If I were to ask my middle schoolers what the hardest subject is for them, I can tell you right now, a majority (especially sixth graders), would say science. Even though my kids typically love science labs, they despise all of the reading that accompanies them. When I talk to students about what makes reading […]
Social Studies
The Traveling Teacher: China, Part II – Xi’an and Shanghai
In the part 1 of this 2-part series, I shared what it was like to visit Beijing. Before I attempt to write my way through the ancient capital of Xi’an and the ultra-modern Shanghai, you may want to give the previous article a bit of your time. Day 5: Xi’an City Walls and Massage Biking […]
The Traveling Teacher: China, Part I – Beijing
Ever since I proposed to my wife, I’ve dreamed of going to China. I’d wanted to visit there so badly that I even – get this – floated the idea of having our honeymoon there. So when the NEA Foundation awarded me with the Teacher of Excellence and Global Fellowship Awards and invited 49 other […]
Attention Right-Wing: Teachers Aren’t Promoting an Anti-American Agenda
On the eve of Independence Day, columnist Charles Krauthammer appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and stated that a waning pride in America is largely because “we teach our children about all the pathologies in the United States and very little about the glories.” To be fair, as Carlson acknowledged this precipitous drop in […]
Teaching the Environment in the Social Studies and Humanities (and Everywhere Else)
When we get close to the end of the year I like to leave my students with a bit of reflection for the future. In a matter-of-fact and “non-preachy” way, I tell them that the most crucial issue that their generation will inherit is the environment. In fact, despite what students hear from many political […]
6 Tips on Teaching Social Studies in a Politically-Charged Era
I’ve been challenged by parents plenty of times in my career. However, one that often protrudes in my mind is a 12-page email I received 7 years ago. In teaching about the post-Civil War Reconstruction, I shared both the late Abraham Lincoln and Radical Republican plans for what the South would look like as the […]
Teachers, National History Day Needs Your Help
This past week, the National History Day program announced that it lost one of its biggest benefactors. Though National History Day (NHD) doesn’t announce the benefactor’s name, it does reveal how much it’s going to hurt the program — a total net loss of $800,000, annually. If you don’t know what the National History Day […]
Yes, Failure IS An Option
We’d be hard pressed to find an innovation that has changed our modern living as much as the light bulb. When Thomas Edison and his employees experimented with methods to bring about an incandescent light, they finally arrived – almost by accident – on using a cardboard filament. After its success, he famously quipped “I […]