Perhaps one of the trickiest aspects of teaching about society, is that all societal issues are framed by the perspective/worldview that people have. For example, any of us teaching about the value of conservation to primary aged learners are likely to be coming from an 'Environmental' worldview. However, such a worldview has so many different threads shaped by different assumptions, that the approach that we take to teaching 'environmental matters' requires conscious deliberation if children are not to receive a narrow representation of environmentalism over a five or six year period.
With this in mind I couldn't help be reminded of how difference of opinion about societal issues is framed by worldviews this morning, after talking to a colleague who was irate because:
1. He had been cut up by a fellow motorist
2. He had read a Ministry of Education advertisement for the 'Aspire' scholarships, in which a few million dollars is being spent on 'low income' children to attend private schools.
Because I cannot print what he said about his fellow motorist, I shall paraphrase what he said about the MoE scholarship scheme: "How can they justify spending the public purse on private schools in this way?" Well, my social studies antennae started waving and I started thinking how such a an issue might have real currency for children in our classrooms studying an "Access to Resources" theme. Particularly because different arguments about such an initiative are likely to be framed by some very strong worldviews.
The following blog offers a 'socialist/Marxist' worldview to frame the initial argument (courtesy of John Minto) while the backlash in the comments are largely typical of a 'market-driven' worldview.
Perspectives are one of the ways of 'raising the intellectual bar' in New Zealand social studies education that may lead to quality 'big picture' thinking as youngsters try to make sense of the world in which they live.
It may be a start simply to identify what worldviews/perspectives are well represented in children's learning about society and which could be further emphasised. These may include bicultural perspectives, multicultural perspectives, gender perspectives, cultural perspectives, social justice perspectives, environmental perspectives, current perspectives, and future perspectives.
Yes I agree that the perspectives you have suggested are a good place to start but we can go much further. I was recently quite disturbed to find how quickly my year 10 students could start using some pretty substantial persepectives so we can't afford to dwell on the 7-8 really broad concepts you mention for too long. We were learning about how natural disasters are made worse through social, economic and political conditions and chose to focus on Hurricane Katrina as a class. Students had to present a "paper" at a class conference on what made this disaster worse from a perspective I gave them. Each pair had a manilla folder with a whole bunch of internet articles that related to one of the following perspectives: Feminism, eco-justice, social justice, human rights, critical/marxist theory, and environmentalism. From these readings they had to report on Hurricane Katrina from the perspective given. It was interesting how quickly even so-called "average" students were using theory usually, (if at all) encountered at university. My expectations have been way too low for far too long!
ReplyDeleteHey there DDR, to what extent did you have to introduce this range of perspectives to the students before they used them to filter the Hurricane Katrina event? Did you cover the entire range with the class or were you more selective? Perhaps you considered some perspectives more challenging than others, and dished them out according to the differents abilities/interests in your class?
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