Social Studies

The program focuses on a project based, in-depth and multi-cultural curriculum in six main fields: the student’s native language, second language, individuals and societies, experimental sciences, mathematics and computer science, and the arts.

Nichols added, however, that as the school moves to implement the IB program, Advanced Placement classes would most likely be phased out.

So why teach? It sounds exhausting, stressful, and almost impossible to do well! In fact, we teach because the rewards are outstanding. When your students tell you at the end of the year that they can’t believe how much they’ve learned…that is a reward. When former students, now in college, return to your classroom to get a hug, to thank you for what you did to help them believe in themselves, and to tell your present students what it was like in “their day”…that is your reward. I just received a letter from the parent of a former student who is now in graduate school. She wrote that she saw a quote and thought of me. It said, “You make a child feel good about himself and that’s a motivation to excel.” That is a reward. So, in answer to our questions of the 60’s, as teachers, we did change the world. We changed it when we taught children to believe in themselves and to share that knowledge. We changed it by teaching our youngest students to listen, to share, and to respect their classmates and themselves. We changed it by giving our students the tools and skills they needed to change their world. We made this a better world -- one child at a time.

Because the IB Diploma Programme requires students to take two-year Higher Level exams after senior year -- the program does not officially start until junior year -- she was advised to defer the Math HL I course for a year and take Math Standard Level I this year as a sophomore.

Kim Ursetta

Denver, Colorado'

want to start a new kind of school," she said, a union-sponsored public school led by teachers, not a principal

This site was developed to provide teachers with a full range of resources and activities to support the teaching of landmark Supreme Court cases, helping students explore the key issues of each case.

The general teaching strategies include moot court, political cartoon analysis, continuum exercises, and Web site evaluation.

We studied the older texts that were passed down orally, but we are also writing new literature to reflect the current situation for Berbers in Morocco. It's really ground-breaking."

Although Berbers were Morocco's first inhabitants and account for some 60% of Morocco's population, they faced widespread discrimination and it is only now that the language is required to be taught in public school.

Their academic qualifications may not help them much on the jobs market, but the availability of a further degree in a subject that was once virtually outlawed in their North African country underscores Berber success in gaining official acceptance of the language.

From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. These former slaves, most born in the last years of the slave regime or during the Civil War, provided first-hand accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms.

The VMI Archives receives many inquiries every year from students and teachers throughout the United States regarding the life of Cadet William H. McDowell. A fictional account of McDowell's participation in the Battle of New Market is featured in The Ghost Cadet, an award winning children's book by Elaine Marie Alphin.