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Resources, Resources, and Even More Resources!

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  Every teacher can understand the struggle of compiling resources for their lessons while combing through endless google search pages or teacher subreddits and trying to make it all fit into their lesson plans in time for the next class. As the school year approaches and in the spirit of teacher to teacher cooperation here is a list of five resources that could be used to great effect in social studies classrooms.  1. Fall of Civilizations (YouTube Channel) This YouTube channel produces high quality documentaries that are about an hour or two long and which focus on charting the journey of a civilization over time and then how it eventually began to collapse. There are options for just audio or a more traditional documentary style that include images and videos.  What this channel does well is telling  history like a story with an interesting beginning, rising tensions that culminate in an explosive way, and then dwindling suspense that ends the story in a poignant way. It makes histo
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The Importance of Teaching Bias and Perspective in Social Studies

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    Obligatory Personal Anecdote   Unlike many students in the United States I never got the chance to to visit D.C. for a class trip which means that I got to see the capital for the first time earlier this year as an adult with a history degree and in school to become a social studies teacher. Perhaps this is why my experience resonated so deeply with me when I went out to tour the many historical museums in the history and I found myself struck by the dichotomy at the core of our national history.  I started the day at the African History Museum learning about the horrific beginnings of the African-American population in the United States and their struggle for freedom in the face of systematic oppression. After that sobering experience I then right afterwards walked through the bright and cheerful celebration of American culture and achievements that is the Museum of American History. Despite a few obligatory references to slavery I found myself dazed at the completely different pe
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My Ideal Social Studies Elective Course

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  It All Leads Back to Rome (But With a New Twist)   Rome and it's various iterations remain perhaps the most commonly depicted ancient civilization in our cultural landscape and most students, even if they haven't paid attention in history class, would probably be able to rattle out at least a few facts about gladiators or crazy emperors if they were asked. However I would make the argument that much of the Roman history that is actually relatable and important for our modern context tends to be overshadowed by the flashier and more grandiose aspects that fill the movies and textbooks.  I would like to teach a Roman History electives class that focused on subjects like the reforms of the Gracchi brothers which were instrumental in the social class struggles of the early Republic, the complex and multicultural Mediterranean world created by the Roman Empire, and the lasting impacts on not only Europe but also the Middle East and other cultures. Using these aspects of Roman hist
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Why Project Based Learning is a Teaching Strategy I'm Surprisingly Excited About (Projects Can Be Fun!)

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  My Initial Experiences With Projects As a student I was never too happy whenever I heard the teacher bring up the word project in the classroom. I always associated it with the same tired trifolds and presentation boards that I would do over and over with sometimes less than enthusiastic partners. That's why I was perhaps initially skeptical about the teaching strategy of Project-Based learning but after learning more about it I quickly discovered that it wasn't your usual one or two day presentation board projects but instead an interesting way to engage students and motivate their learning in a self-guided way. What is Project-Based Learning? Project-Based Learning is an approach in the classroom where students engage with content through a long process of research, producing their own project, and presenting it to an audience. It all begins with a question or dilemma that intrigues the students and starts as a focus point for their research. This way the process is student
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The Benefits and Downsides of a Citizen Journalism Approach in Teaching (Everybody Loves a Good Pros/Cons List)

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  What is Citizen Journalism? Citizen Journalism is the idea that people should play an active role in reporting and analyzing the news in their community and nationally. It encourages independent thinking and the collection of evidence as well as an unbiased analysis of evidence. The popular fictional character of Nancy Drew would be a good example of a citizen journalist as someone who frequently is active in her community by collecting and distributing news stories as well as deciphering key information.  What Does it Mean for Students? Using citizen journalism in the classroom involves teaching students media literacy and the ability to understand the role of perspective or bias in influencing the content they read. A student should be able to read a modern news article or even one from the 1940's and read between the lines to understand what would motivate the author to make whatever argument they are making.  Once students have grasped this they can then create their own cont
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A Defense of Alternate History

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                                 V  Yeah Okay There's Some Weird Stuff To many historians and social studies teachers the genre of alternate history has often been thought of at best as an amusing distraction or at worst a futile effort in science fiction and fantastical theories about alternate worlds.  I do respect this viewpoint and don't deny that much of alternate history is often drowning in unknowable butterfly effects and prone to absurdist elements. While a series from Harry Turtledove where aliens invade during World War Two and become addicted to ginger might be an entertaining read on the weekend, I wouldn't advocate for it to be used in the classroom. I would argue though that thinking about alternate paths and what ifs in history could be useful when used in a constrained way that encourages students to examine the causes of historical events or inspires them to look at history in a new way.  A Positive Example   What if Napoleon Never Came to Power? https://w
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The Social Studies Lesson That Inspired Me

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From early on I always had a fascination with history that developed from watching historical movies, playing historical games, and diving into history books all of which occupied a large amount of my free time outside of school. However in school I often times found myself disinterested and disengaged in my social studies lessons as I was confronted with lecture after lecture where I had to sit for an hour and listen about material that I had already learned myself at that point.  That was until my European History class in my first year of high school. I was blown away by the comprehensiveness of the content and also the engaging ways in which we were presented the knowledge from being able to do our own research into historical documents or having class discussions on why historical events played out the way they did. But my favorite lesson in that class and probably the most engaging social studies lesson I had in my K-12 experience was when our class conducted our own mock version
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