Culture is a critical component for social studies teachers to address in their classrooms. When a social studies teacher addresses culture in their classroom, they look at a social group’s religion, language, music, sports customs, and other activities or customs that make that group unique. An individual’s culture is a major part of their identity, including my own. Throughout history and especially today there is an abundance of cultural diversity across the world. There is also an abundance of cultural diversity across the United States and in Virginia. I have seen during my four years at Virginia Tech that people from different regions of the Commonwealth, America, and the world bring different cultural experiences to the classroom. Cultural diversity is a great thing, as social studies teachers should help students celebrate and understand the importance of cultural diversity in the classroom.

     During the past year I have begun to address cultural diversity in the classroom and will continue to do so throughout my teaching career. My study of different cultures across the world in undergraduate history and religion courses at Virginia Tech, as well as Richard Bland College have given me great insight into different cultures across the world. Some of the courses I have taken involving the study of culture include Cultural Geography, Comparative Religion and the Modern World, World Regions, History of the Balkans (see Evidence 4), and History of Japan. These courses have helped prepare me to address culture in my social studies classroom.

     In the Fall 2013 Michael Smith and I prepared an NCSS lesson on comparing the three monotheistic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (see Evidence 1). This lesson did a very good job of addressing culture because religion is a primary part of a person’s culture including my own. This lesson was able to demonstrate to our methods classmates that these three faiths have many cultural similarities between each other. I think the lesson also demonstrated that the three faiths have some cultural differences that make each religion unique and that cultural diversity should be celebrated.  In Spring 2014 during my student teaching in 6th Grade US History to 1865, three lessons in particular stood out in terms of addressing culture. These lessons were on the women’s suffrage movement, abolitionist movement, and the causes of the Civil War (see Evidence 2 and 3). All three lessons helped students see how nineteenth century culture in America was much different than it is today. Students were also able to see through these lessons how America has become more culturally tolerant of other people than in the past.

     Culture is a critical aspect of social studies that I will have to continue to address in my future teaching. Culture is an easy topic to address more frequently in certain social studies classes than others. Personally, I thought US History to 1865 was a more difficult class in which to address culture because the SOL’s tended not to focus on culture. I also could have done a better job focusing on culture where I had the opportunity to do so. Most of my lessons dealt with American culture during that time period in US history; however, I could have done a better job mentioning this was how American culture was back then. If I teach Cultural Geography or World History courses in the future, I will have more opportunities to teach students the importance of culture in a society. I will also be able to help students be able to compare different cultures and celebrate the cultural diversity resulting from it.

 

 

Evidence