The end is nigh

While we may have thought that we made it through May 21 unscathed, I received two messages yesterday that our friends in the colonies might have considered providential signs.

The first was an email from Peggi Zelinko at the Department of Education.  She wrote to say that no new Teaching American History proposals would be awarded FY 2011, ending any hope that “Competing Visions: Debates that Shape America”, the excellent proposal we submitted in March, would be funded.   This confirmed my suspicions – but was disappointing nevertheless.

The second was a posting on the National Coalition for History site:

HOUSE PANEL CLEARS BILL TO TERMINATE TEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY GRANTS

The House Education and Workforce Committee this week approved, by a strict party line vote of 23-16, H.R. 1891 the “Setting New Priorities in Education Act.” This bill would eliminate 43 programs at the Department of Education including Teaching American History (TAH) grants.

An amendment was offered by Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), and cosponsored by Representatives Davis (D-CA), Woolsey (D-CA) and Wu (D-OR) that would have potentially preserved TAH. The amendment would have required the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and Director of National Intelligence to determine if the United States was experiencing a shortage of linguists. If it was found that was the case, Department of Education funds could have been used to improve foreign language education, economic and financial education, arts education and the Teaching of Traditional American History. The Holt amendment was defeated by the same party line vote of 16-23.

House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MI) has decided to adopt a piecemeal approach to reauthorizing the ESEA, considering a series of targeted bills instead of one large one. H.R. 1891 is the first of those bills to be introduced and passed by the panel.

H.R. 1891 will now be considered by the House where it is expected to pass. While this is disheartening, the bill would still have to pass the Senate and be signed by the President which is unlikely. Traditionally, there has been strong bi-partisan support in the Senate for the TAH program.

In the Senate, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) will soon introduce a single all encompassing ESEA reauthorization bill. It was expected he would introduce the bill right after Easter, but that has not occurred. There is no indication at this time what Chairman Harkin’s position is with regard to TAH in particular or history education in general.

It’s a shame.  Based on our experience, I believe that TAH projects have catalyzed important change, critically supporting teachers in ways that renew and expand their vision and capacity to improve students’ learning experience.  I hope that teachers find creative ways to continue the work on their own.

I look forward to next week’s demonstration lesson in Castle Rock and our final “Causes of Conflict” program June 29 & 30.  Enjoy the long weekend!

November’s Batch

Time for another review of opportunities that have passed my desk over the last month that you might have missed:

National History Day Judge Recruitment: Want to support middle and high school students’ enthusiastic historical inquiry?  The Southwest Washington History Day Competition will be held February 26 in Vancouver and we need judges!  If you’ve done it before, you know how wonderful it is to talk to kids about their research and applaud their projects; if you haven’t, you’ve been missing out and it’s time to turn that around.  Register to judge here.  No prior experience necessary; let me know if you have questions.

Lesson Study: I posted twice on Lesson Study this month – once on Peter Pappas’ always worthwhile blog Copy/Paste; a second time here.  Add your voice to the conversation!

Summer Institutes:  Both Gilder Lehrman and NEH have posted their 2011 summer professional development seminars.  These are unbelievable no- or low-cost opportunities to study historical themes with top scholars in interesting locales:

• NEH Summer Institutes and Seminars (Deadline March 1)
• Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars (Deadline February 1)

Spring Institute: The US Holocaust Memorial Museum is running an institute for teachers March 3-5 (Deadline January 28)

Scholarships: The Colonial Dames have posted another opportunity for Grade 5-12 teachers in Washington State to advance their instructional capacity with $1000 grants.  Apply here by March 4.

