Our social studies curriculum explores the interconnected web that comprises the human experience. This curriculum is designed to help students become aware of these connections and to allows them to refine their abilities to identify and to predict patterns of human behavior. We believe that studying history is not an attempt to learn about particular times and places, but instead is to illuminate how the human experience affects each other in all times and in all places. Our students engage in the study of government, economics, religion, art, anthropology, technology, geography, and sociology, to explore how and why people all over the world behave and interact. In understanding this, students are expected to become members of an intelligent and educated citizenry capable of making positive contributions to their society. Our teaching methods promote a love of investigation and learning by having students establish connections between their own experience and that of the world around them. We emphasize higher-level thinking skills, while using a foundation of basic information of historical examples to discuss and write about abstract concepts and ideas. In the middle school, we focus on American history, world history, government, geography, and economics. Traditionally, this discipline has focused on rote memorization of dates and facts with little room for creativity, interpretation, and personal relevance. At Thea Bowman Prep, social studies will be brought to life through engaging and challenging activities that show students how historical events relate to their lives today, how history is illusive and open for interpretation, how multiple perspectives can offer new meanings and understandings, and how we can grow and learn from the events and people from our past. Students bring with them a wide range of previous experiences and intellectual preparedness, and so the emphasis in every social studies course is on individual understanding and progress. Discussion is a key element in all of our social studies classes, allowing students both to generate and to respond to questions presented by the teacher, by each other, and by selected readings. Group discussion and dialogue emphasize cooperation, respectful interchange among students, and outcomes geared for success. The goal is for students to be able to interpret the past in order to analyze the present and dream for the future. Our social studies curriculum in grades 5 and 6 is supported by Harcourt Social Studies published by Harcourt School Publishers, 2008. 
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