This Summer’s “Teachers as Scholars” Seminar: “Rethinking the American Colonies”

This summer I will be leading another “Teachers as Scholars” seminar at Messiah College.  These seminars are sponsored and funded by the Messiah College Center for Public Humanities, a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded initiative that brings humanities-based learning to the central Pennsylvania region and beyond.

The “Teachers as Scholars” seminars bring dozens of school teachers onto the Messiah College campus to take content-based seminars taught by members of the college faculty.  The seminars are free and students get professional development credit (Act 48).

I will be teaching a seminar called “Rethinking the American Colonies.”  It will meet on July 16 and 19, 2014.  Here is a brief description:

This seminar will focus on themes related to the founding,
settlement and development of the 13 British colonies from
1607 to 1763. Rather than thinking about colonial America
as a necessary forerunner to the American Revolution or
the birth of the United States, we will make an effort to understand British colonial life on its own terms. We will
examine how the colonies developed from remote 17th
century English outposts to well-connected 18th century
provinces of the British Empire. In the process we will think
together about how this particular period in the American
past provides a laboratory for teaching historical-thinking
skills in the school classroom. Recommended for social
studies, history, American studies teachers.

You can find a brochure and sign-up information here.

RECOMMENDED READING

I Think I Just Committed Treason Are humanities scholars engaged in too much activism? Good Teachers Don’t Preach Critical Race Theory