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"There are good reasons to teach Julie Otsuka's novel today. In addition to helping students build historical empathy, I believe there is a chance that reading about distant lives can help us learn empathy for those around us today. When the Emperor Was Divine is a difficult story about difficult history. It can be deeply unsettling to teach and to learn about a moment in our country's past that was identified at the time and has been rightly described ever since as a source of national shame. It can be hard to reconcile the historical reality of Japanese internment with American ideals, past and present. However, the difficulty of this story does not excuse us from teaching it. Indeed, in our present moment, filled with xenophobic rhetoric, building empathy is more important than ever."

The Texas State Board of Education adopted a social studies and history curriculum Friday that amends or waters down the teaching of the civil rights movement, slavery, America's relationship with the United Nations, and hundreds of other items. The ideological debate over the guidelines, which drew intense scrutiny beyond Texas, will be used to teach about 4.8 million Texas students for the next 10 years. The standards also will be used by textbook publishers who often develop materials for other states based on those approved in Texas

A curriculum in a pdf file from Teaching Tolerance. Civil discourse is discourse that supports, rather than undermines, the societal good. It demands that democratic participants respect each other, even when that respect is hard to give or to earn.

"Teaching Mockingbird suggests a central question around which a class's study of Harper Lee's novel can be organized: What factors influence our moral growth? What kinds of experiences help us learn how to judge right from wrong?  As students read and reflect on the novel, they return to this question and can begin to make deeper and broader connections between the novel and their own moral and ethical lives. They begin by considering the pivotal moments in their lives that shape who they are and their senses of right and wrong.  Then they analyze how the characters in To Kill A Mockingbird change over the course of the story, identifying pivotal moments in the story that influence how the characters think about morality and justice.  The complete Teaching Mockingbird guide also introduces models of moral development that have emerged from the field of developmental psychology, which students can use as the basis for even deeper character analysis."

"Teachers in Oakland are working to help young people find ways to take what they are learning and become active agents for change in their community using a program called Educating for Democracy in the Digital Age. The Teaching Channel documented how teachers empower and engage students through a curriculum devoted to not only teaching students about the problems, but giving them tools to begin trying to change them. "The civic engagement work has given students a sense of agency, a sense of voice, and like a structure to think about 'how can I actually do something with the things that I'm learning,'" said Matt Colley, a ninth grade English and History teacher at Oakland Technical High School.* "And to really see school as a springboard to community engagement, as opposed to a report card grade.""

"So what's to be done? Civic energy is going to have to come from the ground up to strengthen social cohesion, civic participation, and our ability to solve big challenges together. One big idea to strengthen our civic stocks and create pathways to better outcomes in education and employment is universal national service - an opportunity for every 18-28 year-old to perform at least a year of civilian national service through well-known groups like City Year, Teach for America and Habitat for Humanity or to join one of the branches of our Armed Services. Another bold idea would be to engage philanthropy in a $1 billion annual campaign to restore American history and civic education to its rightful place in American schools. We need "problems of American democracy" courses that teach students about the importance of bedrock American values, educate them through real-world experience about institutions that secure rights, check power, and enable public service, and provide practical skills to turn the wheels of a diverse democracy to address public problems. A final idea is for community leaders from different parties and sectors to experiment boldly with ways to fix public problems. "

"The online survey is not scientific but offers a wealth of information and insight about the post-election school climate. Participants included teachers from nearly all states and the District of Columbia. According to the report, those who responded may have been more likely to perceive problems than those who did not. It was distributed among several organizations that reach a large teacher population, including the American Federation of Teachers.  The report also offers a set of recommendations to help school leaders manage student anxiety and combat hate speech and acts of bias. In short, these recommendations are: Set the tone. Take care of the wounded. Double down on anti-bullying strategies. Encourage courage. Be ready for a crisis. Teaching Tolerance will further analyze the survey results and use the data to shape our resources and offerings to K-12 teachers and others who work in schools. Visit Voting and Elections: Resources for a Civil Classroom to view a package of materials currently available to help educators navigate these troubling times.

"How can a "normal citizen" affect change? Our nation cannot maintain greatness without first admitting to these moments, reflecting about them, and committing to produce the next generation of thinkers to bring us forward. Boards like this are my attempt to create those thinkers. I'd look forward to any similarly-minded history lovers adding to these, commenting, or sharing some boards of their own in the comments below."

Developed over three years and completed in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, the curriculum is called "Learning from the Challenges of Our Times: Global Security, Terrorism and 9/11 in the Classroom." The material includes lesson plans on teaching the events of that day itself, but also delves into topics ranging from the "Impact of Hateful Words," for elementary students to "What is Terrorism?" in middle school and "Reaction to and from the Muslim and Arab Communities" for high school students. Also included are lessons on "acts of kindness" that occurred on 9/11, and ideas for students to help their town, community and the world.

