Call for TAH Grant Application Reviewers

Woman reading, about 1890. National Media Museum - Kodak Gallery Collection

I received this message today.  I won’t be reading – because I’ll be writing – but I assume many of the readers of this blog are potential reviewers and encourage you to join the jury:

The 2010 U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History (TAH) grant competition is upon us and we NEED your help to review TAH grant applications.  We would appreciate your assistance disseminating this information to anyone you know who may be interested.

The anticipated grant review dates are April-May, 2010.

You may serve as a TAH grant reviewer if you meet at least (1) one of the following qualifications:

A degree in history

K-12 history teacher

History professor

TAH grant director

TAH grant partner

History scholar

Other history-related professional

Professional development provider

Evaluator or evaluation specialist

Please email your abbreviated résumé (5 pages maximum) to Yianni Alepohoritis at Yianni.Alepohoritis@ed.gov or Adam Bookman at Adam.Bookman@ed.gov no later than February 19, 2010. Please specify in your email whether you are a history, professional development, or evaluation specialist.

If selected, you will serve on a panel with two other reviewers.  This is an approximately three week process of reading, scoring, and meeting with your panel via teleconferences.  An honorarium of approximately $1000 is given to those who complete the grant review. Each reviewer will review about 10 applications. If you are involved in a current 2010 application, you may not serve as a reviewer.

For more information on the TAH program, please visit the program website at http://www.ed.gov/programs/teachinghistory/index.html.

Adam Bookman

Management and Program Analyst

U.S. Department of Education

Office of Innovation and Improvement

Teaching American History Grant Team

Phone (202)-205-5427

Fax (202)-401-8466

Adam.Bookman@ed.gov

What should the next TAH project look like?

The Department of Education will soon announce the next round of Teaching American History Grants.  If you’re a teacher in the ESD 112 region, I’d love to hear from you about your wants and needs as a teacher and learner.  Please take a moment now to complete this brief survey.  Thanks!

Join the 2010-2011 Cohort!

Each year, teachers from across the ESD112 service region enthusiastically join the Teaching American History Grant funded project, Causes of Conflict: Digging Deep to Understand American History.  Participating teachers study with top historians both in Vancouver and “on location” in nationally significant sites.   Using the Lesson Study approach, they investigate the teaching and learning of US history paying special attention to their students’ literacy needs.  During the 2010-2011 year, we’ll be focusing on the American Revolution.  After reading this application, ask yourself:  Is this project a good fit for you?  If so, we hope you’ll join us!

The completed application is due March 1, 2010.  Please direct any questions to Project Director Matt Karlsen via email or phone (360 750 7505.)

Causes of Conflict Participant Application 2010-11

Creativity, Crisis, Robinson and Lincoln

I saw Sir Ken Robinson speak at Powell’s last night.  If you’ve never seen him, you owe it to yourself to set aside twenty minutes to stream one of his talks (such as this one):  he’s not only brilliant but also very funny.  At last night’s talk, promoting the paperback release of The Element, he compared the need to shift our educational vision to the climate change crisis.  When doing so, he hearkened back to an earlier crisis, applying the following passage from Abraham Lincoln’s Second State of the Union Address in 1862:

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Clearly, we too are in the midst of radical change.  In schooling (or in professional development, for that matter), how are we thinking anew and acting anew?  Are we working to disenthrall ourselves?

Neither North nor South: The Pacific Northwest in the Civil War – March 6, 2010

Brevet Major John F. Reynolds and Battery C, 3rd U.S. Artillery on parade at Fort Vancouver in 1860. Reynolds was killed at the battle of Gettysburg. Image #111SC 89759, courtesy of the National Archives

Saturday March 6, 2010, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

“Neither North nor South:

The Pacific Northwest in the Civil War”

The Center for Columbia River History with featured historian Dr. Richard Etulain

E.B. Hamilton Hall

Fort Vancouver Historic Reserve

Annually, the Causes of Conflict Teaching American History project partners with the Center for Columbia River History to produce a regional “History on Location” program to complement the year’s focus.

Recognizing the linkages between Civil War and Pacific Northwest history provides us with a dynamic and more accurate way of relating regional and national history to our students. The advancement of slavery and other economic and political factors historians attribute to causing the Civil War also influenced Northwestern development. Nineteenth century sectional sentiments ran high in Oregon and Washington, with social and political impacts that included racial exclusion. Many connections exist between these geographically distant and seemingly disparate histories, including Abraham Lincoln’s interest in the Trans-Mississippi West and his Northwestern political connections; the divergent roads to statehood in Oregon and Washington; the Western training of Civil War soldiers in the pre-war era; the military role in facilitating Northwestern expansion and the transportation infrastructure; and the displacement and dispossession of the region’s Native people.  This program will explore many of these connections in ways which lend themselves to considering classroom implementation.

Keynote speaker Richard Etulain is professor of history (emeritus) and the director of the Center for the American West at the University of New Mexico. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including the soon to be released “Lincoln Looks West:  From the Mississippi to the Pacific.”

This event is free to teachers but seating is limited and advance registration is required.  To register, contact Matt Karlsen.

Recommended reading prior to the program:

The Pacific Northwest, Race, and The Civil War – Events Timeline

Abraham Lincoln Looks West

Agents of Manifest Destiny

Spectators of Disunion: The Pacific Northwest and the Civil War

Our Manifest Destiny Bids Fair for Fulfillment (excerpt)

Voices of the Past: Bluecoats and Copperheads

Also of interest:

Shine, Gregory P. “An Indispensable Point”: A Historic Resourse Study of the Vancouver Ordnance Depot and Arsenal, 1849-1882. Vancouver, WA: National Park Service, 2008.

• Click here to download the 8.82 MB .pdf file