Other odds and ends related to our work:

Civil War

• Petition of the children of the United States that the President will free all slave children (and Lincoln’s response)
• Another great Civil War Memory comments section makes transparent what different scholars see in a historical document
• The Geography of Emancipation: Gary Gallagher and Ed Ayers on C-SPAN
• Washington Post panel: Could the Civil War have been prevented?
• Getting ready for the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address? Check this out

American Revolution

• How did Boston’s schools impact the American Revolution? How did the revolution impact Boston’s schools?
• Nasty, negative campaign season (1800, that is)

Civil Rights Movement

• NPR story on Octavius Catto, a “forgotten hero” of the Civil Rights Movement

Education Reform

• George Wood suggests “returning” the Department of Education
• Diane Ravitch on how Waiting for Superman misreads NAEP scores – and suggests motivations for doing so
• 7 Class size myths
• Learning to use history to think critically makes history interesting, shows that history is worth learning, and leads us to value & use the past
• Rethinking Schools Editor Stan Karp will present “Not Waiting for Superman: Who’s Bashing Teachers and Public Schools and What Can We Do about It?”  Friday, December 10, 4:00-6:00 at the Jefferson High School Cafeteria in Portland

If there is something I missed that you want others to know about, add it to the comments section!

Learning on the Teaching American History Highway

This article, by Center for Columbia River History Program Manager Donna Sinclair, appears in the October 26 issue of The Vancouver Voice.

Voices of the Past: Learning on the Teaching American History highway

Donna Sinclair

Most people think of history in terms of dates or events, but history is more than facts. History is an activity. In fact, history is inquiry, as reflected in the root Latin word, “historia,” which means learning or knowing by inquiry. Historians “do history,” actively exploring past events and ways of life through physical remnants of bygone times. Those remnants can be diaries, letters, institutional reports, receipts, newspaper articles, photographs, people, and even landscapes. Historians examine puzzle pieces — these “primary sources” — in order to develop a historical narrative that tells us about the past and its meanings.

It isn’t always clear how histories are created, whose line of inquiry has been followed, or what constitutes truth. That is why historians document sources in footnotes and bibliographies, so that others can agree or disagree with their conclusions. Determining an event’s cause is not easy. We cannot know exactly what people did and said in the past any more than we know exactly what is happening now. But we can try to sort it out, to examine how and why something happened. We can recognize that history affects different people in different ways.

Learning to create authentic versions of the past based on evidence is the work of historians. It is also the job we have delegated to the teachers and students of Washington State. The state’s grade level expectations, GLE’s, call for students to analyze and interpret historical materials, identify causes of events and connect them to the present, while arguing for a position from at least one social science perspective, and citing multiple sources they have evaluated for accuracy.

For the past three years ESD 112 has worked with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the Center for Columbia River History (CCRH) to provide “history on location” teacher workshops. This “Causes of Conflict” program, funded by a grant from the Teaching American History (TAH) program of the U. S. Department of Education, has focused on three major eras corresponding to the periods studies at the 5th, 8th, and 11th grade levels–Civil Rights, the Civil War, and the Revolution. Participating teachers learn content and teaching strategies, work with pre-eminent national historians and travel to actual sites of conflict in places like Birmingham, Gettysburg and Boston. CCRH works with the teachers in day-long workshops that apply national themes to regional history. The first two years, CCRH held workshops on the Fort Vancouver National Site where teachers learned about the site’s hidden histories from NPS historian Greg Shine. They often found unexpected national connections, from Fort Vancouver’s Buffalo soldiers and World War II shipyards, to the everyday experiences of settlers, the military, and Native people during the Civil War era.

Last month the third cohort of teachers gathered at the Cathlapotle Plankhouse. There, they considered the idea of “revolution” from the perspective of scholars, archaeologists, and Native experts. These teachers learned about what was happening here during the Revolution and what was and was not revolutionary for the large regional Native population. They examined historical documents and practiced new ways of teaching and learning. They gained ideas for their classrooms that “expand and enliven” history, as one participant said, “beyond the textbook.”

As a result, students are studying where historical sources come from, who creates them and why. More than ever before, they are gaining an understanding of what it means to “do” history, to analyze and connect past and present.

Fort Vancouver and the Cathlapotle Plankhouse provide new ways to experience history, as do public programs like the upcoming talk by James B. Castles lecturer, Dr. Ken Ames. On 5:30 p.m., November 18, at the Oregon Historical Society Dr. Ames will present “Entangled in the Fur Trade,” discussing his work with Native people of the Northwest for the past 35 years. For more about this program, go to ccrh.org/calendar.php.

