Social Education articles from March 2004

Social Education archives from March 2004

Editor's notebook.(Editorial)
March 1, 2004... Many of the articles in this issue deal with past and present milestones. Teaching about such landmarks allows educators to lead students from the drama of major events to an understanding of their context and causes. From the history of...

Letter from President Millard Fillmore to the Emperor of Japan: the president's letter opened a closed country to the West.(Teaching with Documents)
March 1, 2004... IN 1852, COMMODORE MATTHEW C. PERRY OF THE U.S. NAVY sailed to Japan with instructions to deliver a letter from President Millard Fillmore to the Emperor. The letter eventually led to the 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa and the opening of Japan to...

McConnell v. FEC: reforming campaign finance: Court upholds Campaign Finance Act despite First Amendment dissents.(Looking at the Law)(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... In a clear-cut victory for campaign-finance reformers last December, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld virtually the entire Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). McConnell v. FEC, No. 02-1674 (slip opinion available on the...

Crisis in Haiti: two hundred years after slaves rose up against France, armed rebels oust Haiti's elected leader.
March 1, 2004... Haitians had expected 2004 to be a year of celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of independence from France following the only successful slave revolt of its time. Instead political violence exploded early in the year and armed gunmen...

Discussion in social studies: is it worth the trouble?(Research and Practice)
March 1, 2004... IN A FAMOUS "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE" sketch, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, playing a high school history teacher, attempts to start a discussion with rote factual questions, such as "Who was Britain fighting in World War II?" The agonizing recitation...

Past as prologue: history vs. social studies.
March 1, 2004... DOES HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF? Maybe, but I am not convinced. One thing that certainly keeps returning is public outrage at the state of young people's historical knowledge (or the lack of it). Richard Paxton recently wrote an article for...

The U.S. labor force in the new economy.
March 1, 2004... In the last two decades, the United States has been in the throes of rapid economic change brought by new technologies and the globalization of the economy. One of the best ways to study the effects of change on the U.S. population is through...

Macro or micro: teaching fifth-grade economics using handheld computers.
March 1, 2004... Imagine a classroom where students beam their assignments to the teacher instead of handing them in. Imagine a classroom where technology is ubiquitous yet nearly invisible. Imagine a classroom where all students simultaneously work together...

Separate is not equal: Brown v. Board of Education: a guide for study and discussion.
March 1, 2004... The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education marked a turning point in the history of race relations in the United States. On May 17, 1954, the Court stripped away constitutional sanctions for public school segregation by...

School desegregation depicted in docudrama: six films depicting school desegregation reviewed for classroom teachers.
March 1, 2004... May 17 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, which reversed the Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, and ordered the desegregation of schools. Today's students are...

The International Atomic Energy Agency.
March 1, 2004... The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II inaugurated a new era in world history, the atomic age. After the war, the Soviet Union, eager to develop the same military capabilities as those demonstrated by the United...