The Idea of America

Rationale

Citizenship, civic life, and civic values are important components of our social studies curriculum at the elementary level. Within these standards, students are instructed broadly about the symbols of citizenship and the rights, responsibilities, and roles of that citizenship. To expand the level of introduction, this curriculum unit approaches a more specific understanding of the idea of America through its unique symbols. We, as citizens, are exposed to a number of American symbols daily in our buildings, neighborhoods, and cities. As the students learn about themselves as American citizens, who they are and where they live, they will discover that the symbols that we see represent us, our country, and its history. For very young students, this learning comes through concrete, sensorial experiences, providing meaningful and relative understanding.

As a first-grade teacher in a self-contained classroom at Edgewood Magnet School in New Haven, I have a class of 25 six- and seven-year-olds. Our neighborhood/magnet school setting is a rewarding environment, with students coming to school each day from a range of home circumstances and differences in academic levels. These differences provide for a variety of life experiences and background knowledge. The school has an enrollment of about 450 students, with approximately 60% African-American, 12% Hispanic, and the remaining 28% Caucasian and Asian; we are proud of its high average daily attendance rate of 96%. Edgewood's mission supports an arts-integrated curriculum, an educational approach that embraces Dr. Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence theory. ¹ Because children learn though many different modalities, art forms – including music, visual art, theater, and dance – are used to enrich other core subjects, including language arts, math, social studies, and science. The diversity of the school and this approach to learning allows for collaboration that includes questioning, exploration, and discovery.

Awareness of our surroundings is an overarching mission of this unit. Students are immersed in an environment of objects that have certain meanings that are quite interesting and important. Although the specific goal throughout this unit is to illuminate the meaning embodied in America's symbols, an additional advantage and outcome is the realization that many objects around us have a story – a strategy to think beyond the visual and literal and begin to question and connect.

Each American symbol has a story to tell. In this curriculum unit, students experience American objects throughout the year by connecting them, in a timely way, to their own lives. The sequence will mirror the activities at school and around the community and country: understanding the flag and pledge of allegiance at the beginning of the school year, being aware of celebratory parades in October for Columbus Day and November for Veterans Day, decoding coins and currency in February for Presidents' Day, and additionally, finding out about the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, monuments, memorials, Uncle Sam, even postage stamps. Through this year long learning experience, questioning and inquiry are their guiding stars and stripes!