National History Day provides another way for students to travel the road to history. National History Day promotes historical inquiry, analysis, and fun. Sixth to twelfth grade students participate individually or in groups, by creating exhibits, dramatic performances, research papers, or multimedia documentaries and websites. NHD is exciting, with students abuzz in conversation about their versions of the past, debating the quality of their work, or calling a parent to say, “Mom, I’m going to state!” . . . in History!

To learn more about the Causes of Conflict Teaching American History grant, go to http://www.esd112.org/history.

For more about National History Day, see http://www.wshs.org/historyday/default.aspx

Donna Sinclair is Program Manager for The Center for Columbia River History (CCRH), a consortium of the Washington State Historical Society, Portland State University and Washington State University Vancouver. The CCRH mission is to promote study of the history of the Columbia River Basin and to present the results publicly. CCRH is dedicated to examining the hidden histories of the Basin and to helping people think about the historical record from different perspectives. CCRH offers free public programs and has an extensive historical website at http://www.ccrh.org.

Jill Lepore’s challenge to history teachers

I heard Havard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore at Powell’s last night.  In person as in print, her analysis of how the American Revolution has been appropriated by politicos of all stripes was insightful and funny.

She opened the talk by asking whether the very weakly construed lines the modern day Tea Party followers draw between themselves and the 18th century revolutionaries indicate an utter failure of historians.  She ended the talk reading her description of her daughter’s 3rd grade classroom (p 161).  In that selection, she celebrates

an assignment that requires research, that raises questions about perspective, that demands distinctions between fact and opinion, that bears an audience in mind – an assignment that teachers the art of historical writing.

Again – as with the case of the Virginia textbook author’s faulty research on Black Confederates – I was struck by the importance of the work we’re promoting through Teaching American History projects.  As our students do history, they’re defending the union!

For the ears, eyes, and mind – Top tweets

While I think the Twitter feed is a great way to get the word out, many teachers don’t use it.  So, I’ll from time to time post a batch of the links I’ve been listing there on the blog.

Without further adieu:

Classroom resources

• 10 US History Google Earth Tours http://bit.ly/2m0b6D
• Nice tool for engaging students with the election: Compare your position on issues with the candidates http://voteeasy.org
• BBC’s Dimensions helps you visualize how big it really is http://howbigreally.com/

Thinking about history & memory

• Great @nprfreshair interview with Eric Foner on Lincoln and slavery http://n.pr/b2KC7n
• Lots of “Lost Cause” videos tweeted about this month.  This one takes a critical look, this batch perpetuates the mythology.  Then there’s the story of Black Confederates populating Virginia textbooks…
• Mythical Black Confederates turn out to be the least of our worries:  Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks http://onion.com/aaweB4
• The American Civil War presented day by day as it happened 150 years ago http://www.civilwar-online.com
• Listen: American Icons – Monticello http://beta.studio360.org/series/american-icons/

Thinking about schools & education reform

• Curriculum for Excellence: Video shows Scottish “natural” approach to teaching and learning http://bit.ly/bygjz7. If any of you ever want to talk about Scottish Storyline, let me know:  It’s a great way to teach!
• Dan Pink on motivation. Posted a year ago, but I just now saw it and think that it adds to the ed conversation. http://bit.ly/nzmRH
• Lesson Study interviews on teachinghistory.org: It’s the Carolyn, Stan, Mimi, Roni and Matt show! http://fur.ly/2hw2
• Ken Robinson animated – another fabulous study from RSA http://bit.ly/cFDcts
• Gary Stager offers a reading list for people interested in school reform http://huff.to/973FjW

Upcoming programs

• Race & Pedagogy National Conference October 28-30 in Tacoma
• Teachers: Learn about Ft Vancouver’s on-location education programs.  Workshops 10/28 at 6:30.  To register, email Lydia Sheehey.
• See Jill Lepore at Powell’s Books Sunday 10/24 at 7:30 pm. Read her New Yorker article about the Tea Party & the many uses of the American Revolution
• Northwest History Network General Meeting October 28 at Sunnyside Environmental School, 7:00:  From Black Power to Green Jobs