Chapter 8: Wise Practice in an Innovative Public School

Joe Park¹ has taught middle and high school social studies for 26 years, the last 10 at a small and innovative public high school that does not require students to follow a prescribed curriculum. Consequently, Park has the luxury of creating courses that reflect and instantiate his conceptions of “wise practice” in social studies teaching and learning. During the 2002–2003 school year he taught seven different 9-week courses on such diverse topics as The History and Literature of the Holocaust, Protest and Reform in United States History, Important Supreme Court Decisions, and Street Law. Park has taught the Supreme Court course for a number of years. I first encountered that course in 1998 when I was conducting a “models of wisdom study” of teachers who were particularly skillful at teaching their students to participate effectively in discussions of controversial public issues (Hess, 2002).