Guess the Year

(1:11) First of all, last week I launched the podcast and can I just say, everybody should launch (1:15) something. (1:15) Everybody should launch something so that you can see how people hype you up. (1:21) Everybody talks about the trolls and they talk about like the meanies, but nobody talks (1:26) about the cheerleaders.

(1:28) I have had friends and family and people from high school that I haven’t seen in 20 years (1:33) and co-workers-in-law from 15 years ago. (1:36) I mean, I thought about naming everybody who has liked, commented, texted, signed up for (1:42) the newsletter, rated and reviewed, but I started naming that list and it got real (1:48) long and boring. (1:49) So thank you very much.

(1:52) You guys are the best. (1:53) And if you’re thinking of launching something and you’re scared because you think everybody’s (1:57) going to be mean, they’re not, or at least they’re not yet. (2:00) Maybe someday I’ll get famous enough that the trolls will come out.

(2:03) But right now, love you guys. (2:05) All right. (2:07) So let’s talk about the standards for social studies.

(2:12) What are standards? (2:14) Standards are a big document written by a group of experts that brainstorms everything (2:22) that a kid would need to know and be able to do by the time they graduate, in this case, (2:27) in social studies. (2:28) So the way they talk about it is it’s a framework for curriculum design to prepare students (2:35) for the challenges of citizenship in a democracy. (2:38) And this is why I love it.

(2:39) Like, the challenges of citizenship in a democracy, that’s chills. (2:45) I love that. (2:46) Like, we get a lot to talk about when it comes to challenges of citizenship in a democracy.

(2:51) This is not just like, what year was King George King? (2:55) This is like, how does it affect me in my everyday life, and how am I going to make (2:59) it relevant? (3:00) So anyway, I love standards. (3:02) I like to learn out on them. (3:03) Come with me for a little bit as we discuss them today.

(3:07) And why do we care? (3:08) I mean, I just love them because I love them. (3:10) But why do we care as parents? (3:13) One, it helps to know whether or not our kids are on track. (3:19) And it helps us to see what is the vision for what our kids should be able to do by the (3:25) time they graduate.

(3:27) And then from there, where are the entry points where we can start to provide support? (3:34) So we’re going to talk about all of those things. (3:37) But let’s start with what are these, what’s the high-level overview? (3:41) Let us dip our toe into these standards. (3:44) What’s the high-level overview of what they are? (3:47) There’s kind of two pieces to the National Council of Social Study Standards.

(3:52) One is the 10 themes of social studies, and that’s kind of the what they should be learning. (3:58) And then there’s the C3 framework, and that’s sort of the how. (4:03) It’s the college, career, and civic life.

(4:06) So first, let’s go over what the 10 themes of social studies are. (4:11) Number one, culture. (4:13) Two, time continuity and change.

(4:17) Three, people, places, and environments. (4:20) Four, individual development and identity. (4:25) Five, individuals, groups, and institutions.

(4:29) Six, power, authority, and governance. (4:33) Seven, production, distribution, and consumption. (4:39) Eight, science, technology, and society.

(4:42) Nine, global connections. (4:45) And 10, civic ideals and practices. (4:48) As I’ve been talking to people about this podcast, I think there are people who gravitate (4:56) towards the 10th one and think that that’s what we’re, what we need to do here in order (5:02) to develop citizens is just the civic ideals and practices.

(5:05) How do you vote and that sort of thing. (5:07) But what I love about it is that these experts have agreed with me that that’s only one-tenth (5:13) of what we’re addressing. (5:14) We’re addressing all these other things.

(5:16) So that’s the what. (5:18) And some of those are going to seem really familiar. (5:21) It’s the same way that I feel like it was framed out for us when we were kids.

(5:25) You have history, that’s kind of the time continuity and change. (5:28) You have geography, that’s the people, places, and environments. (5:32) Production distribution and consumption, hello economics.

(5:36) Those seem really familiar in those discrete separate topics of study that we learned about (5:44) as kids. (5:44) But then others are through lines that are meant to connect. (5:49) So like culture or global connections or individual groups and institutions.

(5:55) Those cut across all of those. (5:58) And as we look at the framework for college, career, and civic life, that’s kind of the (6:05) how. (6:05) So there’s four dimensions.

(6:07) One is developing questions and planning inquiries. (6:10) So the idea is we’re not just sitting in a lecture while an old guy probably with white (6:15) hair lectures us and tells us all these dates and then quizzes us to make sure that we’ve (6:20) memorized all these dates and places. (6:21) We’re developing questions and planning inquiries like how was the country started? (6:27) How was the USA founded? (6:30) So in there you could go into, well, this is when the Declaration of Independence was (6:33) written but also the Articles of Confederation didn’t happen until here.

