Posted on April 09, 2024 in response to ToriSS In response to ToriSS
What interesting topics you teach Tori! I like that social studies is wrapped into humanities. That seems to give it lots of flexibility. Love the emphasis on geography!
I’m a former credentialed history teacher who now works in professional learning focusing on digital. I’ve also taught Journalism, digital photography, video production, web design, etc. 😊. Currently I’m working with high school teachers and facilitating in a Library of Congress funded Teachers Network (TPS Teachers Network) that focuses on primary sources from the Library of Congress (back to my history roots!) along with integrating digital tools in learning.
Chatting with some of the ADEs around the world, it got me thinking about what we call subjects where we live and what we teach. As such, I thought it would be interesting to discuss this very topic and share what we are all teaching this year. That might make it a little more streamlined for when we share resources and activities for different topics.
I live in Victoria, Australia. We don't call the area Social Studies, but rather Humanities. This encompasses Geography, History and Civics. At my school (and this is pretty common), one teacher would have students for Humanities in Years 7, 8 or 9. You would usually do a semester of Geography and a semester of History with the same teacher. In Year 10, it is more likely for these subjects to be stand-alone semester-based subjects - eg. History with one teacher, Geography with another, Economics and so forth. In Year 11 and 12, students do the VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education), where each subject is made up of four units, each unit going for a semester. It is a little confusing for an outsider, I am sure!
This year, I have Year 7 Humanities, Year 8 English and Year 12 History (Revolutions). In Term 1, the Year 7s were looking at ancient Australia. After the Easter break, in Term 2, we will look Ancient Egypt. In Semester 2, the focus flips to Geography, with the focus being on liveability and water.
My Year 12s are studying the French and Russian Revolutions and will sit a major exam on this at the end of the year.
I would love to hear what everyone else is teaching and what subject areas are called where you live.