I remember Social Studies pretty well, which seems odd because going through elementary school, junior high, and high school I remember that we'd constantly talk about how boring it was. Social Studies in the early years was all about our community. The neighborhood, policeman, fireman, the mayor, the library. We learned to read a map before Google and Apple put us on the map. Then we studied cities, regions, US History (never getting to Vietnam) and World History. We learned the Constitution and why it was written. In the end, it was about a bunch of mostly dead people that set up rules so we could live in one place. Social Studies was the past and the present. It wasn't our future. Maybe that's why my generation, Generation X, had so many movie about feeling disconnected from society (Breakfast Club, Reality Bites, etc.) Our learning about society was about a world we had no control of yet in everything else we were learning skills to observe and build in our world. It was a great disconnect.
Apparently, whether we learned it in school or not, we found our voice. As I read my Facebook feed this weekend, the normally white background with blue trimming has turned the rainbow colors of a cereal bowl with a half-eaten collection of Lucky Charms. There are two themes that go through my timeline, individuals on "both sides of the aisle" sharing #lovewins and my staunchest Republican friends complaining about leaders who advocate about getting rid of the courts. I have lived and worked in "liberal" and "conservative" communities. The thing is, both titles are fueled by ideas of the past not visions of possible futures. Versions of Reagan and Bush's healthcare plan has become the "Obamacare" or "Affordable Care Act" of the present. The Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act was named after Reagan's White House press secretary, James Brady. Ideas that political parties want to capitalize on as being "liberal" or "conservative" are truly encapsulations of our past not visions of our future.
While we didn't learn social action as part of Social Studies, it was being taught somewhere because it is evident in my timeline. Perhaps we learned it from Sesame Street and Raffi. Social Studies is more than our past and our present. It needs to also be about our future. We need to understand the frameworks of our society and discuss what it could mean. Encourage children to question structures that deny individuals liberties and rights. We need to prepare them and ourselves for an active future which may not be the same as our present. If we are preparing students for an ever-changing society, one in which job markets and careers constantly evolve, perhaps we also need to prepare them for a society in which prejudices and generalizations of generations past are not those of our future. Perhaps we can encourage them to envision a world not trapped in the judgements of their parents and grandparents generations. Raising children for the future means preparing them to be more than workers. It is our job to help them become leaders and difference makers. In the words of Google, "Don't be Evil" and of Apple "To Leave the World a Better Place Than We Found It."
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