Social Education articles from January 2009

Social Education archives from January 2009

Editor's notebook.
January 1, 2009... At the dawn of a new and historically important presidency, two of our opening articles evoke the times of inspiring past presidents, John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. The rest of the issue touches on historical and contemporary subjects...

Tools versus skills.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... In "Sharpening Citizenship Skills through Electronic Discussion" (Social Education 72, no. 3, 147-151), Catherine Snyder provides a sample of a typical student exchange on an electronic discussion board. The focus of the discussion was a...

Fact check: Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... Authors Elizabeth Yang and Kristi Gaines assert in their article "Voting Rights in the United States" (Social Education, September 2008) that people would "be amazed to know that the Constitution... only allowed the states to bestow the [right...

Embracing the future through social studies.(NCSS Notebook)(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2009... One may hear a thousand lectures, and read a thousand volumes, and at the end of the process be very much where one was as regards knowledge. Something more than merely admitting it into the mind is necessary if it is to remain there. It must...

Child's letter to President John F. Kennedy about physical fitness.(Teaching with Documents)(Jack Chase)
January 1, 2009... On March 3, 1963, nine-year-old Jack Chase of Torrance, California, wrote a letter to President John F. Kennedy. In his single-page note, featured in this article, Jack described his plans for staying physically fit. He said he would walk to...

The Baghdad that was: using primary sources to teach world history.(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2009... That primary source documents have the power to bring the past alive is no news to social studies teachers. What is new in the last 10 years is the number of digitized documents available online that teachers can download and use in their...

Abraham Lincoln: American lawyer-president.(Looking at the Law)(In memoriam)
January 1, 2009... Abraham Lincoln was the most experienced trial lawyer Americans have ever placed in the White House. While more than half of our nation's presidents have been attorneys, none possessed Lincoln's extensive courtroom experience: approximately...

Apocalypse when? How to teach about human survival using the internet.(Surfing the Net)(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2009... The people where I work part-time are an eclectic bunch. There are university professors, physicists, construction workers, landscapers, and people who work at a nearby defense establishment. The bar is horseshoe-shaped and encourages...

Get in the groove, let's make a move!: students in Israel confront a transition with service learning.(Walworth Barbour American International School)(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2009... Is the anticipated move of a school to a new location a source of curious excitement and optimism or an occasion for trepidation, recrimination, and anxiety? As plans to relocate the Walworth Barbour American International School in Israel from...

The Civil War battle that helped create a state.(Battle of Bull Run)
January 1, 2009... The Battle of Bull Run is routinely cited as the first land battle of the Civil War. That battle between Union and Confederate forces took place near Manassas, Virginia, on July 21, 1861. But was this battle really the initial skirmish between...

Teaching social studies as a subversive activity.(Point of View)(Essay)
January 1, 2009... In the opening paragraph of their best-selling book, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Nell Postman and Charles Weingartner wrote 40 years ago: In 1492, Columbus Discovered America... Starting from this disputed fact, each one of us will...

Authentic intellectual work: common standards for teaching social studies.(Research and Practice)(Report)
January 1, 2009... For most students in most schools, the usual work demanded of them is rarely meaningful, significant, or worthwhile. Learning tasks still tend to call for memorizing and reporting on specific information and content, rather than asking students...

Sherry Marx. Revealing the Invisible: Confronting Passive Racism in Teacher Education.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2009... Sherry Marx. Revealing the Invisible: Confronting Passive Racism in Teacher Education. New York: Routledge, 2006. 196 pp. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A recent study by Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality...

Researching our school's history.(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2009... At the beginning of the school year, I cast my best "hook" for grabbing my students' attention: I challenge my eighth graders to investigate a bit of history that they interact with every day--the history of their own school. [ILLUSTRATION...

Our school as living history.(Detroit Waldorf School)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Students from the Detroit Waldorf School recently participated in an oral history project involving the 85-year-old founder of the school, Amelia Wilhelm. Now in its 42nd year, the school recently celebrated its 40th...

A trash-free lunch experiment: measuring "before" and "after".(Taylor Elementary School)(Report)
January 1, 2009... Introduction Global warming. Energy crisis. Deforestation. If you only watch television news, you might believe that Earth's environmental problems are so huge that they cannot be solved. But we don't believe that at all. Humans, through...

The U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development, www.uspartnership.org.(Internet Resources on Sustainability)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... The U.S. Partnership consists of individuals and more than 300 organizations and institutions in the United States dedicated to education for sustainable development (ESD). Formed in response to the Decade of Education for Sustainable...

Facing the Future, www.facingthefuture.org.(Internet Resources on Sustainability)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Facing the Future offers curriculum resources on sustainability and related issues such as poverty and pollution. FTF offers free online resources, as well as student textbooks, lesson plans, and thematic units for sale. For example, It's All...

Place-based Education, www.promiseofplace.org.(Internet Resources on Sustainability)(Place-based Education Evaluation Collaborative)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Place-based education is a holistic approach to education, conservation, and community development that uses the local community as an integrating context for learning at all ages. The Place-based Education Evaluation Collaborative (PEEC)...

Vital Climate Change Graphics (UNEP), www.grida.no/publications/theme/climatechange.(Internet Resources on Sustainability)(Website overview)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... These neat, colorful images pop up onscreen quickly. First published in 2000 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), these informative graphics are based on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)....

Free The Children, www.freethechildren.com/aboutus/ index.php.(Internet Resources on Sustainability)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Among human populations, the world's poor are suffering the most from the effects of global warming. Free The Children is a large network of children helping children through education, with more than one million youth involved in our...

Heifer International, HeiferEducation.org.(Internet Resources on Sustainability)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Heifer International provides sustainable development education resources and opportunities for all ages, including lesson plans, action ideas, activities, multimedia supplements and information about service learning programs. The simple idea...

Bears in the air: an activity from facing the future.(the back page)
January 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In this lively activity, students experience the limits of success, redesign a system to improve efficiency, and begin to identify assumptions that drive human behavior. (2) Required materials include a stuffed...