How Can We Live Well Together

What is the nature of Social Studies?

I have found myself asking that question over and over again as a Social Studies teacher.

What is it we want students to KNOW?
Who is it we want them to BE?
How do we want them to LIVE?

If we could distill the key idea of what we want from a Social Studies education, is there one sentence that encapsulates it all?

What resonates for me? 

Social Studies is learning how we live well together.

If we could break that down further, would it cover everything the future citizens of our planet need to know? 

Who am "I"? 

• "I" am an individual, with unique characteristics and identity and beliefs and values and skills. But "I" am not alone. "I" am also a part of "we".

Who are "we"? 

• "We" are families and communities and cultural groups and ethnicities living on farms and in the country and in small towns and cities and nations and refugee camps. "We" are all citizens of this planet.

What does it mean to live well?

• Living well is quality of life and physical health and mental health and spiritual health and standard of living and a sense of purpose and good relationships and stewardship for the land that sustains us.

What does it mean to live well together? 

• The "social" part of Social Studies is the hard part. Over the course of history, people have come up with many different ways of living and organizing ourselves socially, politically, and economically. What have societies done in the past that allowed them to live well together?  What have they done that achieved the opposite? What can we learn from the stories of the past that can help us move forward, past egregious errors and injustices, into a brighter tomorrow? For our global society to evolve, it must be fueled by people with creativity, hopefulness, innovation, critical thought, open-mindedness and empathy.

How do we live well together?
Sadly, sometimes, we just don't.

Following Brexit and the election of Trump and the rise of Le Pen, it seems that the lesson some people have learned is simply that we cannot live well together.  

As a Canadian, I think that is wrong. 
We can live well together. 
We do live well together. 

Jason Kenney accuses teachers and the education system of "social engineering". But really, isn't that what our education system is supposed to do?  Engineer the world we want?  And that is the world we want. A world where we can ALL live well together.