By Stephen Lazar, on January 24th, 2012%
I’m part of a roundtable on teachinghistory.org on the question, “What do the Common Core State Standards mean for history teaching and learning?” My take:
I am pretty sure I am supposed to be against the Common Core Standards…[but they] offer us an opportunity to broaden the conception of our discipline from one that focuses on helping students acquire an established body of knowledge to one that emphasizes the historical thinking skills that are central to constructing this knowledge. What the standards do in a simple and elegant fashion is clearly articulate the disciplinary skills necessary not only for reaching the relatively low bar of “college and career readiness,” but also for the much greater calling of creating an informed and critical citizenry.
Read the rest of mine here, and the whole series of insightful posts here.
By Stephen Lazar, on January 16th, 2012%
Have Your Students Participate in the Manning Marable “Along the Color Line” Speech Contest
While there is more to the contest than just writing about King, one of the suggested lessons focuses on King’s legacy, and Dr. Marable’s view of it. The King lesson is here, and full contest information and suggested lesson plans are here.
Remember King’s Reality
Last Martin Luther King Day, I wrote about four lessons students, and their teachers, can learn about Dr. King that challenge common misconceptions about his life and work:
- Sometimes, history happens by accident
- King dreamed of a whole lot more than white and black boys and girls joining hands
- King fought against terrorists
- King was a human being, with flaws
Learn about the People Who Made King’s Work Possible, and Lessons we Can Learn From Them
By Stephen Lazar, on January 11th, 2012%
Seven years ago I fell in love with two wonderful woman named Bernice Robinson and Septima Clark, who founded the Citizenship Education Program, the little known backbone of the Civil Rights Movement. Without these two, I am certain we would not be celebrating Martin Luther King Day this Monday. We in education have much to learn from them:
The primary goal of the Citizenship Education Program was to teach and develop first-class citizens. And every aspect of the program was grounded in this goal—from teacher training sessions to day-to-day practices to the rhetoric of staff correspondence. Dozens of adult literacy programs had targeted African-Americans in the South—but none were as successful as the CEP, because too many narrowly focused on the skill of literacy, rather than its application in citizenship.
In my opinion, we have made a similar mistake with skill-based competency testing under No Child Left Behind. A curriculum and testing regimen that only focuses on skill development outside of meaningful and relevant application cannot prepare students and communities for 21st-century success. I hope that with the implementation of the Common Core standards, we will not make the same mistake again. As teachers, we need to develop a clear sense of our own purpose—and make every effort to ensure that how we teach each day aligns with that purpose.
Read the rest at Education Week Teacher. It’s an honor to share part of their story.
By Stephen Lazar, on December 20th, 2011%
Last year, I found myself teaching a Global History course for the fourth time in my career. Like many history teachers in the US, most of my historical training had focused on American history, and it was my passion for it that led me to become a Social Studies teacher in the first place. The first time in my life that I was in a classroom learning about Ancient Greece and Rome was when I was teaching it as a student teacher, in East Greenwich, RI. There, the course was still “Western Civilization”. I later taught “World History 1” in Virginia (Beginning of Time -> Renaissance), and “Global History 3/4” in New York (Renaissance -> Now). What was evident to me in all courses was that a dominant narrative of the progress of western civilization was the backbone of the course: River Valley -> Ancient Greece & Rome -> Middle/Dark Ages -> Renaissance/Exploration/Scientific Revolution -> Enlightenment/Atlantic Revolutions -> Modernity. The Rhode Island curriculum basically took that as the story, while Virginia and New York used that to organize chronological periods, then adding in units about other portions of the world, often leading to illogical breaks in the stories of other regions, particularly China. I realized there was something problematic about this conception of World History, but did not have the vocabulary or knowledge to articulate anything more than “this seems Eurocentric.”
Thanks to a recommendation in the October issue of Social Education, however, I now have that language. Ross Dunn’s article, “The Two World Histories” is the most important piece I’ve read about teaching World History, and needs to be required reading for anyone who teaches the subject. It clearly articulates two camps on World History:
- World History A: This is the home of most current scholarship on World History, where the focus is on major trends, patterns, and changes on a global scale.
- World History B: This is the home of both conservative Wester Civilization preservationists and those, like my least-thoughtful self, who want to see more attention paid to all cultures, particularly those that are the heritage of the students I teach. This is history as the history of civilizations, cultures, nations.
Nearly all political argument around history, and therefore the development of all state standards, occurs in domain B. The New York Global curriculum and its Regents exam are no exception. Of the 85 terms that are assessed most frequently in the Multiple Choice portion of the exam, 75 represent people, places, periods, achievements, or events that take place within specific regional or national histories.