(6:38) The war didn’t actually end until here. (6:39) We didn’t actually get together and actually meet up to talk about this until this year. (6:44) So it’s a little more complicated and a little bit more interesting.

(6:49) So that’s dimension one is the questions and inquiries. (6:51) Two is applying the disciplinary tools and concepts. (6:54) So this is civics, economics, geography, and history.

(6:57) Like you need to be able to use a map. (6:59) You have to know what a timeline is in history. (7:01) Those are kind of the tools and things like that.

(7:04) Three is evaluating sources and using evidence. (7:08) That connects really nicely to the English language reading and writing standards. (7:14) And then dimension four is communicating and taking informed action.

(7:19) So great. (7:20) You learned all this stuff. (7:21) Now what? (7:21) Can you tell that somebody else about it? (7:23) Can you make a plan to take action based on what you know now? (7:27) So that might be the same as you’ve been thinking about with social studies or for me, it was (7:32) a lot bigger.

(7:33) And also as I’m diving into these, I mean, understanding what the vision is and are my (7:38) kids on track? (7:39) No. (7:40) Quite frankly, I’m looking at these. (7:42) I’m not sure I’m on track, guys.

(7:44) Let me just give you, let me just give you an example, right? (7:47) These are divided all up into early grades, pre-K-4, middle grades, 5-8, and high school. (7:54) So I’m looking at the early grade standards because that’s where my kids are. (7:58) One of them is they should understand key concepts such as past, present, future, similarity, (8:04) difference and change.

(8:05) Cool. (8:05) Got it. (8:06) I can also support that pretty easily at home, right? (8:09) We can look at things in the past.

(8:10) We can talk about how life is different for them than it was for me, than it was for their (8:14) grandparents. (8:16) That’s we can handle that, right? (8:17) That’s pretty easy at home. (8:20) But then also not every standard is that simple.

(8:23) So here’s one, also from the early grades, identify and examine how wants and needs in (8:29) one part of the world may conflict with wants and needs of people in other parts of the (8:33) world. (8:34) Okay. (8:34) That’s, that’s got a few more layers to it, right? (8:36) Like they got to know what wants and needs are.

(8:39) Okay. (8:40) I can handle that. (8:40) Like, especially in our ongoing discussions about a PS5, they have to know what other (8:46) parts of the world are and how culture and environment might be different in other parts (8:51) of the world.

(8:51) Okay. (8:52) That’s something that we can handle with travel. (8:54) It doesn’t even have to be international travel.

(8:57) If you are in New England and you have grandparents in Florida, you can talk about the differences (9:01) about why somebody in New England might want to coat and somebody in Florida might not (9:06) in February. (9:07) And then how wants and needs conflict can easily talk about that with siblings. (9:12) Talk about how one person wants one thing or somebody else wants something else.

(9:16) And then it’s easier to expand that to a more macro level. (9:20) Now, I am not suggesting that you are responsible for teaching every single one of these standards (9:26) to your kids, but I wanted to point out a couple of ways in which you can, or probably (9:31) already are, supporting these ideas with your kids. (9:37) And being just a little bit more intentional with your language about like wants and needs (9:41) or conflict, including some more of those vocabulary words can help kids build that (9:46) understanding and see the connections.

(9:48) Because anytime, like even if they learn it in school, kids need to, like part of learning (9:53) is the repetition over and over and over until you actually get it. (10:00) So talking about how like, I’m not sure even I’m in the vision. (10:03) So that was, you know, the wants and needs thing.

(10:05) There’s three columns. (10:07) So there’s the early grades, the middle grades, and the high school. (10:10) And I’m looking at this coordinating standard for high school.

(10:14) And it is, analyze the relationships and tensions between national sovereignty and (10:18) global interests in matters such as territorial rights, economic development, and use of (10:23) natural resources and human rights. (10:27) No, I’m not sure I can do that, actually, independently. (10:31) I think we should.

(10:33) I think it would be great. (10:35) I think it would be wonderful if the only people who understood the foreign policy portion (10:42) of a presidential debate weren’t just the people on that stage. (10:51) I think it would be great.

(10:53) But but like, yeah, we should know this and we don’t know this. (11:01) So while it might seem like, wow, that early grade standard seems really complex for a (11:06) nine-year-old. Yeah, if I think about it, he probably, yeah, he could figure that out.

