3: Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Wilderness of Capitalist Schooling

Issues-centered social studies is a mirage, a chimera, a vision we have pursued but never realized, an approach to teaching history and the social sciences in schools that emphasizes questions, inquiry, student engagement, and thoughtful discussion in the face of institutional momentum that runs a more traditional route. It is the stuff of theorists, of social studies purists, and the stuff of dreams. Like a small religious sect, advocates of issues-centered social studies continually uphold their vision, and their hopes, only to have them dashed by the realities of schooling. Given the dilemmas and obstacles to the realization of issues-centered social studies in schools, what might lead a person to become an advocate and engage in such an unrequited quest?