Five Challenges Facing Social Studies Educators Today
In 2019, we wrote about the challenges of teaching social studies in the contemporary classroom. Several years and a global pandemic later, much of what we shared still rings true.
Teachers are still engaging in the delicate balancing act of accommodating for the unique needs of individual students while adhering to school, district, and state requirements. Instructional minutes for social studies are decreasing and yet teachers are still expected to teach content and prepare their students for active and engaged civic lives.
A few things have changed since 2019–namely, the social studies classroom has become the center of a national debate on curriculum. Across the nation the way social studies is taught, how the content is selected, and the stories and narratives included are being questioned.
Let’s take a look at the challenges facing social studies classrooms today and how we can help alleviate the burden educators are facing:
Accessing high-quality instructional materials for the social studies classroom
Many students entering the social studies classroom are reading way below grade level
1. Accessing high-quality instructional materials for the social studies classroom
When it comes to social studies content, a common pitfall can be the materials themselves. We want our students to engage deeply, ask questions, explore competing viewpoints, and build skills to support college, career, and civic readiness. Unfortunately, legacy materials (like textbooks) often fall short of this goal. And while some decision-makers still believe these legacy materials are providing good value in the classroom, teachers don’t always share that perspective. A Newsela report revealed that while district and school administrators believed social studies teachers use their textbooks as “core content” for their students up to 15 days per month, instructors reported using them only 6 days a month!
So if teachers don't use textbooks, what do they use? The majority of teachers report sourcing their own content from multiple websites; a practice requiring considerable time and effort. Turning elsewhere for content and lesson materials also raises issues of quality and consistency, increasing the risk of using sources that haven’t been properly vetted. Newsela, and resources like ours, provides fully vetted content and pre-made activities developed by social studies curriculum experts that teachers can rely on to be appropriate, engaging, and reflective of students’ needs–in addition to being course-aligned and tailored to meet state or district standards.
2. Many students entering the social studies classroom are reading way below grade level
Even if teachers do have access to high quality instructional materials, many students are unable to access them. So much of secondary social studies instruction is rooted in text-based analysis and it's often hard and time consuming for teachers to differentiate instruction for students with varying reading levels in their class. In elementary classes, teachers end up spending more and more time on out-of-context reading skills practice to help bolster literacy at the expense of social studies classroom minutes. The irony is that social studies and literacy are symbiotic. The more time you spend in social studies, the greater the reading gains.
The result? Students are not gaining the critical skills and knowledge they need to be successful in college, career, and civic life.
It’s time to invest in improving literacy skills through social studies, and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts. Newsela Social Studies can help all students access grade-level social studies concepts with scaffolded materials and activities that can provide extra support in building key social studies concepts and skills, and improve students’ literacy skills along the way.
3. Navigating and teaching real-world issues in the classroom
As students are exposed to more global issues and political discourse it naturally spills into schools. Teachers—especially social studies teachers—have the unique and sometimes heavy responsibility to sift news from noise and empower students with information to help them understand their world.
An inquiry-based approach to teaching provides students space to examine and evaluate these real-world issues, ask hard questions, and still learn what’s required by the standards. Paired with instructional content that is flexible enough to capture the nuance of history, teachers can help students to examine history and current events through multiple perspectives. We can also support students as they grow by promoting discussions and debates within the classroom. These conversations need to be structured, and providing students with guidance and guardrails for discourse in school can help keep the academic conversations focused and productive.
Professional development in inquiry-based and student-led learning can help lay the foundation you need to provide students with the support they need to engage their own curiosity and paths of discovery.
4. Making social studies relevant to students' lives
Social studies is often dubbed “the boring class” by students who think it's all just memorization of a bunch of irrelevant facts unrelatable to their daily lives. But we know that the skills developed in social studies classrooms can give students the ability to navigate today’s most pressing and challenging issues. So how do you bridge that divide?
Relying on textbooks and memorization doesn’t work. Effective instructional strategies paired with high-quality materials that reflect the experiences of students have a better chance of keeping them engaged and interested when learning. Tapping into the authentic and rich stories history holds ensures students are presented with opportunities to construct knowledge and build a deeper understanding within the subject area.
5. Support in breaking habits learned during the pandemic
Many students picked up counterproductive habits during the pandemic–everything from phoning it in during Zoom classes, to constantly scrolling TikTok, to Googling every response. Now ChatGPT and other AI tools compound students’ temptation to take shortcuts. Letting these habits go unchecked could potentially lead to an increase in behavioral issues within the classroom. But it's understandable that teachers may not have the necessary time or resources to address all of these issues and foster a love of learning.
With staffing issues, teacher burnout, and the potential disappearance of pandemic-era funding for mental health support, resources to create motivation and belonging for students may run scarce. While the counselors, professional development, and training to build students’ comprehensive skills for emotional regulation cannot be replaced (and should be fully funded), other resources like instructional materials can help maintain consistency for social and emotional learning.
By integrating social-emotional learning into the subject matter, creating routines, and engaging students with materials relevant to their lives and identities, teachers can make a significant difference in building better habits and fostering a sense of belonging in school.
Need more resources to support your social studies classroom?