Humanities II

We make much of bad test results and idiotic answers to civics questions from the young Americans Jay Leno stops on Los Angeles street corners. It's fun, but it is also misleading. We are promoting what Paxton calls "the false notion that the biggest problem facing history students today involves the retention of decontextualized historical facts." He and Wineburg, both education professors, say we should decide what history is worth knowing and teach it well. "The thousand-page behemoths that we call textbooks violate every principle of human memory that we know of," Wineburg said

Educators from Central York High School in York, Pennsylvania, have provided these samples of integrated studies projects and their associated resources as examples to use in your own school.

Discussion with Danzy Senna, author of Caucasia, on her new short story collection

Op-ed uses an individual's emotional story to argue for universal healthcare

I decided then that I could never give anyone reason to doubt I was an American. I convinced myself that if I worked enough, if I achieved enough, I would be rewarded with citizenship. I felt I could earn it. I've tried. Over the past 14 years, I've graduated from high school and college and built a career as a journalist, interviewing some of the most famous people in the country. On the surface, I've created a good life. I've lived the American dream.

Discussion with pulitzer=prize winning journalist who admitted he is an illegal immigrant.

Definition essay

Recently New York magazine published an article called "Paper Tigers: What Happens to All Of The Asian-American Overachievers When the Test-taking Ends?" The-test taking in that headline refers to Asian-American students' over-representation in almost every index of achievement in education. And the what-happens question refers to their under-representation in corporate leadership. Wesley Yang wrote that article, and he joined us, along with Jane Hyun. She's a leadership strategist and executive coach who's the author of "Breaking The Bamboo Ceiling."

Expository piece on the Casey Anthony trial and why we long to close a case.

At age 12, Jose Antonio Vargas was put on an airplane and sent to the United States to live with his grandparents. For four years, he lived in California without knowing he was here illegally. But when Vargas was 16 and tried to get his driver's permit at the Department of Motor Vehicles, a clerk whispered to him that his green card was fake - and that he shouldn't return to the DMV. Since that day, Vargas has been living a double life. He graduated from high school and college, and went on to have an award-winning writing career at The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle. But during that time, he says, he knew he was an "undocumented immigrant ... living in a different kind of reality."

A new Harvard Business School study reveals that whites believe discrimination against them is rising, and that it's more prevalent than racism toward blacks. Host Michel Martin continues the conversation about anti-white bias with the study's co-author Michael Norton and Color Blind author Tim Wise.

New research shows that whites in the U.S. believe there are increases in racial bias toward them and public policies that create inequality. Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Abigail Thernstrom deems these claims as 'ridiculous,' and adds that race-based preferences will vanish when all students have leveled playing fields in schools

Students in New Jersey, a state that lost about 700 residents in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, can soon get classroom lessons on the event - from the history of terrorism to the heroics of regular people. The curriculum, with 56 lessons for kindergarten through high school, will be available to public and private schools in New Jersey or elsewhere. Schools in France and Missouri have expressed interest, organizers say.

Vocabulary

A group of social studies educators are working together with Edutopia to offer new ways to collaborate and enhance our professional teaching practices through an ongoing forum for discussion. Here are the main channels we're using.

Includes three videos

This all started with Rodney King. More to the point, it started with a plumber named George Holliday. Had he not been video recording from his balcony, that night in 1991 might have been business as usual for L.A. police who struck King, a harmless drunk, 50 times with their batons, breaking his leg, his cheekbone and his skull. Had Holliday not captured video proof to the contrary, they might have gotten away with some lame excuse: oops, he slipped on the stairs. But thanks to Holliday's camera, we all knew better. Twenty years latter, cameras have become ubiquitous. They have captured entertainer meltdowns, crashes, tasings, deaths and a seemingly endless carnival of police misbehavior: questionable beatings, controversial shootings and unprovoked violence by those we hire to protect and to serve. Perhaps not surprisingly, many police now identify cameras as the enemy.

PROHIBITION is a three-part, five-and-a-half-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed.

Use the treatment of citizens of Japanese and German ancestry during World War II--looking specifically at media portrayals of these groups and internment camps--as historical examples of ethnic conflict during times of trial; explore the problems inherent in assigning blame to populations or nations of people. Students will also look at contemporary examples of ethnic conflict, discrimination, and stereotyping at home and abroad.

In an effort to prevent abuse of powers by the United States government, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. Over time, various exceptions have been made to these rights with the belief that such exceptions were in the public interest. During times of war especially, the nation has struggled to maintain a reasonable balance between civil liberties and national security.