(11:09) We’d have to teach him, but he could figure that out. (11:13) And as I’m seeing the progression here, it is actually really critical that he does know (11:17) that because he should then be able to understand foreign policy by the time he’s (11:21) graduating high school. (11:23) The majority of the population should be able to engage in that level of debate about what (11:29) that means for our democracy as a citizen, as you vote.

(11:33) But one of the things I really want to emphasize about these standards is that it is not (11:38) just a list of things. (11:40) They are very focused on inquiry. (11:42) One, not just memorization and two, connections.

(11:47) So we are connecting the present to the past. (11:49) We’re connecting cause and effect, multiple causes and multiple effects. (11:53) We are connecting across these different themes of social studies.

(11:57) So if we’re looking at economics, we, of course, then have to be connecting to global. (12:04) That’s a global connection. (12:05) We have to be connecting to that strand as well.

(12:08) So, oh man, I hope you, if you have any interest in them, I hope you take a look. (12:15) I will put the link in the show notes to both the 10 themes and also the C3 framework. (12:24) I love these and I’m ready to get out my post-its and my chart paper and my Mr. (12:30) Sketch markers and start homeschooling.

(12:32) Almost, almost. (12:33) I’m not, we’re not actually homeschooling, but we will use these to keep finding more (12:37) ways to expose kids to more things and build those muscles of inquiry and connections as (12:43) we raise our little citizens. (12:46) Let’s hop into our game.

(12:50) All right, so this game, my husband came up with it. (12:56) All right, so let’s hop into our game. (12:57) This game is kind of like Who’s Line, if you remember that, where the points don’t (13:03) matter and the rules are made up.

(13:05) And my husband came up with it one day at the dinner table and it’s really fun. (13:09) And I hope you try it at your Thanksgiving table or at your everyday dinner table. (13:14) Here’s how it goes.

You open up a Wikipedia page, you type in a year into the search (13:20) bar, and then you read things off that page until somebody guesses what year it is. (13:25) So you give a clue. (13:27) Everybody has to guess the year.

(13:30) If no one gets it, you read the next clue. (13:33) Now you have to guess a year in order to get the clue. (13:35) You have to be willing to embarrass yourself and be very, very wrong in order to get the (13:41) next clue.

The way that we do it at our house is we have two teams, one parent and one (13:46) kid on each team. (13:48) Couple of reasons for that. (13:49) One, you should have an adult guessing at all times because sometimes the kid guesses (13:55) are really all over the place.

(13:58) And two, we only let mom and dad read off of Wikipedia because sometimes there are some (14:04) things on there that a six year old should not be reading. (14:07) It also gives them a little bit of help without giving obvious hints. (14:13) So like if you give the clue, the Beatles recorded their first album and they shout (14:19) 1733, you can then come back with like 1952, which is also not right, but closer and (14:26) gives them like, OK, I’m going to kind of they can kind of figure out, OK, let me pick a (14:30) number a little bit closer to there.

(14:32) And then I think the way we do the winner is whoever gets the year right gets to pick the (14:37) next year. But again, the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. (14:41) So do it however you want.

(14:43) So I think a good way to show you how this works is we are going to play it together (14:48) right now. I cannot hear you. (14:51) So hop on over to Instagram and tell me which clue gave it away for you.

(14:57) All right. So I’ve typed in my year. (15:00) Here we go.

(15:01) The Republic of China is established. (15:07) Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo gives 3,000 cherry trees to be planted in Washington, D.C. (15:15) That might be a giveaway for my D.C. (15:16) friends. Wilbur Wright of the Wright Brothers dies of typhoid fever in Dayton, Ohio.

(15:28) The first Eagle Scout from the Boy Scouts of America earns his rank. (15:37) Arizona is admitted as the 48th state. (15:43) The African National Congress, a South African political party, is founded as the South (15:48) African Native National Congress.

(15:54) Casimir Funk identifies vitamins, like the concept of vitamins. (16:03) Jackson Pollock is born. (16:09) New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson wins the presidential election.

(16:17) Werner Von Braun, German-born American physicist and engineer, is born. (16:25) And then the last one, because I think this is a giveaway, the RMS Titanic sinks. (16:32) Did you get it? The answer is 1912.

(16:37) All right. Hop on over to Instagram. (16:38) Tell me which clue was the one that gave it away.

(16:41) So that’s kind of like one of the ways that you can modify this game, right? (16:44) Like, if the kids are getting bored, then you just put one that’s a little bit more (16:47) obvious, like either Woodrow Wilson or the Titanic. (16:51) You put those ones up front if they’re, you know, you don’t go through as many if (16:55) they’re starting to get bored. But then the next person gets to pick their year.

