The Buckets by Greg Cravens for November 30, 2014

Is there a distinction drawn in HS today between history and social studies? In my day they were synonymous. I’ll have to ask my friend, the HS history teacher.

ABC CBS NBC CNN Social Studies journalist, So sad.

Sorry Sarah.

Checked in with my history teacher friend. I asked if there was “a distinction drawn between history and social studies in HS” among those who design curricula. This is what he said. "Theoretically at least they (the people who write the curriculum I suppose would be the they) always kind of did. “History” is part of the larger field of ‘social studies’; economics, geography, nationalism etc… might be other “topics” included in the larger field. Sometimes however it’s reversed; I teach global studies (we called it Afro-Asian “Studies” or World “History”) and the 11th grade course is American “History”. Po-ta-to, po-tah-to."

It certainly is on Fox.

My high school was large and had a college-like “choose your own adventure” approach to the curriculum. History, social studies, and the like was all lumped into the humanities elective requirement but with english and foreign languages separated out. I never took the social studies 1-6 courses, but a friend of mine did. Looking through her books, it seemed to be more of a holistic approach to american history, covering religion, economy, family life, art, architecture, fashion, celebrities, sex, drugs, rock and roll, etc.

Just because he doesn’t believe in it personally doesn’t mean that it has ceased to exist.

It’s a long time since you were at school, Sarah!

xxx