s|u|b|j|e|c|t|s d|i|v|i|d|e|d or A CLASS UNITED?

845-1015 Language Arts
1015-1115 Social Studies
1245-145 Math
145-245 Science

Your class schedule may or may not look like this, but most classes seem to have this common theme: separation of the core subjects. This may seem like an odd question...but WHY? Isn't our goal as teachers to have students connect what they are learning in class and be able to apply it to real world situations? Unless I live in a different reality than everyone else, none of these core subjects sit by themselves. Don't believe me?....here's an example: I am a linguistics major. I study different patterns in languages and how people interact with each other. Many of these interactions are based on social setting or historical reasons (social studies). When I analyze information from other languages and even English, I use statistics. I find patterns and I need math to do this. Then I need to explain why these things happen. That's where the science comes in. Whether it's where in the mouth sounds are being produced or forming an OT analysis, I need science. None of this is any good unless I can present it to my audience, which is typically just a professor or other students, but I still need to put my results into some sort of presentable summary, which is where language arts comes into play. I realize that not every job in the world uses all of the core subjects, but are we really helping our students when we separate them in the classroom as well?

Instead of making each of the core subjects stand alone, why not teach them together. Rather than spending so much time on language arts (which seems to have a much heavier focus than any of the other core subjects), why not relate LA to another subject for the day. For example if you are teaching prepositions in LA and electricity in science, have students write a response describing where in their school/room/house/etc. that they use electricity. Have the students describe where things are that use electricity. The students still get their writing on prepositions done, and they've linked it to the science lesson. The math lesson that day can also be connected to either electricity or to the prepositions. I believe that if we can link subjects and lessons together students will have a better time in understanding the material since a greater total amount of time will be spent on the material. Also, for students who generally struggle in a certain area they will have another subject to support their work. That is if a student who typically does well in language arts but struggles in science, will expectedly to better in a lesson that combines the two subjects together than in a lesson that solely focuses on science.

I realize that there are certain restrictions to this idea. School-mandated (or higher-up) curriculum and teaching teams who switch students for different subjects. I don't think we should totally ignore typical scheduling of the core subjects, however I do think we should try and connect subjects whenever possible. Rather than making each subject stand alone there should be plenty of connections for students to see so that they can form their own connections as they continue on in their education.