Dunn argues that what is needed instead is:
to study the history of humankind writ large, recognizing that the Earth is a “place” whose inhabitants have a shared history. To be sure, important developments have taken place within the confines of continents, regions, societies, and nations, but those ver-changing human aggregates remains parts of the globe in all its roundness.
He recommends the AP World History and World History For Us All curriculums as good models of World History A, as well as the National Standards for History. It’s also clear though, for those like myself without a strong background in World History, that further reading and professional development is needed. Though I didn’t fully realize until now why I found it so insightful, I would recommend World History Connected as a good place to start reading.
I hope you will take the time to read the article in its entirety and let me know what you think about it in the comments.
By Stephen Lazar, on December 2nd, 2011%
Frank McCaughey and I will be presenting tomorrow morning at 8am sharp at NCSS. Hope you can join us physically or virtually. For those who can’t, our presentation and a link to our materials are below. Continue reading Make History Matter at 8am Tomorrow at NCSS
By Stephen Lazar, on November 10th, 2011%
This is a history-centric follow up to my post asking Who Should Occupy the Classroom?
The Rethinking Schools blog has an interesting post called “Occupy the Curriculum” up, by Bill Bigelow. There, they celebrate responses to the Zinn Education Group’s Facebook page question: what are you teaching now:
Chris Conkling is teaching about “Forced removal of Native Americans/Andrew Jackson.”
Ariela Rothstein is teaching about the “Haitian revolution and the effects of colonialism on the Caribbean.”
Samantha Manchac is teaching about “the early women’s movement” from Chapter 6, “The Intimately Oppressed,” in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.
Bigelow celebrates teachers’
defiant “We’ll decide what our students need to learn, not some distant corporation” needs to happen in schools across the country
While I think the re-evaluation of what is taught in history classrooms to include erased and marginalized history is important and necessary, I think those of us who approach things from non-tradiational perspectives miss the point when we ask “what should be taught,” rather than “how should it be taught?” If we teach our students different information in traditional methods, it’s not radical nor transformative; we’re just stuffing a different ideology down students’ throats, and we’re no better than teachers who consider the textbook the curriculum.
Rather, we need classrooms that develop democratic citizens capable of of original, critical thought. I don’t care too much if my students read Zinn. I do care that students in my class could become the next Zinn (or Burke, for that matter).
Radical educators need to ask their selves, “am I a teacher who happens to be radical?” or, “am I a radical educator?” It’s the latter group, who equip students to make their own independent and potentially radical decisions, that give me faith for the future of the world. The former group, who think they’re radical because of what they teach, are just reifying existing power structures.
By Stephen Lazar, on November 1st, 2011%
I recently joined the Teacher Leaders Network. One of the perks I’m most excited about is the opportunity to write for larger audiences of teachers. Through them, I was able to publish a revised and updated version of my inquiry manifesto on Education Week Teacher.
…But we must also ensure that our high school students gain the skills and knowledge necessary to be critical thinkers and citizens in our democracy. Our world is saturated with media, and students need to learn how to evaluate the information they encounter, based on where it comes from, who is producing it and when, its use of evidence, and its intended audience…
Read the rest here.
By Stephen Lazar, on October 16th, 2011%
Please share this with any teachers you know. Dr. Marable was very important to me, and I can think of no greater tribute to him then to share his work so that it inspires new social critics. I have written a curriculum to to support the project, which you can find here.
“Along the Color Line” Video Contest: Teens Speak Out About Current Events
“Along The Color Line”, written by the late historian Dr. Manning Marable, was a public educational and information service dedicated to fostering political dialogue and discussion, inspired by the great tradition for political event columns written by W. E. B. Du Bois nearly a century ago. This video contest provides high school students with the opportunity and incentive to use scholarly research to analyze and pose solutions to some of the social issues that Manning Marable addressed in his writings such as sexism, racism, imperialism, and poverty. It continues the spirit of “Along the Color Line” by fostering critical analysis on political issues and public events that had special significance to African Americans and to other people of color internationally; allows students the creative license to translate the rigorous research that Dr. Marable used in his “Along the Color Line“ columns into a creative and accessible video medium; and empowers students to speak out about the material conditions of their lives to an audience of teachers, activists and community members at “A New Vision of Black Freedom: The Manning Marable Tribute Conference” sponsored by Columbia University’s Institute for Research in African-American Studies from April 26 – April 28, 2012.
Curriculum Connection: An adaptable weeklong curriculum developed by a NYS certified HS teacher is available free for educators. It provides educational units and background reading for teachers of Civics, Government and US History to connect this contest to their classroom while meeting several Common Core writing (1,4,5,6,9) and reading (1,2,4,6,8,9,10) standards.
Contest Requirements: After becoming familiar with Manning Marable’s column “Along the Color Line” style of blending scholarly data with political analysis to address social issues, students will create a 2-3 minute long video presentation that features their research and analysis of a social issue that is important to them and their community.
