We claim at 4QM Teaching that there are four social studies thinking skills and that one of them is “narration,” the ability to tell a true story about human interaction accurately and coherently. Now, since storytelling is ubiquitous and, as cognitive scientists tell us, “psychologically privileged,” you might think that there’s not much there to… Read more »
Is your pedagogy student centered? Are your assessments authentic? Is your curriculum relevant to today’s students? Are your lessons focused on 21st-century skills rather than mere content? If so, you’re an educational progressive. We’re not. At 4QM we’ve recently taken to calling ourselves “neo-traditionalists.” Here are three defining characteristics of our approach. We believe that… Read more »
This post is by guest author Christopher Blake Waller, of Center Middle School in Center, Texas. When I first became an educator, I wanted what every educator wants for their students. I wanted them to master the content, to demonstrate growth, to think critically, to be challenged, and to have opportunities to develop meaningful, transferable… Read more »
This post is also available on our Substack. We have a motto at 4QM: Story First! We even made “Story First!” stickers. I have one on my computer. It’s a good conversation starter when I’m working at a coffee shop. “Story First!” condenses an argument about how to teach and learn social studies well. Students… Read more »
This post is also available on our substack. And while you’re on substack, you might want to check out this teacher, who also simplifies lesson design, for some of the same reasons we do! Do you remember the first time you had to make a PowerPoint deck? Maybe it was for a school or work… Read more »
This post comes to us from Tyler Schumacher, a fifth grade teacher in Ann Arbor, Michigan. You can also read it on our Substack. My sixth year of teaching, which happened to be my first year teaching fifth grade, was supposed to be the year I finally got social studies right. I’d spent previous years… Read more »
This post is also available on our substack. In my last post – Dear Teachers: Don’t Write Curriculum. Demand It. – I argued that subject teachers need a full-blown curriculum as basic equipment for their job, and that it’s their school or district’s responsibility to provide it for them. Briefly, writing curriculum and classroom teaching… Read more »
You can also find this blog post on our Substack. I was 39 when I started teaching high school social studies. Before that, I had lectured and conducted seminar discussions in a university setting for over a decade. So, assume that I knew almost nothing about teaching. When I started, my department chair – now… Read more »
Most social studies teachers and curriculum writers think it’s very important that students work with primary sources, and we agree, with some key caveats. We’ve seen a lot of primary source based lessons that don’t go very well. Our work this year with teachers at an urban charter school in the northeast and with district… Read more »
Drew Perkins runs ThoughtStretchers, an organization committed to improving instruction on all grade levels. His url is “wegrowteachers,” which pretty much says it all! Drew’s latest podcast features Gary and Jon in conversation about knowledge and inquiry in social studies. Check it out! The ThoughtStretchers Podcast: Knowledge-Rich Inquiry With 4QM Teaching