Two-Column Notes

Date:
9/21/16

Page #

Name:
Class/Subject:
Tod Emerson
EDTL 2760
MR Title(s): Beyond Personally Responsible In Press
MR Source(s):
Patterson, N., Misco, T., & Doppen, F. (2012). Beyond personally responsible: A
study of teacher
conceptualizations of citizenship education. Education, Citizenship, and Social
Justice, 7(2), 191-206.
The Text Says
Notes (key concepts, direct quotes, etc.)

p.197
Nearly two-thirds of secondary social
studies teachers (102/155 or 65.8 percent)
(see Table 3) were categorized as
personally responsible. The most common
and clearest responses in this category
focused on traditional values (honesty,
respect, civic awareness and pride,
awareness of laws and rules in the
community, patriotism, tolerance,
responsibility), and traditional behaviors
(voter participation, community
participation, volunteering, following
laws).
p. 197198

About one-fourth of the teachers (39/155

or 25.2 percent) were categorized as
participatory, with such typical responses

I Say
My notes, commentary
This was not a surprise to me that majority of
the teachers responded this way. I personally
think that this is my view of teaching
citizenship. The focus of traditional values
and traditional behaviors are critical parts of
social studies education.

The teachers that had been categorized as

participatory do have very important views. I
find it interesting that they put more focus on
the United States. This quote specifically

as: A love and pride for their country that

encourages them to be participating
citizens who share in the decision-making,
operation, and well-being of the United
States, stays informed, contributes
positively to community, votes, accepting
of people, works to make world a better
place and understand their
responsibilities as a citizen. Also to show
the importance of being an active
participant in society.

mentions the country while the first quote was

more focusing on information that would be
useful for any democracy.

P.204

This quote is really interesting, especially

The personally responsible teachers in
considering the last sentence. I am glad the
this study situated citizen action in voting
teachers were putting the focus on participating
rights and local community service. They
within the system that the country has, but I do
gave little attention to critical inquiry;
not like how they considered teaching history
rather they focused on participating
just because they need meet the requirement
responsibly within the system. They valued for high school graduation standards. I feel as a
knowledge for knowledges sake by
social studies teacher it is my job to use history
focusing on rules and laws, and ceding
as a way to help teach better citizenship. Relate
much of this work to the government
issues in the past to how it is important to
classes. Disregarding citizenship education, participate in the future.
they predominantly framed teaching
history in terms of mastering content
required for the high school graduation test
rather than preparing active and informed
citizens.

p. 204

The justice-oriented teachers were similar

to the participatory teachers in marshaling
lessons across all disciplines to prepare

The justice-oriented teachers bring a new

aspect to the concept of teaching better
citizens. They go beyond the normal voting and

critical citizens. Beyond offering classroom

and community-based practice in
citizenship skills, however, they advocated
letter-writing, petitioning and running for
office. In their classrooms, action was more
directed toward changing structures of
inequality than responding to the needs
within existing structures.

following laws because they teach how they

can contact and try to change things if they feel
something is not right. They focused more on
that people can make greater changes then just
voting on issues, they could run for office or
actively communicate with their legislature.

Connections to previous MR:

I think this article made many connections to our previous lessons. First, the article that we read about
why students do not like social studies relates to this weeks blog post. This is because we understand
from this week how teachers think they should teach social studies and what they should put the focus
on. Meanwhile, we know from week one there are many reasons how students think social studies is not
important. We can use that information to focus on how we teach the information so the students better
understand the importance of learning social studies. Next, the standards that we learned about from
the Ohio Department of Education and NCSS really focuses on exactly what students need to learn as
part of the requirements for students to graduate. This is important to this weeks readings because as
social studies teachers we need to find ways to correlate what we the teachers think is important for
students to know and what the state standards requires them to know. I understand that we need to
teach the standards but we also need to find ways to present it in a way that would make students
understand the importance of their citizenship but understand why historically it is important. Lastly, It
relates to the idea of what a democracy is and issues that our democracy faces because we as teachers
need to understand the problems with our society and how our democracy works in order to teach
students how to be better citizens in our society.
Overall, I do not think it is a bad thing to put importance on different ways for our students to be better

citizens nor do I think it is a bad thing that teachers have different opinions on how they think this
should be accomplished. I do however have issues with teachers thinking that the only reason they
teach history is to meet the requirements for state requirements. We need to find ways as teachers to
bring the importance of learning history to students.