Drawing upon a national perspective finely tuned to the political and economic forces characterizing the current educational environment, Ms. Griffin articulate a vision for the social studies that places effective citizenship as its core mission, past, present, and future.
Viewing social studies as “….the best of times,” Ms. Oakland provides an alternative to the current trend that trivializes the social studies by placing citizenship education on the margins of the curriculum. She envisions a school of tomorrow where social studies presents sophisticated content, instructional variety, and effective us of student time and a window to the world.
Focuses on the active role of Iowa's many effective Social studies teachers when painting a bright future for the discipline. Despite the political and economic forces that are coupled to cripple the forward momentum of many social studies teachers, Dr. Fehn asserts that, "...brilliant teachers will continue to help students approach worthy and ambitious national standards in history, civics, geography and other social sciences.”
Constructs a wish list for the future of Social studies that unleashes the potential of technology to revolutionize how instruction in the social sciences is delivered. Noting that predicting the future is an imprecise science at best, she conceives the future of the discipline immutably linked to the potential of technology in sharpening critical thinking and information processing skills of students.
The authors look to the past for a window on the future. Drawing on Aimee's experience at the elementary level and Todd's at the secondary level, they suggest that the future of social studies lies in preservation of the past. They provide concrete illustrations where multiple community resources such as local cemeteries, personal memories and endangered architecture, provide the content and the incentive for effective instruction into the future.
Confronts the dangers of the current political and educational environment that places social studies on the margins of the classroom. Advocating for the values of social studies, he presents the social sciences as companions to the curriculum rather than a competitors for resources. He concludes by effectively articulating the indispensable place and indisputable promise each of the social science disciplines hold for the curriculum and for the future.
Writing from an international perspective, the author places a fitting capstone on this edition of the ICSS Journal. Placing legs squarely under the ideals put forward by the other contributors to this issue, her article bridges the digital divide as well as the generation gap. Senior citizens learn to use current technology from elementary-age "technology teachers who in turn learn about the past while collecting oral histories from their 'senior' friends.