Social Problem Solutions - What Should You Do When Students Write About Social Problems?

Social Problem Solutions - What Should You Do When Students Write About Social Problems?Many students, and some professors as well, view Social Problem Solving essay topics as something very different from the types of essay topics they used to have. For a long time, teachers of all sorts have recognized the value of setting students writing projects on important social problems. Of course, students can always ask their instructors for guidance on these topics. But as time has gone by, the amount of guidance students are provided has decreased significantly.The best thing for instructors to do is let students be the writers in their classes. Students should be allowed to use what they know about specific problems to help solve them. They shouldn't feel constrained by how many students will be reading their essays. We also need to be sensitive to the fact that students have already done this kind of work in their daily lives. They may not be 100% accurate when it comes to explaining t heir situation, but they are also far better at brainstorming than we are.We should realize that the main point of an essay about social problem solutions is to make sure that every student has his or her own experience to tell. They will be using words and ideas that have come from their own experiences, so we need to encourage them to be as honest as possible.Perhaps the most common way students attempt to solve a particular social problem is to 'reverse engineer' the problem so that they can then find a solution in the engineering process. I believe this is the most successful approach, particularly if the students are able to get a good sense of the underlying problem. It's like trying to describe a car engine by seeing the exhaust out the back window, but it's much more effective in a large lecture room.Students will often be forced to deal with a variety of social problems throughout their lives. Some of them we'll never really know what to do with, but the rest we'll find abs olutely fascinating. Why not take advantage of the interest students have in working on social problems? Then, we can provide a forum for them to explore them.Let's say you're the teacher of a class on a particular social problem. Rather than attempting to describe the problem in detail in the context of a lecture, why not make the topic part of the assignment itself? You can do this by providing a definition of the problem, by having students write an essay that uses that definition, or by having them come up with a solution based on what they know about the problem.As students gain experience with their sociological theory, they'll be more comfortable applying it in real life situations. But until then, they can use the information they've learned to solve their own problems. I suspect that students will be far more creative once they're forced to use what they know to solve their own problems. After all, they probably have an idea for solving a particular social problem.One of th e reasons I'm now suggesting that students use social problem solutions as an assignment is because I believe that students will be far more excited about the subject than students who never get to write about it. I'm certainly not against lecturing. I believe in the importance of the subject. However, we need to be sensitive to the fact that there is a lot of written material on the topic, so let students use their own skills and ideas to help solve the problems.