Here is David Blight, Beth English, and Jim Grossman at The New Republic: Under the grossly misleading title “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” the White House last week issued an executive order that would undermine the integrity of writing […]
K-12 history teaching
Boston Seminar Day 5
Friday was the last day of the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History/Wilderness Education Project seminar with K-12 teachers from the Roanoke, Virginia area. We took colonial and revolutionary Boston by storm! 🙂 See our updates on the previous days of […]
Boston Seminar: Day 4
Day 4 focused on Lexington and Concord and we were honored to have John Bell of Boston 1775 blog as our tour guide. John walked us through the April 1775 battle and debunked some cherished myths. His tour was outstanding. […]
Boston Seminar: Day 1
I’m in Boston this week with a great group of history and social studies teachers from Roanoke, Virginia. We are exploring the colonial and revolutionary history of the city. The week-long seminar was made possible by the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of […]
Sam Wineburg’s Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) is leaving Stanford and becoming a non-profit
Big news for K-12 history teachers! The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) is “spinning out of Stanford University” to become the Digital Inquiry Group (DIG), an independent nonprofit organization. Here’s more: Here are some frequently asked questions that I took […]
The American Historical Association responds to the Florida African American history standards
Here is AHA Executive Director Jim Grossman: The Florida Board of Education approved new standards of instruction in African American history on July 19, 2023. A firestorm of protest erupted immediately from a range of public figures (including the vice president of […]
Do you want to make the past more interesting for your students? Focus on contingency.
In my book Why Study History (revised second edition coming in March 2024!) I introduce students and other readers to Thomas Andrews and Flannery Burke’s five Cs of historical thinking. They are change over time, context, causality, complexity, and contingency. […]
John McWhorter on the Florida African American history curriculum
I took a little heat for my take on the Florida African American history controversy. Last month I wrote: The standards were much better than I expected. If I was a high school teacher in Florida I could easily work […]
The Conference on Faith and History secondary school teaching initiative is hosting a virtual panel this week
The Conference on Faith and History is sponsoring a virtual panel on secondary school history teaching this Friday, September 30. If you teach history feel free to join the conversation. More info below. More info: Paul Thompson will be hosting […]
Misha Matsumoto Yee is the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History National History Teacher of the Year!
Congratulations! Here is the press release: NEW YORK, NY (September 27, 2022) –The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History announced today that Misha Matsumoto Yee, a history teacher at St. Andrew’s Schools in Honolulu, Hawaii, has been named the 2022 National History Teacher of […]
The American Historical Association wants to help K-12 history teachers navigate so-called “divisive concepts” laws
Here is more from the American Historical Association website: To date, at least 14 states have passed legislation prohibiting the teaching of concepts associated with race and slavery in the United States. At least another 16 states have similar bills […]
Putin and Ohio Republicans are rewriting history
Here is Bowling Green State University historian Andrew Shocket at Ohio Capital Journal: Americans are united in denouncing Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, including how he has justified it with a warped view of Ukrainian history and has crushed Russian […]
What Florida history students may not learn if Gov. Ron DeSantis gets his way
Here is Gillian Brockell at The Washington Post: The Florida state legislature kicked off Black History Month by advancing bills that would allow parents to sue a school if any instruction caused students “discomfort, guilt or anguish.” The bills have […]
How two Illinois history teachers are using Twitter in the classroom
Robert Seidel Jr. and Kurt Weisenburger of Barrington (IL) High School offer some helpful tips. Here is a taste of their piece at Zocalo Public Square: For most teachers, social media has no place in a classroom. When they do use […]
How the debate over CRT has led three states to alter their history standards
This is an important study: Education Week reviewed hundreds of standards and thousands of pages of public comment relating to the standards-writing processes in South Dakota, Louisiana, and New Mexico, all of which took up revisions in 2021, and interviewed […]
New Hampshire’s “An Act Relative to Teachers’ Loyalty” has little to do with the teaching of American history
Here is Eileen O’Connor of the Concord Monitor: Just one year after New Hampshire legislators first introduced a bill that banned the teaching or discussion of “divisive concepts” like systemic racism, another bill will be debated this legislative session that […]
David Blight: “Trust the teachers!”
The Yale historian and Pulitzer Prize-winner spun his recent tweets into a piece at The Atlantic. Here is a taste: The curriculum, however, is another matter. Trained teachers, curriculum directors, and school principals are responsible for organizing the content and […]
North Dakota bans critical race theory in K-12 schools. How should the state’s history teachers respond?
North Dakota governor Doug Burgum just signed a bill that bans the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools. Here are a few of the pertinent sections: Each school district and public school shall ensure instruction of its curriculum […]
Teaching “opposing” views of the Holocaust in a history class is not that far-fetched of an idea. Let me explain.
A Superintendent of a Texas school has apologized for telling his faculty that they had to teach “opposing” views on the Holocaust. Get up to speed here. Here is Mary Papenfuss at Yahoo News: A north Texas school superintendent has apologized for […]
Does Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” make students hate America?
As longtime readers of this blog know, I have my issues with Howard Zinn‘s A People’s History of the United States. I stand by what I have written about this book over the last decade or so. We’ve covered him […]