Being a Social Studies teacher today is both exciting and unnerving. When I was an undergraduate student at Boston University (Go Terriers!) back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I initially planned to teach math. I did well in math in high school, taking double math classes (Algebra II and Trigonometry) in my junior year so I could take AP Calculus. I even received the Mathematics Book Award during my senior year. When I decided to become a teacher, I planned to teach math, and I eventually taught seventh-grade math at the Williams Middle School in Chelsea as part of my practicum experience.
However, while I enjoyed “solving” math problems with the students, the novelty wore off after a few months. I was feeling bored—and because my students noticed, they started to feel bored, too. I realized I was living in one of the most historic cities in the world, and I found myself most engaged when traveling to other historic sites and places around the globe. At the same time, I was becoming captivated by some of the most transformative and consequential moments occurring in real time—the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Persian Gulf War.
Then came college. I had a visiting professor for my Western Civilization 101 class, and it was dreadful. A classmate and I would write down what he was wearing to each class in our notebooks, only to discover he repeated the same color scheme every Monday. After class, my friend and I would talk over a cheeseburger at the Turtle Express about how the class could be more engaging. It was at that moment I thought that perhaps I should switch from teaching math to teaching history.
For me, history was not about listening to long-winded lectures and reading scholarly works by historians who love to hear themselves spew their expert knowledge. It was about exploring, discovering, and making sense of the world—understanding why humans do the things they do, and how they respond to the world around them. Historians don’t become historians by reading history textbooks, watching documentary films, and listening to lectures. Why, then, should students?
That’s what makes studying and learning history exciting.
Then there is the part that is unnerving. Excuse my bias, but it appears to be more unnerving now than ever to teach social studies. The political polarization and deteriorating civil discourse in recent years have pitted Americans against each other, and some people are brazen enough to accuse teachers—especially those teaching social studies—of indoctrinating students with their “woke” curriculum about slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and any other topics that don’t align with their politics. Sometimes, it seems that whenever an educator attempts to introduce basic civics concepts, they face immediate backlash and accusations of handling the material the wrong way (Schwartz, 2026).
While the YouTube short film “Alternative Math” focuses on mathematics, it perfectly illustrates—in a humorous way—how easily undeniable facts can be challenged in today’s world. In fact, using math in this short is even more revealing, since presumably everyone knows that 2 + 2 = 4. Right?
We can look back to Socrates, to John T. Scopes during the infamous Monkey Trial, or to the thousands of educators blacklisted during the McCarthy “Red Scare” of the 1950s to see how teachers have always faced fierce backlash for challenging the status quo or presenting inconvenient truths. So while it isn’t a new phenomenon, it certainly feels different this time around.
For one, we presently live in the age of 24-hour cable news (if you can call it news), social media, and artificial intelligence. This rapidly evolving and complicated landscape accelerates the spread of misinformation—often deliberate—and captures the attention of the masses almost immediately. Growing up, there were only three major television networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC. The nightly news simply reported the news, at least how I saw it. Today, what we see on many of the cable news stations like MSNBC, CNN, and FOX is more political commentary than news reporting.
I think back to the days of House Speaker Tip O’Neill, when legislators from both sides of the aisle—Democrats and Republicans—were staunch opponents on policy, yet at the end of the day, could still gather, share a beverage, and laugh like the best of friends. They still shared a fundamental vision of what America ought to be. Today, both sides don’t just view the other as the opposition—they openly label each other the ‘enemy’ of the United States and hold drastically different views of what the nation should cherish. This leaves everyday citizens to vote along tribal lines, even when it goes against their own best interests.
In a way, what I find unnerving is perhaps a call for action, so I’m going to clarify my thoughts: Being a Social Studies teacher today is both exciting… and deeply necessary.
So it’s more critical than ever for Social Studies teachers to step into the trenches and become first responders to a worsening existential civic crisis. This is not an easy task—because Social Studies teachers need to undo the mess that has been made and piece back together the foundations of civic learning, the very reason why free compulsory education was established in, of all places, Massachusetts. As Social Studies teachers, we need to embrace the challenges (and challengers) that come toward us and combat them as unapologetic conveyors of truth, honesty, and compassion.
Heck, if it was easy, then everyone would be teaching Social Studies.
Gorman Lee, Ed.D.
Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies
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