REFLECTIONS

Individuals, groups, and institutions play an important role in the field of social studies education.  Social studies teachers should posses the knowledge concerning various individuals, groups, and institutions.  Individuals, groups, and/or institutions somehow affect everything in social studies.  Just about every lesson should incorporate some or all aspects of this NCSS theme.

The Virginia Standards of Learning clearly make individuals, groups, and institutions very important in the social studies.  As a future educator in the state of Virginia, I must adhere by the standards of learning.  Because of this, I try to incorporate individuals, groups, and institutions into every lesson I plan.  It is very important for students to understand why things happen.

One lesson where individuals, groups, and institutions played a key part was my lesson on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  The class was studying World War II and I was trying to teach the students how the Japanese fought throughout the war.  Students need to understand how groups and institutions affect the actions of people and nations.  This is really important when studying World War II and the manner in which the Japanese fought.

When planning this lesson, I knew I needed to make sure that I incorporated the role of the kamikaze and the to the death tactics of many Japanese soldiers.  As a social studies teacher, these are very important parts of the Japanese war strategy.  It is also important to study why suicide tactics were used and who sanctioned them.  In this lesson I used discussion and film clips to demonstrate my points.

The students seemed very interested in how the Japanese fought.  I posed the question what would they die for.  Many had trouble coming up with answers and many more laughed when they saw kamikaze pilots crashing into American ships.  They were not laughing because they thought it was funny; it was more of a why would you do that laugh.  Following the discussion, the students seemed to come away with a better understanding and appreciation of the subject matter; a goal which all social studies teachers should have upon completion of a lesson.

In the future, I will treat individuals, groups, and institutions with the same degree of respect as I do now.  Even before ever reading the NCSS themes and indicators, these three components were always very important to me as a student of the social studies.  Understanding why people do what they do is a key to understanding why events take place.