Social Studies

marlob@herald-mail.com CLEAR SPRING - Honest to goodness, Paul Engle thinks middle school kids are at a great age. And the veteran middle school principal has built a successful career on that belief, which may not be shared by everyone. In his first year at the helm of Clear Spring Middle School, Engle said he sees opportunities, not disadvantages. "The challenge with this age is to channel all their energies in the direction that will help them map out their lives," Engle said.

Proposed course changes for county high school students were made to the Washington County Board of Education during a work session Tuesday afternoon. Clyde Harrell, the school system's supervisor of secondary social studies, suggested that the sequence of high school social studies classes be changed from government being taught in ninth grade to U.S. history being taught in ninth grade. He said students learn about U.S. history in eighth grade and if they take the second part of U.S. history in ninth grade, they'll have a better understanding of government before going into 10th grade.

waynesboro@herald-mail.com GREENCASTLE, Pa. - In the 1770s, Franklin County was a jumping-off place to what was then the frontier and the way west across the continent. This year's freshman class at Greencastle-Antrim High School will study the effects this westward movement had on the area, then and now, said Charles White, director of the school district's environmental studies farm at Tayamentasachta. It's one way the district is responding to the Pennsylvania Department of Education's effort to establish new standards across the curriculum for the state's public schools.

pepperb@herald-mail.com Life, liberty and the pursuit of a diploma are allowing some Tri-State students to abandon constitutional studies, a move that's leading some school officials to blame the United States government. The federal No Child Left Behind act is designed to close the achievement gap between schools and make sure all students, including disadvantaged groups, are academically proficient, but proficiency doesn't yet mean that all students understand the government system that created the act. According to the U.S. Department of Education Web site, states should have created standards in math and reading by now and must develop standards for science by the 2005-2006 school year.

When Pam Michael was named Washington County's Public School Teacher of the Year, she gave much of the credit for her success to Jim Newkirk, the supervisor of elementary reading and social studies. It was the second time in three years that Newkirk has drawn such praise. When asked who her mentor was in a December 2001 interview, Betsy Little, supervisor of elementary mathematics and science, named Newkirk. So who is this guy and why does he inspire such devotion? For those I've interviewed who've worked with him, he's a genuinely nice person, who'll do everything possible to help those he works with succeed.

andrews@herald-mail.com Friedrich Froebel invented kindergarten - German for "children's garden" - in 1837. He used balls, blocks, tiles, rings and other common objects to teach lessons through directed play, according to a Web site devoted to his life. At a time when children younger than 7 didn't attend school, students in Froebel's kindergarten classes explored nature, math, art and abstract concepts, such as self and unity, through play. More than 160 years later, teachers are using liberal doses of work to cultivate minds in Tri-State kindergarten classes.

Your teen has just told you he wants to go to college. You're proud. In your mind, you're picturing your child as a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Then, he informs you he's planning on studying to be an actor, dancer, artist, professional basketball player or any other career you know is hard to break into and in which it is even harder to make a decent living. Yikes - what now? Should you try to talk him out of it? Quite simply - no. The choice of our children's careers are theirs, not ours.

andrear@herald-mail.com Teachers in the Tri-State area sharpen students' state history skills with studies devoted to the Old Line State, Mountain State and Keystone State. State history is taught to fourth-grade students in Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania public schools and again to eighth-grade students in West Virginia, school officials said. Maryland's dynamic history has kept Becky Cline in the fourth grade for three decades. The veteran social studies teacher at Clear Spring Elementary School looks forward each year to telling her students about their home state's Native American roots, pioneering religious tolerance, symbols, government and role in four wars and the building of a nation, she said.

andrear@herald-mail.com The Washington County Board of Education's new supervisor of secondary social studies is spearheading efforts to strengthen course offerings for local students. Clyde Harrell plans to increase the number of advanced placement courses for high-achieving high school students interested in U.S. and European history, psychology and government, he said. He said he also wants to launch an International Baccalaureate program for high school students and develop an honors social studies program for middle school pupils.

If Pennsylvania teachers use part of a science class to improve students' reading skills, is science getting short shrift? It's a question that deserves an answer as schools try to increase standardized test scores to meet the terms of the federal "No Child Left Behind" law. The issue of whether educators are "teaching to the test" arose again after some teachers in the Erie School District issued report cards without grades in science and social...