded the Republican Party and asked them would he be one today? We decided no and talked about how this changed over time. Several students brought up amazing thoughts about FDR, LBJ, and Reagan. I was thoroughly impressed with how fast they caught on so I believe the lesson was highly effective.
The third example of Time, Continuity and Change comes from our discussion and analysis on political advertisements. I had the students watch many of the ads available at the Living Room Candidate Website. I was looking more for an analysis of the emotion, truth, and style aspects of the ads but the students brought up a great point about Change and I ran with it. One of the students commented that all the old ones were terrible, and for the most part Bush and Obama’s were excellent. So I asked why we thought that was. The following conversation dealt with improvements in technology, communication, and polling. We talked about how over time everything having to do with elections changed and is still changing. I was very happy with the discussion.
I thought this was one of my all-star performance Themes. The funny part is that the most influential Time, Continuity, and Change conversations were not even planned. They just happened. I think this is a testament to the intelligence of the students and my knowledge of what appropriate tangents are and what does not qualify. The lesson plan below is an example of a planned lesson dealing with Time, Continuity, and Change. Moving forward, I do not see incorporating this theme in my teaching a problem. It will come up regardless of how I plan or what I do. As I said before, it is at the very heart of history.