Review by Fiona de Villiers
IN SEARCH OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
(Oxford University Press)
Grades 4, 5 & 6 Learner’s Books by Liz Dilley, André Proctor and Gail Weldon (R64,99)
Teacher’s Books by Elisabeth Pilbeam (R89,99)
A good textbook is like a good cookbook – both should ‘whet the appetite”.
Oxford University Press’s In Search of Social Sciences series for the intermediate phase will do just that. It’s an outstanding resource that will equip young learners with skills and attitudes they will need as they progress through high school and life in a developing South Africa.
Comprising a teacher’s and learner’s book for each of the three grades, this series is also bound to raise the confidence levels of novice teachers and reinvigorate the teaching practice of experienced educators.
All will benefit from a thorough study of all six books in the series in their planning sessions for a new school year. This kind of pre-teaching planning is crucial to the success of any teaching and learning programme. When schools create time for all its teachers to plan together – particularly in primary or junior schools where class teachers are often able to structure cross-curricular year plans – classrooms literally hum with excitement.
Additionally, high school teachers who may worry that the grouping together of history and geography to form social sciences in the lower grades might dilute the power of each discrete discipline should join these sessions to see that in the creation of a successful series such as this one, the authors have ensured that learners acquire skills and attitudes common to both, but that the value and importance of each discipline is retained.
If educators are not able to team-teach an exciting resource like this, they can take heart from the fact that everything they need has been supplied. The teacher’s guides are, in fact, a concentrated teacher training revision course.
Each teacher’s book starts with an overview of the revised national OBE curriculum and sets out all the relevant learning outcomes and assessment standards, followed by a useful section on teaching practice for the revised curriculum, including tips on designing lesson plans and year plans.
The teacher’s books also deal with vital pedagogical issues, such as classroom organisation and teaching strategies, the importance of inclusive education, the crucial issue of assessment and how to handle barriers to learning, as well as crafting lessons and materials to appeal to the different ways that students learn.
Thereafter, each book provides a comprehensive guide to every activity in the learner’s books, as well as ways to extend and enhance them. For example, chapter four in the grade four teacher’s book entitled ‘Leaders and Human Rights” details the relevant social sciences outcomes and assessment standards, as well as the cross-curricular links and outcomes that can be tested throughout this section of study. (Sadly, it is the only section in the entire series that I can see that includes arts and culture cross-curricular links.) Thereafter, chapter four offers teachers guidelines on how to get the most out of each activity, and ends with additional resources and assessment grids teachers can use to see just how much students have grasped, in this case, grasped about leaders, patriotism and human rights.
This is what makes the series such an exciting course of study; it’s specifically designed to instil in learners, in a fresh, unpretentious way, the central learning outcomes in our education system – the importance of developing a social conscience, a democratic awareness and an attentiveness to human rights. These key themes resonate in each chapter, and are made all the more potent by focusing on the natural links between history and geography.
Learner’s books have been designed with the learners in mind. They are large format, with clear uncluttered pages. A variety of spatial arrangements, useful sidebars and the added inclusion of learner characters who speak directly to the reader make up for the absence of colour. This simple design belies the sophisticated skills and abilities that the learner can and should accumulate between Grades 4 and 6, including sequencing, comparison, making appropriate judgements, arranging, assessing, expressing abstract concepts, investigation, sourcing and archiving.
The Grade 4 Learner’s book begins by explaining the differences and similarities between history and geography. Each chapter then starts with a page explaining exactly what the learner will encounter, both skills- and content-wise, starting with an introduction to map work. Learners will then use maps to investigate communities and their pasts. There follows a chapter on settlement, which develops into a chapter on leaders and human rights.
Chapters five to seven extend learners’ skills to investigate aspects of the environment, both global and local. The section on water is particularly relevant, as it covers unequal access of poor and rich to basic resources and human rights. The final section deals with some of the religions that are a part of daily life in South Africa.
The Grade 5 learner’s book extends the skills covered in Grade 4 through examining early civilisations and early Southern African societies, South Africa’s climate, resources, population, provincial histories and governments, and diseases. The Grade 6 learner’s book explores the world and its people, some great kingdoms of ancient Southern Africa, trade and development issues, exploration and exploitation, the history of medicine, environmental issues, and the state of democracy in our country.
Another triumph for Oxford University Press!