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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are lots of ways to teach social studies that are NOT random whitewashed lessons in US History. My 2nd grader, in the past two years, has learned: what makes a community and how different types of communities may be structured; civics, including voting and other rights; structure of local and other governments; markets and money, etc.  Critical thinking about citizenship and society is just as important, if not more important, as fluency in STEM skills.[/quote]

Those all seem like concepts that are not really suited for elementary education.  I'd rather see more focus on reading, writing, and math; plus a good social-emotional curriculum.  Pushing abstractions without the necessary maturity ("critical thinking about citizenship"??) and random facts about voting and markets just seems like a waste of time.  There's a reason the Common Core includes only math and English.  (PS I feel the same way about all specials, not just social science and science.)  In my ideal world school would be 2 hours of math, 2 hours of english, 1 hr of PE, 1 hour of lunch and recess.  Real music and art classes  (where kids make focused, sustained efforts) can be after school.  [/quote]

I think this is a decent point, but I do think there must be room for science.  Exploring growing plants from seeds, nature, bodies, experiments, construction (pre-physics), animals (caterpillars to butterflies, baby chick, tadpole, something...) is totally natural, interesting, and curiosity-fostering for little children.  Science has the potential to be one of the most exciting parts of the day for little ones.  I am very opposed to making science part of language arts.  Reading about a science-related theme or writing a poem or paragraph about it is fine, but it's no way to LEARN about science topics.  And I'm a lawyer, not even a person in any science-related field.  It just seems like it all meshes very well with the elementary-aged kid's mind and enthusiasm for learning about the world around them.[/quote]

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