Your+Drive+to+School

The purpose of this activity is twofold: 1. to introduce yourself to the class 2. to begin thinking about social studies issues as resting outside of the classroom, in and of the world, and then how to bring that "in" to the classroom.

What to Do: 1. Provide a brief introduction of who you are, what and where you teach, and your general commitments to social studies education. 2. Conceptualize your drive to school as a social studies lesson of sorts. To begin, ask yourself how culture, authority, power, economics, and history are evident in your drive to work every day. What can you learn about your community, the way it connects to other places, people, and systems (both "inside" and "outside" of the community) from what you see on this drive? Do you see politics of race, gender, class, sexuality? How? Do you see privilege? Power? Once you have explore these questions, then describe the ways in which your students might understand these same things, how you approach them in your classroom (or if not, why not) and why.