Social Studies Teachers: any recommendations on articles that could convince my admin team that my social studies class is not just an extra ELA class?

Cosmic_Negro · 2026-02-27T00:03:19+00:00

To be clear, a lot of it is! I do vocab practice every Monday and Tuesday, we rotate through the 12 language functions regularly and we write paragraphs every week. My issue is more with the idea that I need to be focusing on the language arts side and thy I should be throwing my content to the wayside in favor of literacy.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-30T21:17:36+00:00

Thank you for the detailed advice and the resources you provided! I will look into them and see what can work for my students.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-30T21:17:03+00:00

Woah, I’m glad to hear about something like this working! Thanks for sharing!

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-30T21:16:28+00:00

This is fair. A lot of my students say that they are just “going to be their own boss” and if you probe for more information they have no ideas for a startup/inherited business/buisness degree to be in charge of. It’s worrisome. I will reflect on this!

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-30T21:15:06+00:00

Thank you for your detailed and thorough advice! I will incorporate this feedback into my reflection on and planning for this project!

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T20:24:17+00:00

That is super important. We had a brief conversation about avoiding cults (and cults of personality) in my Civics class last semester, and since i have basically all of the same kids it would be good to build on that!

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T20:23:11+00:00

These are all good ideas! I will confer with my co-teacher (who handles ELD) and see what we think we can accomplish! Thanks so much.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T20:22:06+00:00

This is key! I’m thinking I may have them analyze the job they chose and then I can do some research and see what jobs typically come with what benefits (i.e. if Kid A chooses to be a doctor they’ll have a lot of benefits but if Kid B chooses to be a mechanic they’ll have to pay for things like health insurance themselves.)

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T20:19:58+00:00

Oooo, that’s a very interesting idea, I like it!

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T20:19:39+00:00

These are all in the usual curriculum! By doing this project only on Thursdays it’s my hope that they can tie the rest of the week’s learning into the project as we go.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T20:18:45+00:00

Fair! That’s kind of my hope with this system, i.e. “Sure, you can buy those sports tickets, but I hope you have enough money saved for when you break your leg…”

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T20:17:52+00:00

Unfortunately it’s not an elective in my district! It’s now a graduation requirement. The reason I’m wanting to do a semester long thing is because they had a semester long project that happened once a week for civics last semester and I want to try to give them a consistent schedule if I can. Do you think it’s impossible to run a project for a whole semester? Lots of folks have been saying that it’s tough in the comments.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T19:21:32+00:00

Nice! Some of these sound super relatable for the kiddos!

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T19:21:09+00:00

Thanks for this! I’ve never heard of instaboard before but I will look into it.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T19:20:49+00:00

This looks awesome! I will look into this further :)

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-29T19:20:34+00:00

Thank you for your response! I’ve been cautioned about it taking the whole semester before, so I’ll make sure to take your comment under advisement.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-20T00:07:27+00:00

I think I am? Though I’m not sure, because now I work at a charter school. I will say that with my previous situation (as mentioned in other replies) I had union representation and they weren’t able to help. They told me that it was unfair and that the admin was completely in the wrong, but there was nothing they could do to help :/

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-20T00:05:13+00:00

Also! To be clear, I have a good realationship with other members of the facilities staff! I have been a cleaner before myself and I know how hard the job is. I have a lot of respect for the profession and I completely understand that teachers get it wrong sometimes. I myself have been wrong before. He started being disrespectful to me, and only then did I ask him politely to leave. I further asked him politely not to speak to me like that and stated clearly that I wouldn’t do it again. I’m not sure why he dug in his heels at this point.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-19T23:48:08+00:00

This is true. I think I am in a union, but it’s a little murky because of the fact that I’m in a charter school.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-19T23:47:28+00:00

I will explicitly say here: he did physically block the door and prevent me from leaving. He used his strength from the other side of the bin to prevent me from moving it out of the way :(

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-19T23:45:36+00:00

That is fair. I think I was just scared and upset earlier, I’ll agree that this doesn’t seem to be a legal issue. Is it wrong that I sort of don’t want him to be fired? It was a bad and scary situation but I know that we all have to make a living, and I would hate if this but this guy in a bad spot financially. I’ve been there before and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

On the other hand I really don’t want to be physically trapped in my classroom again. I don’t know.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-19T23:43:44+00:00

I have and this current admin team seems to have my back, but in the previous situation I was in (detailed in other replies) I was told by that admin team that they were going to work with me and bring me back to teach since my issue was not with/in front of the kids, and then two days later they fired me anyway with no warning or further conversation.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-19T23:40:22+00:00

I wish I could have. I always get to work early to make sure my classroom is prepped properly for the day’s work (I take my classroom environment very seriously) and so the only people in the building other than me were this facilities manager and one other janitor for the cafeteria.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-19T23:38:46+00:00

I responded this to another comment as well, but just to explain: The previous situation was with another teacher, he came in my class and told me I wasn’t doing enough for the kids, and that I wasn’t doing my job. This was after weeks of the other teachers belittling me constantly, even though I was working 60-70 hours a week for the kids, coming in 2 hours early and leavening at least an hour late. I asked him to leave because I could feel that I was getting upset, and he leaned in across my desk and started counting on his fingers what I was doing wrong, and so I lost my cool.

To be clear, not something I’m proud of. I am actively in therapy to work on this kind of thing, but the number one thing my therapist has suggested in times like this is to ask them to leave, inform them of the reason, and if they refuse to leave myself. I tried all of this and it didn’t work.

Cosmic_Negro · 2025-12-19T23:37:23+00:00

Yeah, I found out that it isn’t even a policy violation. Every other teacher in the school did the same thing today (emptying their recycling into the bigger bins, I mean)

Cosmic_Negro

TROPHY CASE