Social Studies Teacher as a Role Model

Social studies course, owing to its nature and purposes, is directly relevant with values. Value is not only a concept which affects individual's life, but also directly effective on relationships of individuals with others. As long as number of individuals who reflect values to their behaviors in daily life increases, social rest will increase concordantly. Especially the second important institution after the family in terms of value on the students is schools and therefore the teachers. In formation of value systems of individuals, family, society, media, religion and schools have substantial influence. However, among these factors, the single institution which maintains planned and formal value education is school. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine the social studies teachers as role model with regard to values which are desired to be given to students in social studies courses. For example, one of the values is honesty which convey directly in social studies course. If social studies teacher himself is not honest, it is believed that social studies teacher cannot raise awareness among his students. The point tried to be made here is that personality of social studies teacher is directly effective on value education. However, encountered adverse situation in here is that although there are value-related courses in teaching education in limited context (electives), there is no direct sufficient education given to prospect teachers to gain these values personally. Finally, the most important factor of value education is teacher; value education cannot be considered without teacher. It is believed that a social studies teacher who internalize values and who believe in importance of values personally can be more effective on students as a significant role model and raise more effective awareness among students regarding the values.