TPE 1 Specific Pedagogical Skills for Subject Matter Instruction

Social Studies teachers have the joy of teaching the dynamic study of human history and shoring up the critical thinking skills of the young scholars that will impact future generations who will change the the course of human history. It is a great responsibility to teach the students the skills of reading primary and secondary source documents that provide various view points of a singular event while also having the students question and analyze the information they are given and push they're thinking beyond what has been explored. It is also an important subject because it gives the young scholars the context as to why their current reality is the way it is and what is their impact going to be on the history of humankind. It is beautiful subject to teach.

At my current school site, myself and the other teachers of the history department have written up an overview of what is to be taught and studied in our offered history courses: World Cultures, U.S. History, African-American Studies, Raza Studies, Government, and finally Political Economy. This has been written in order to define our social justice approach in the curriculum and as to what way we use writing to have the students create their own historical documents. We aim to have every student be a historian. In the overview, we also define the expected learning outcomes for all students and identify what are the specific standards that we focus on in our studies. Street Academy also requires students to engage in Political Action, where they get involved in an outside organization or political group and write a relfection on what they're action was and why was it significant. It has been made as a requirement to encourage students to be involved in their city and communities. This process also helps the student to understand their own power to make a change as a political being. The Social Studies overview is attached.