As a high school social studies teacher, I get to see what students have learned over time and how that has shaped their vocabulary and cognitive insights. Shared deficiencies and misunderstandings show up when students are assigned independent research tasks. When students read and process information independently and then filter based on their experiences, bias and misconceptions appear in work that was independently prepared and developed. Here are the language usage changes I would strongly recommend for K-6 social studies.

Think about this…

What if a group of humans was traversing a mountain on Mars and reached the polar cap for the first time? While climbing, they discovered a small village of Martians tucked away in a patch of shaded area. As they communicated, the humans discovered a vast deposit of frozen water underground near the village using their tools. During the process of negotiating for access to the water, some of the spacesuits began to fail, and the Martians began to question if the humans were divine as they had originally thought. By the time the interaction was completed, several Martians had been crushed by rocks from an extraction machine. The leader of the village agreed to allow the mining out of fear from the machines but plotted a revolt in the future. Unfortunately, the leader of the human team died from exhaustion due to the extreme conditions of the desolate planet.

What would you call the humans when you write the historic record? Astronauts, Explorers, Diplomats, Conquistadors. This story is a mixture of events from the travels of James Cook and Ferdinand Magellan. Both were explorers. Both conquered local villages and negotiated exchange on behalf of their patrons. Both died during their travels.