NewsTrust has created a set of teacher guides that will help you teach your students the difference between good and bad journalism. These guides include interactive lesson plans for college and high school classes in journalism, civics, social studies, communications and more

"What has always impressed me about great teachers is how they can guide the tone of class discussions in positive directions through modeling and empathy. The same is true when it comes to politics. I have found success in this area by knowing my students and encouraging them to share relevant testimonials to illustrate their perspectives. Few things can build empathy better than looking at the dynamics of an issue through a peer's eyes. Putting Politics in Practice Modeling positive discourse is important when offering students a different path from the current divisive discourse found in today's political environment. Here are some successful strategies that I have followed in my own classroom:"

"The case can be made that all subject areas are important, but students often lack the educational opportunities to put their learning from these subject areas to work in the real world. My students now take part in community research projects where I ask them to identify a problem or issue that they care about in our local community. Their topics have included the school dress code, teen drug use, bullying, rural road conditions, and suicide prevention. In this process, students undertake a variety of research efforts. They work with primary sources. They interview community members, fellow students, and school officials. They create online surveys, and they visit the library, the museum, and the courthouse. They seek out knowledge from experts (including other teachers) regarding statistics, technology, and hazardous chemical compounds. They even become experts on the ins and outs of state laws that are relevant to their causes. They learn to value evidence. Sometimes that causes students to change their minds too. But just gathering the information isn't enough. We have to do something with that information. We have to take action and argue for reasonable solutions to our community issues based on the best information available. The secret is harnessing the spirit each student holds for the issue they seek to solve and allowing that spirit to develop each student's ability to reason. If I can accomplish that, I find that my students care enough about their writing to revise, edit, spell, and punctuate just fine. A recent study also confirmed that students' mastery of conventions can improve as a by-product of writing arguments on topics they care about. But first I had to go bigger with my expectations and with the lessons I valued. I had to believe they could change the world around them if I gave them the opportunity."

"Teachers are using the tumultuous election to reawaken Americans across the political spectrum to how vital civic knowledge is for making government truly by the people, for the people."

"Worried about unemployment and global competition, governments and schools have focused on preparing young people for work, rather than to participate in democracy. Citizenship education, said Michael Gove, Britain's education secretary from 2010 to 2014, was a "pseudo-subject". In America, schools no longer bother testing it. When the subject survives, it is often recast narrowly, says Bryony Hoskins of Roehampton University, as a way to counter radicalisation or promote national values to recent immigrants. The best civic-education classes do more than impart knowledge about how government works. They create environments in which pupils get used to the tools of democracy, such as debating controversial issues and disagreeing respectfully. Parents may worry that schools are indoctrinating their children, and teachers can be wary of treading on thorny ground. But schools are more ideologically diverse than many other environments, making them ideal testing-grounds for such skills."

"Teachers are taking up the challenge to change that. NPR Ed put out a social media call asking how educators are teaching fake news and media literacy, and we got a lot of responses. Here's a sampling from around the country:"

"Contrary to popular board game lore, Monopoly was invented not by an unemployed man during the Great Depression but in 1903 by a feminist who lived in the Washington, D.C., area and wanted to teach about the evils of monopolization. Her name was Lizzie Magie."

"Maps can be a remarkably powerful tool for understanding the world and how it works, but they show only what you ask them to. So when we saw a post sweeping the Web titled "40 maps they didn't teach you in school," one of which happens to be a WorldViews original, I thought we might be able to contribute our own collection. Some of these are pretty nerdy, but I think they're no less fascinating and easily understandable. A majority are original to this blog, with others from a variety of sources."

Resources, content and best practices for teaching high school history.

Welcome to the EC Ning Online Workshop on Nazi Propaganda presented by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Your facilitators are Carol Danks and Laurie Schaefer, both Museum Teacher Fellows and members of the Regional Education Corps for the USHMM.  This workshop will last for 21 days, from January 30-February 19th. So that you can best plan your time, here is the general outline for the workshop: Introduction & Overview: "State of Deception: Nazi Propaganda Online Workshop" January 30-February 1: Orientation to the State of Deception Website and Media Literacy questions February 2nd -7th Module 1: Exploring the concept of Inclusion through the theme: Defining the Enemy, Making a Leader, Rallying the Nation, and Indoctrinating the Youth. February 8th-12th: Module 2: Exploring the concept of Exclusion through the theme: Defining the Enemy February 13th-16th: Module 3: Propagating messages of Inclusion and Exclusion through the themes: Writing the News and Deceiving the Public February 17th: Module 4: Exploring Post Holocaust Propaganda and De-Nazification through the theme: Assessing the Guilt February 18th-19th: Teaching about Propaganda in the classroom: Resources, Lessons, Online Polls  

A Virginia Tech graduate student hit save on her overview of the state workers' compensation commission one spring day, but before her professor could take a look at it, someone else began deleting entire sections, calling them trivial and promotional. It wasn't a teaching assistant on a power trip - it was a Wikipedia editor known only as "Mean as custard." "I had worked on it for almost an entire day," said Amy Pearson, a public administration master's student. "It was kind of shocking." This school year, dozens of professors from across the country gave students an unexpected assignment: Write Wikipedia entries about public policy issues.