Content-Free Social Studies Classroom

Instead of teaching social studies as a series of events to be remembered, connect events to what is going on today.

In 7th grade we are studying the Eastern Hemisphere. Protests in Ukraine and Thailand, a civil war in Syria, events in North Korea, and tension between China and Japan has made it easier for me to help the students understand:

• the geography of these places,
• the government types of the countries
• economic concepts (embargo, boycott, trade, EU, GDP, etc.)
• historical events that shaped these areas (Arab Spring, collapse of the USSR, 9/11, Korean War, WWII,....)

I feel that with good discussion and access to technology, social studies should be taught from a current events perspective. They want to know why these events are happening. Recent historical events (if they were truly significant) would connect to events of today. It wouldn't be us telling them which events were important, but them discovering how past and present connect.
I refer to it as "The Content-Free SS Classroom." Which doesn't make my curriculum director too comfortable, but I have students much more interested in SS than I have had in the past.

I explain this a little better in a talk from last year.    http://youtu.be/yrYGFdzQSmg