One of the most interesting perspectives and theories I have read in this course was proposed by Postman (1995), the idea of ​​a "school god narrative" . The idea of ​​school is like that of Church, except in the traditional religious context that most people are used to hearing and seeing. Postman (1995) refers to the term “god” as a metaphor for a powerful narrative that “tells origins and imagines a future, a story that constructs ideals, prescribes rules of conduct, and provides a source of authority and, above all, gives a sense of community and purpose. In a certain sense, school can be compared in a certain sense to a religion, especially the Christian one. Christians have a set schedule, every Sunday, in which they attend church, to learn from a pastor the teachings of their God and learn how to achieve salvation. Students also have a set schedule, where they go to school every day to learn, and learn how to achieve their own kind of salvation, the extrinsic and intrinsic goals of the education system. For Christianity, the extrinsic goal of religion includes salvation; meanwhile the intrinsic goal is to maintain the habit of doing good deeds for humanity out of pure kindness. The extrinsic purpose of education is also a form of salvation, good grades equating to a successful and profitable future, “to prepare children for competent entry into the economic life of a community, what are schools for – what are they for – if not to give us the means to earn our bread?". The intrinsic goal, the ultimate goal of educators, is to instill in students the pure desire to want to do well in school for the pure joy of learning and to make the world a better place with their knowledge (Jackson, 1990, p.28 ).Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Being an immigrant, the “god of school” narrative was important in my family. I recognized the sacrifices my parents had to make to settle in America, and they strongly believed that the education system was a path to success and economic freedom, which they instilled in me as well. However, as I grew up and realized that I myself wanted to become a social studies teacher, my ultimate goal was to decrease the extrinsic mindset and instead try to foster a more intrinsic goal in my future students. Social studies is a great topic for inspiring this type of desire in students and offers many wonderful philosophies that we have read throughout the course that can help build what I personally would like to accomplish in the future. Social studies teachers have the power and mindset to become reliable “vessels” to the “Heaven” of knowledge for students. They must overcome many obstacles, including traditional paths that have fostered disgust in social studies, all the while defending their subject in a state that, as discussed numerous times through class discussions and assignments, does not require a federal assessment for the subject. We must inspire students to see the value of teaching social studies and make them believe in the “god-school” narrative, otherwise there won't be much to motivate them toward the opportunity to succeed. There has to be a reason, otherwise it just turns into reason, and a reason means they have a “god to serve,” instead of a narrative they owe to themselves as students. One of the most famous traditional methods in social studies education requires the method of “depositing” and “banking” informationfrom teacher to student. Traditionally, the teacher teaches and the student learns, the teacher knows everything and the student knows nothing, the teacher speaks and the students listen (Freire, 2019, p.73). Because of my great interest in social studies and all its components, it never mattered to me as a student. However, I can see like most other students, this can lead to students taking on a passive role, instead of relating to the material and connecting to it in a way that they understand and remember. It has definitely given a subject like social studies a bad reputation among students, and it's definitely a method I want to try to avoid as much as possible as a future teacher. Too many times I have personally seen teachers place historical names and dates on students, forcing them to remember material for a test, only to have the students forget everything they learned the day after the exam. When there is no connection to the material, it does not register as something of value or importance in the minds of students. As Parker (2015) states, social studies incorporates an unlimited set of disciplinary content and is bound by a limited time. So the question becomes: What do we teach, and how do we teach it in a way that stands out and makes students enjoy the subject as much as we do? One of my personal favorite philosophies that fuels this type of idea is that of Harold Rugg. , mentioned in numerous classroom discussions of the chapter written by Kleibard and Wegner (2002). Rugg's philosophy is to apply aspects of government, civics, geography, and social issues to history in order to make social studies more comprehensive. He did not believe in “rigid compartmentalization,” which again leads to the passive role that students are expected to maintain in the classroom, and ultimately leads to deposits and banking with no relation to the current issues in their lives. The concept was to weave together all the elements, lesson by lesson, with facts, movements and conditions that depend on each other to create one big historical picture. Students simply remember more of it when they understand what happened, how it happened, and why it happened, otherwise it has no meaning other than being just a simple fact to memorize. By weaving together instead of compartmentalizing, you might actually save time on such a time-bound topic, meaning it creates a historical story, like a movie with characters, plots, themes, and conflicts. Rugg was also famously known for being a “devil” advocate, which is what I believe you have to be when teaching a subject like social studies. Playing "devil's advocate" in History and Social Issues allows students to take a multidimensional perspective, an important aspect of true historical and critical thinking. I personally take this philosophy a step further to say that while I believe that social studies teachers can have their own opinions, values, and political views, they must be open to new and different ideas otherwise they risk doing their students a disservice in the their journey. to reach historical thought. Rugg's philosophy, while highly beneficial and effective, is impossible to promote the type of critical historical thinking that we future educators seek in our students without the basic foundations proposed by J. Martin Rochester (2003). While the piece was by far one of the funniest I've ever read, it has an important meaning. Rugg and Rochester both had the same end goal in mind, but used different methods to get there. In a way, their philosophies fit the “light bulb” we have?