Social Studies is different from a lot of other academic fields, for it is a cross between the extreme subjectivity of math and the the objectivity of English. Thus, for a Social Studies teacher, there are a lot of difficulties that can arise when trying to create a curriculum, including concerns about bias and properly assess students.
Bias
The biggest problem in implementing a Social Studies curriculum is dealing with bias. All human beings are prone to bias, be it latent or obvious. This is especially true when dealing with history, as there is so much that an individual must choose to forgo in order to present a lesson. One way to mitigate this in your classroom is to give students a lecture on bias before you start with any material. Make it clear that while bias can be overt (e.g., racism or sexism), it can also be subtle, and a good Social Studies student must account for all possible angles.
Different Voices
Similar to bias is the concern over different voices when examining primary documents (e.g., material that actually comes from the time being studied). For example, when studying the treatment of Native Americans by colonists in the United States, you may find a lot of primary documents from colonists, but significantly fewer from Native Americans. Be sure that students understand the importance of considering the other perspective; one way to do this is to have them write a creative piece that shows the point of view from a group that is under-represented in the historical documents.
What to Teach?
Determining what to teach in a Social Studies curriculum is one of the most difficult behind-the-scenes roles that the teacher has because history is so complex, but the realities of a school curriculum make it difficult to cover anything else besides the bare bones. For example, if you're planning a unit on the Civil War, but only have four weeks, how do you determine what to teach and what to cut? One way to show students the complexities of Social Studies is to give each of them an individual project on one minor aspect of the unit and have them teach the class for fifteen minutes on this "unimportant" aspect.
Assesments
Social Studies straddles the objective and subjective fields, and thus its assessments must reflect this. While its important that students understand the objective facts about history such as dates and names, its is equally important that they understand the subjective such as why something happened and what the results were. As an educator, you must determine what percentage of their tests will involve objective questions and what percentage will involve subjective analysis. One way to mitigate this is to have the test be entirely objective, with a take-home essay supplementing it.
Tags: Social Studies, dealing with, determine what, have them, important that, mitigate this, Native Americans