Criteria: This contest is limited to students currently enrolled in high school anywhere in the US. Submissions will be judged on depth of knowledge of social problem being discussed, originality, and creative expression. Students can submit individually or through their teacher as part of a class project.
Submissions: The due date is February 17, 2012 before midnight. Submissions should be sent to marablevideocontest@gmail.com. Only one submission per email and per student. Students must include their name, age, grade, and full contact information as well as the name, address and phone number of their high school. Videos longer than 3 minutes will not be accepted.
Finalists: The top finalists will be special guests of the conference, where their videos will be screened. The first place winner will be announced at conference.
Prize: $250 Prize, one of Dr. Marable’s books and the video featured on the conference website.
For more information or questions contact: askmarableconference@gmail.com
By Stephen Lazar, on October 11th, 2011%
 I had totally forgotten about this until my mail arrived today, but I am now officially a published historian. It’s a huge honor to have been included in The New Black History. My article, “Septima Clark: Organizing for Positive Freedom,” is chapter 13. Only 4 copies left on Amazon, so order fast!
It’s also quite humbling to be a portion of what will sadly prove to be Manning Marable’s last book. He taught me so much as a mentor, so I was stunned when I was initially asked to be part of this collection, filled with so many prominent and up-and-coming historians of the African American experience. To have the book come out after his tragic passing, makes the experience bittersweet, to say the least. We are all better off for the work Dr. Marable put forth into the world, but I am immensely saddened that there will not be more of it.
Also, note the name of the co-editor, Elizabeth Hinton. She was starting her PhD studies when I did my MA, and I can say without hesitation that she is the most insightful student I have ever shared a classroom with. I look forward to many, many more works from her in the future. She will be writing great things for years to come.
By Stephen Lazar, on September 30th, 2011%
Cross posted from the NYC Social Studies Critical Friends Group Blog, based on this prompt.
Last year, I began really changing how I used primary source documents in class. For most of my career, I used primary documents to give students factual information and eyewitness accounts to what was going on in various times and places. I had somewhat blindly accepted that it was better to use primary document to “bring history alive,” rather than relying on the deadened accounts found in textbooks. I also imagined I was “empowering” my students to become historical interpreters, rather than relying on politically correct interpretations put forth in the textbook. In reality though, I don’t believe my students experienced primary documents that differently from how they would have experienced the textbook. I wasn’t teaching them to interpret, but rather to find factual information in relatively unproblematic texts I had chosen with a clear takeaway in mind.
Last year, I began doing much more work putting primary documents in opposition to each other. This forced students to do the critical work of historians in order to construct history for their selves. I began selecting primary document sets that, if not outright contradicting each other, forced students to take multiple documents into account in order to draw complex conclusions about causation and historical significance. Very much connected, I shifted from having my students do analytical writing to doing persuasive writing using primary documents, thereby forcing them to use the documents as evidence to support their claims.
I initially made the change because I realized that in my previous years teaching US, I wasn’t really having my students doing much thinking about history outside of their project work. When I began constructing a new global curriculum last year, I wanted to ensure students were playing authentic roles not only on projects, but also regularly in class. While my major assessments had always asked students to include more than “just the facts,” the way students had been learning hadn’t done the same. I was asking myself, “How can this work be more engaging, challenging, and worthwhile?”
My initial change was just on some gut hunches; I’m not sure I could have articulated any of this at the time. The “data” that led me to the change was the mostly boring writing I was getting from students. Once upon a time I had looked forward to reading student essays, but I realized that since I was no longer asking students to think in service of the Regents gods, I was also not getting the best work from students that allowed them some level of individual expression.
I knew the change was successful when students started being excited by what they found in primary documents, and when I saw them actually using that information in their work on a regular basis.
My thinking on this got pushed exponentially farther than it ever would have otherwise when I started working on the NYC local assessment pilot for the new teacher evaluation system. The three other people on my team were all brilliant at doing this kind of work. Most importantly, they named some of the things I had been doing, but not doing so intentionally, so that I could recreate some of my successes. They also named the specific skills students needed, and gave me tools to teach these skills.
Now, I’m wondering about how to fully integrate this kind of learning into my government & economics course in a way that moves students beyond the dominant “token-liberal vs. token-conservative talking head” political discourse so prevalent right now in the country. How do I get students to move beyond the simplistic “I agree with this perspective over that perspective,” and towards one where they can critically articulate and analyze the rhetorical structures and tools being used to manipulate viewpoints, and the discourse itself.
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About Me I am a NBPTS Certified Social Studies and English Teacher in Brooklyn. I work with teachers to support Project and Inquiry-Based Learning. My writing on policy and practice has been published on the New York Times, Education Week, and Gotham Schools websites.
You can also follow me on Twitter @SLazarOTC. |
