High school goes Hamilton
Students are “learning U.S. history” from Hamilton, the hottest show on Broadway,” reports Wayne D’Orio in Education Next. EduHam funds curriculum development and theater tickets for public school...
View ArticleClik here to view.
For a more perfect union
Elementary schools have contributed to national discord by neglecting to teach American history and civic principles, writes E.D. Hirsch Jr. in Democracy Journal. America is not a melting pot, but a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mattis: Study history
Learn history, Defense Secretary James Mattis said in an interview with the Mercer Island High School (Washington) Islander. He cited Thucydides and “a German guy.” Staffers spotted Mattis’ phone...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Won’t know much about history
“They’re trying to take away our history,” said President Trump at an Arizona rally. He cited the middle-of-the-night removal of The University of Texas Confederate statues at the University of Texas....
View ArticleClik here to view.
California dumps ‘mission’ project
When California fourth-graders study state history, they build a model of a mission out of clay, cardboard, sugar cubes, popsicle sticks, styrofoam or perhaps Legos. But all that is changing with a new...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teaching ‘social justice’— or propaganda?
Destiny Martin, a senior at University City High school, created this artwork for a social-justice class. St. Louis teachers are turning their classrooms into “hubs of social justice,” reports Kristen...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Red gild: Schools whitewash communism
Thousands of Communist demonstrators marked the centennial of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution Tuesday by marching in Moscow. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Yesterday, Russians celebrated the 100th...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vets’ students don’t care about war
Students don’t care about America’s wars, writes Tyler Bonin, a Marine and combat veteran who now teaches history in North Carolina. When he teaches about the rise and expansion of Islam, he tries to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
To teach reading, teach history, science …
Reading isn’t a “general skill that can be applied with equal success to all texts,” writes cognitive scientist Dan Willingham in the New York Times. “Comprehension is intimately intertwined with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teaching slavery
To illustrate the horrors of slave ships, a middle-school teacher told three black students to lie on the floor and stepped on a girl’s back. The teacher — now reassigned — is white. Most of her...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teaching ‘Black Panther’
? Black Panther, a huge box office hit, is a “hit with teachers” too, reports Brenda Iasevoli in Ed Week. Teachers are building lessons based on the film, set in the super hi-tech, uncolonized African...
View ArticleClik here to view.
History is taught as texts without context
Who’s that man? Why is the crowd gathered? Teachers aren’t supposed to say. Studying texts, without context, is no way to learn history, writes Will Fitzhugh on Diane Ravitch’s blog. But it’s the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Learn, talk, think
Three girls are using prior knowledge, texts and images to rank five Civil War heroes in order of heroism. Then they’ll write essays justifying their choices. Two classmates are analyzing the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s all hate speech now
The Declaration of Independence includes hate speech, according to Facebook’s algorithm. Christian Britschgi explains on Reason‘s blog. The Liberty County Vindicator of Liberty County, Texas began...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Return of the hero
A military honor guard carries the casket of U.S. Sen. John McCain at the Capitol. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/AFP “We live in an era where we knock down old American heroes for all their imperfections, when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1/3 can pass U.S. citizenship test
Why did the colonists fight the British? Most Americans don’t know, according to a new survey. When was the U.S. Constitution ratified? Which countries did the U.S. fight in World War II? Asked...
View ArticleWhat should every American know?
? What should every American know? Aspen’s Citizenship and American Identity program is asking. The video features four immigrants talking about America.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teach history, not ‘social studies’ units
Periodically, my eighth-grade teacher would fill the blackboard with everything we should “know” for the test. I remember “1777” (battle of Saratoga, turning point of the Revolutionary War). I also...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Black history is more than slavery
A statue at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. Photo: Brynn Anderson/AP A “relentless” focus on slavery is turning black students off to history, a Royal Historical Society reports tells...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Read, write, learn
In the latest Concord Review, Victoria Claire Walton of Summit Country Day School in Cincinnati, writes about Operation Valkyrie, the failed plot by Claus von Stauffenberg to kill Adolf Hitler....
View Article