Can “Social Studies” Standards Prepare History Teachers?
By Erich Martel “The national curriculum standards in the social studies … [t]o paraphrase a famous question, … specify what students should know. …” Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies (NCSS 1994, viii) In the May 1999 Perspectives article, “New Standards for the Preparation of History Teachers,” Professor Charles B. Myers of the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University described two sets of national social studies standards for prospective teachers that, he argues, “are expected to raise the level of history content knowledge and understanding of beginning [social studies and history] teachers in the years ahead.”1 The first set of 20 standards, National Standards for Social Studies Teachers, was developed by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). (See National Council for the Social Studies. Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies Washington, D.C.: NCSS.) A second set of 19 standards,
