Entry One

People, place, things and events, all go hand in hand with a child’s experience or learning about something that is happening or happened to the community, family, and friends or in their centre. An event would not happen without a place or people to attend, nor would an event happen without objects such as a rugby game would not happen without a rugby ball.

The significance of social studies in a child’s life is to help the children to develop the ability to make decisions for themselves, family, friends and people around them. (NCSS,1994) People, place, things and events are all under the curriculum that is called ‘Social Studies’. Social Studies is just as important as mathematics and literacy, as social studies teaches children to learn more about the outside world and what is going on around them in the present, what could go on in the future and what has happened in the past.

In the New Zealand curriculum Social Studies is taught from the Early Years until High school then even some people go on to study in more depth in University. Although my school journey, every year we would have been taught about at least one significant world event. When talking about this world event we were taught about the people who were involved or affected by it, where it took place, what things were involved in order for this to happen and why was it such a significant event in history. Social studies also covers important areas that include children in assisting to their emotional/social growth, making and understanding values and helping children to foster their development of reliability when working in a group or on their own. (Mindes & Donovan, 2001)

One example of a significant world event that impacted on a child that I knew was when Barack Obama was elected to be the first African American president of the United States of America. The child who was affected by this event loved and knew everything about the presidents of the United States of America and one day wants to become the president of the USA. It affected this child because he is African American and was worried that he would not be able to become president because of this. This did not only have an impact on him but everyone in the world as it showed that America does not define roles by ethnics.

Popular culture is when something is in ‘fashion’ and everyone is wearing or doing it. For children in Early Childhood this could be all the children wearing harlem pants or wanting to be Elsa or Hulk. These are just a few examples that are popular culture in my own centre.

The impacts that popular culture can have on children are huge, especially to the children who play, watch or read about violence.  We cannot ignore that violence comes under popular culture or that it is impacting children’s lives. Parents can be exposing their young children to the violence by allowing toddlers to play on an iPad which could not have any advert blocks or safety blocks. If the child is not being supervised then the child could simply click a few times then be watching a violent video clip? (Helfgott, 2008) And the parent may not even notice that the child is watching a violent clip because iPads are in popular culture now not only because the child may want it but also parents love to use it as a ‘babysitter’ for when they need some time out.

Helfgoot, J., 2008. The Influence of Technology, Media, and Popular Culture on Criminal   Behavior. SAGE Publications. Seattle University, USA.

Mindes, G., & M.A. Dovovan. 2001. Building character: Five enduring themes fir a stronger early childhood curriculum. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

NCSS (National Council for the Social Studies). 1994. Expectations of excellence: Curriculum standards doe social studies. Silver Spring, MD: Author.