Rationale
My fifth grade students have been with me as their gifted teacher for the past four to five years. I have the opportunity to work with them as they mature and grow as both individuals and as students over the course of five to six years. They are academically advanced, but many times they struggle in engaging with their peers socially and struggle as well working in collaborative groups where the opinions of all should be taken into account. They can sometimes have the fixed mindset, “I’m smart and I want to make sure that I get the right answer.” If they are challenged in their thinking many times they cannot explain how they arrived at their conclusion. They say, “I don’t know how I know, I just know.”
My students have been identified as gifted based upon their classroom performance and/or criteria established by the district to signify advanced potential. They are often characterized by their teachers as “out-of-the-box” thinkers; however, they tend to take their textbooks as absolute truth. Due to their age and limited life experiences, they do not question the materials that are used to teach them about American history.
My fifth grade students come from diverse ethnic backgrounds and have academic abilities that are advanced when compared to other students in their age/grade levels. Their advanced abilities however do not always translate into content areas such as science and social studies. Many of them are excellent readers and have superior mathematical understanding but do not always use advanced reasoning skills to discover a deeper meaning. They are sometimes defined by their giftedness, and they feel that they have to know the right answers at the beginning of a study. They are afraid of being wrong and demonstrating to their peers that they do not always know the correct answer. They are not comfortable challenging their own thinking on a topic. They are used to being “smart,” which in their minds means, “If I don’t know the answer then it is not worth studying.” Using the Paideia method will assist them in breaking out of that fixed mindset and move towards a more growth mindset that says, “The more you challenge your mind to learn, the more your brain cells grow.” (1)
I want to challenge my students to use that “out-of-the-box” thinking to question the content of the text and images that provide them with background knowledge about the Revolutionary War, specifically the winter at Valley Forge narrative, and the important people involved in this pivotal time period. As Ray Raphael states, “These stories, invented long ago, persist in our textbooks and popular histories despite advances in recent scholarship that disprove their authenticity.” (2) It becomes paramount for students to realize that where information originates is as important as the actual information. Is this image text accurate in its portrayal of actual events or is it a tale that “is too good not to be told.”? (3) This question will be a key question during our discussions and investigation into this history of an often-told narrative about Valley Forge that appears in many student social studies texts. But is it true? How do we, as citizens, know that this particular retelling is the actual turn of events? Raphael argues that we can feel more comfortable in this ever-changing society as a people if we continue to draw upon honored traditions and stories that are the hallmark of American history. But this limits the full truth to be revealed and it also leaves out details that allow for individuals to study and participate in civil discourse that may lead to deeper understanding of who we are as a nation. This is why I want students to participate in a Socratic seminar method where they will learn ways to engage in civil discourse that takes others’ opinions into account before stating their own assumptions and puts an emphasis on listening first before responding.
I also want them to feel comfortable being able to defend their positions in small group discussions that will require them to provide evidence to back up their opinions and positions. This modeling of asking questions and learning how to respond to other’s conclusions appropriately are also necessary life skills that, unfortunately, are not being modeled by current political commentators.
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