Challenging Aspect of Teaching Junior/Intermediate Social Studies

Issue:
        I think that the biggest social studies topic in the junior intermediate grade level that I think I may have a challenge teaching is the Grade 6 unit on Communities in Canada, Past and Present. I think that this may be a challenge to me because of how I personally view the Early Settlers of Canada as people who destroyed the culture of the aboriginal peoples. As a teacher you have to be able to teach both sides of the story and not allow your bias to show in your lessons. Another issue that was brought up, was the teaching of Civics, because not many of my peers feel comfortable or knowledgable enough about Politics to teach it.

Strategies to Overcome:

       There are a few strategies that I thought of when reading some of my peers posts on Challenging SS topics. Ellena had written that she thought that civics would be difficult to teach because she is not well informed on politics or is very interested in it. I think personal interest is important in regards to making kids feel like you know what you are teaching, but civics is also a great course that allows for group conversations. Instead of speaking at the students you can have conversations about what is happening in the world and what the students feel about current political events etc. MY civics teacher never had formulaic lesson plans but rather just let the class discuss their ideas and formulate their own opinions and he would jump in and point out things that students said, such as give proper definitions or further examples/question prompts. 

http://www.firstnations.de/indian_land.htm

          In addition I noticed that many people similarly thought that the Canada and the Global Community unit or the Early Settler units might be difficult in regards to race relations and generalizations/biases. I think a strategy would be to not make any generalizations but instead just give facts from both sides and allow students to formulate their own opinions. You could also maybe do inquiry projects where students gather information and form their own opinions and then discuss as a class.