(16:59) I might suggest putting some parameters on it. (17:03) My six-year-old picked 3 BC. (17:06) That was pretty difficult.

(17:07) It’s kind of difficult to distinguish between 3 BC and 30 BC and really even 300 BC (17:13) with those clues. So, yeah, I hope you enjoy it. (17:17) It’s really fun for grownups, I think, because some of them like break my brain.

(17:23) I didn’t know typhoid fever was like such a thing still in 1912. (17:29) For example, I probably would have put the 48th state a little bit closer to like (17:34) Hawaii and Alaska more towards the middle of the century. (17:36) And then for kids, it really helps on that time continuity and change theme from (17:42) social studies, which is extremely difficult for kids to get a handle on.

(17:47) I’m sure you’ve had a kid come up to you and ask you if you were born at the same (17:52) time as the dinosaurs. (17:54) It’s just really hard for them to get it. (17:58) And this is one of the ways to begin to understand those linkages between human (18:02) decisions and consequences.

(18:04) And to also understand that even in the past, we might just be looking at one (18:09) slice of the past, but there was still a lot of other things going on. (18:14) So we might only be thinking about the sequence of transportation, right? (18:19) So the Wright brothers flew, people took cruise ships. (18:23) I didn’t know that like he died before the Titanic even sailed.

(18:26) I didn’t know that. But we might be looking at just that slice of history without (18:34) realizing that there’s all these other things happening. (18:37) Vitamins were identified.

(18:39) Here’s what was happening in Japan. (18:41) Here’s what was happening in South Africa. (18:44) The Boy Scouts were getting started around that time.

(18:47) Also, it gives a lot of context and it’s really fun and you can get very competitive (18:54) about it. So I hope you try it out. (18:56) And if you do, let me know what your favorite year to guess was.

(19:01) And now it’s time for Feeding Citizens, where we talk about how we are keeping these (19:05) little citizens alive three times a day, every day for their entire lives. (19:09) And this week, I’m going to be honest with you, it is feast and fettle. (19:12) Feast and fettle is a meal service.

(19:13) And that is what I ordered for next week. (19:16) They did not sponsor this. (19:18) I’m running the book fair next week and my husband usually shifts his schedule to the (19:22) afternoon so that he can help in the morning with the book fair.

(19:26) So the afternoon is a little crazy around here. (19:29) And that’s what we’re going to do. (19:30) It is a meal service.

(19:31) It’s our current favorite. (19:33) It’s different from other meal services in that you don’t cook. (19:36) It’s like catering delivered to you in smaller portions.

(19:41) So you choose some entrees, you choose some sides. (19:43) And in theory, you could make it a menu like you could do the herb crusted pork chops (19:48) with the rice pilaf and the balsamic glazed carrots and just put it out as a meal. (19:53) We kind of don’t do that.

(19:54) We just pull it all out and then we save ourselves both on cooking time and on (19:58) arguments about I didn’t like that. (19:59) I didn’t want that. Why did you make that? (20:01) I have a referral code and I’ll put it in the show notes.

(20:05) If you use my referral, you’ll get 50 percent off your first order. (20:08) And of course, there’s a kickback for me as well. (20:11) They don’t currently deliver nationally, but they are expanding.

(20:14) So pop in your zip code and see if it’s you. (20:17) You might not be running a book fair in December, but December is December and we’re (20:21) all running at maximum speed. (20:23) And now it’s time for our historical document.

(20:26) And this is in honor of the best and only Thanksgiving movie of all time and the (20:34) author’s birthday this week, Charles Schultz. (20:37) This is a letter that Charles Schultz wrote, responding to a kid who asked, what (20:41) makes a good citizen? (20:43) He wrote, Dear Joel, I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes (20:47) a good citizen than it has been ever before. (20:50) Certainly all any of us can do is follow our own conscious and retain faith in our (20:55) democracy.

Sometimes it is the very people who cry out the loudest in favor of (21:00) getting back to what they call American virtues who lack this faith in our (21:04) country. I believe that our greatest strength lies always in the protection of our (21:08) smallest minorities. (21:10) Sincerely yours, Charles M. (21:12) Schultz.

And that was written November 9th, 1970. (21:16) That’s all for today. Thanks for listening to the Raising Citizens podcast.

(21:20) To send me a message, you can hop over to Instagram. (21:23) I’m at Raising underscore Citizens. (21:26) For show notes or to sign up for our newsletter, head over to Raising-Citizens.com. (21:32) If you’d like to help the podcast, you can give a rating or a review.

(21:37) ¡Hasta luego!