Why Should We Learn Social Studies?

Every year I have students who go: “(groan)(whine) ugh, why do have to even learn social studies?” Each time, I would promptly give each of them an answer to this common question. After a few years of teaching, I sometimes get tired of saying the same thing over and over. Therefore, I have now recorded what I have told my students in the past.

Why should you learn social studies? First of all, because every single one of you watching this video right now is a human. Ok, ok, there might be some dogs, cats, and aliens watching, but for the most part, you are a human being. I have a hard time understanding why students would find social studies boring when it’s really it’s all about them. If you are humans, then you should learn about other humans, not only to better understand them, but to better understand yourself. You are who you are because of others in your life. What would you really know about yourself if all you had to compare yourself to was...yourself?

Human beings are social creatures. What does that mean? It means not only do we like to hang out with other humans, but more importantly we depend on other humans. We have only got this far- we have only made this much progress- because we have helped each other out.

Ironically, we have also only got this far and made this much progress because we have NOT helped each other out- in fact, we’ve been killing each other, either accidentally or on purpose. This conflict between humans has existed since, well, since there was more than one human. But this conflict has usually led to competition, which in turn has led us to finding better and easier ways to do things, ultimately leading us to more prosperity than ever before. This is also why there is currently more of us on the planet than ever before, and why we’re living longer than ever before, and, I don’t mean to brag, but why we’re the most intelligent animals to ever exist.

Am I starting to lose you? Sorry, I was trying to build up to reason #2, which is: you should learn social studies because you live in a society. Not only that, but all of us prefer and want to live in a society. Even loners. Even that dude who lived in complete isolation at the southern tip of Chile invited somebody to live near him. We need each other. Besides, unless you move to the moon or Mars, there is no escaping society. That society can not only be defined as your neighborhood, city, or country, but the entire world. Everything that happens everywhere on this planet directly or indirectly affects you whether you realize it or not.

You have got to realize that it’s not about you. It’s about all of us. There are consequences to our actions that affect others in both positive and negative ways. Everyone and everything you love is at risk and could be lost because of the actions of others. Don’t destroy anyone else’s freedoms. More appropriately to most of you watching, don’t sit idly by while others destroy individuals’ freedoms.

Of course, the most important reason why you should learn social studies, and why you should learn anything, for that matter, is because you need to survive. The more you know about the world you live in, the more you know about others, and the more you know about yourself, the better your chance of survival. A big reason why you’re alive right now is because of the fact that humans learned about their world, about other humans in that world, and about themselves. Their survival depended on them continuing to do the things that worked, not repeating their past mistakes, and adapting and problem solving to make their future better.

Think about why there is a bunch of horrible things going on in our world right now. A big reason why is because many human beings never learned social studies. Each day, these people are putting all of our lives at risk. We are programmed to survive. We cannot survive ignorant of the social studies.

So, to recap, there are three main reasons I believe we should learn social studies.

1. You’re human

2. You live in a society

3. You need to survive

If you were all alone on the planet, then I would discourage you from learning social studies. But until that happens, study history, geography, economics, sociology, psychology, government, civics, religion, law, anthropology, political science, philosophy, archaeology, and all the other social sciences I have not mentioned, so that you and the world will be a much better place, and because the survival of our species depends on it.