Variety: A social studies teacher's biggest goal, help, and trouble all in one word. Sound simplistic? Well, I can think of many different ways just off the top of my head in which variety is important to middle school social studies classrooms. Variety comes in many forms in this kind of classroom. A variety of students fill the desks, with a diverse set of backgrounds. They come to learn a subject that seems to run the gamet of topics, from history to economics to psychology and more. To add further variety, students learn the many of the other "core" classroom subjects within social studies lessons (historical responses to Darwin's theory of evolution and Uncle Tom's Cabin as an influence in abolitionism, to name a few). I see the biggest impact of the word "variety" as three roles:
First, teachers strive to achieve variety in intentional lessons and assessments. This helps to address students' varied learning needs and strengths. For example, some students prefer to listen to teachers speak, while others prefer small group discussion as ways to learn and explore new information. Vonny, a physics teacher, surveyed students to find that student preferences include all types of learning and review, suggesting the value in many different methods. Similarly, assessing student learning through a variety of methods (tests, essays, presentations, various performance assessments, informal assessments, etc.) help to ensure that each student can faces an assessment that meets their strengths. Some students are excellent at memorizing facts but not at creating something new from the material, while others can write excellent essays but find multiple choice tests tricky.
Another way variety fits in the middle school classroom is in Social Studies' natural tendency to include variety. I know my middle school social studies classes included units on geography in addition to history. It only makes sense that the teacher would use different methods to teach the fifty states than he would use to teach the creation of the U.S. Constitution. If I remember correctly, the former involved more memorization, while the latter involved the creation of a class constitution. This variety also increases motivation, as it is easier to sit through the "less interesting" material when there is hope of a more interesting subject or sub-subject to come.
Finally, has the potential to create problems when students change schools. Since standards in MN currently apply to ranges of grade levels, different schools and districts may decide when to teach each subject or topic. This means that a student coming from outside the district may have already learned some topics planned for the upcoming year and missed some topics that the district teaches in younger grades. My school had that problem because its middle school attracted students from a wide variety of parochial and public schools in the East Metro area of the Twin Cities. Some students learned Geography in sixth grade, while my school focused almost exclusively on Minnesota history prior to middle school. How can a school/teacher catch a newcomer up on prior knowledge and include the student in regular lessons without overwhelming or boring said student?
This has been a very long ramble, and it seems fairly unusual. Why, after all, would I choose variety as such an important concept to discuss? Well, probably because it created my love of social sciences years ago and frightens me now. I loved the ways in which social studies allowed me to learn about history, today, math (economics), science (psychology), literature, and more. My families took me to many museums, which emphasize the many different ways in which social sciences play an active role in many aspects of life. On the other hand, variety means that I as a teacher will need to be constantly on my toes. I'll need to pay constant attention to my students needs and simultaneously act upon these observations. So, in spite of the many details of social studies, one generalization currently stares me in the face: Variety is essential.
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