Like many pre-service educators, I often get asked why I want to be a social studies teacher. For me, the answer is simple: I want to teach because I want to make a difference, but more importantly, I want teach because I want my students to make a difference. Given this driving passion, I am thrilled by the recent release of The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Inquiry in Social Studies State Standards, which brings civic engagement to the forefront of social studies instruction.
Now more than ever, our students need to be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and wherewithal to become active and engaged citizens in America. We must teach them to ask big questions, and expect big answers in return. I firmly believe that if we can make inquiry and deliberation second nature to our students, they can restore civility to civil discourse in our nation.
But this is no small feat. While the goals of the C3 sounds great in theory, many teachers—especially pre-service teachers—may see implementing the Framework as a Sisyphean task. Sure, the idea of inquiry-based education sounds great, but so does getting tenure. For many pre-service teachers, the idea of exploring uncharted instructional territory is terrifying. We barely trust ourselves, let alone the students. And that really is what the C3 requires teachers to do. In order for the C3 to be successful, we as teachers must be willing to honor the capacity that our kids have to think deeply, and trust that they’ll get somewhere when they do. By giving students the chance to communicate their conclusions and develop new ideas, we can give them agency both in our classrooms and in our democratic republic.
In the months ahead, I intend to dig into the C3 Framework and make it my own. I think that as pre-service teachers, my colleagues and I are uniquely situated to bring the C3 to life. Unlike in-service teachers, we have ample time to brainstorm about what the adoption of the Framework will look like in our future classrooms. As we work to complete our teacher education programs, we have the opportunity to thoroughly explore the four dimensions of the C3, and experiment with creative ways of putting inquiry-based instruction into practice as we student teach. Under the watchful eyes of our university professors and cooperating teachers, we can purposefully craft our instructional habits to best support the C3’s implementation. In our coursework, we can work on formulating our own compelling questions, and practice the processes we’ll expect of our future students. If we dedicate ourselves to gaining a deep understanding of the Framework before we begin our careers, we’ll be able to hit the ground running.
I encourage my fellow pre-service teachers to see themselves as change-agents in social studies education. Take this year to get creative with the C3. Teach like your country depends on it—because it does.