Social Education articles from September 2001

Social Education archives from September 2001

Editor's Notebook.
September 1, 2001... ON JULY 26 this year, in a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, a Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to 29 Navajos for service in one of World War II's secret operations--the development of a code based on the Navajo language that was indecipherable...

THE NAVAJO CODE TALKERS.
September 1, 2001... A SECRET WORLD WAR II MEMORANDUM MAINTAINING SECRECY, particularly during wartime, is vital to the national security of every country. Accomplishing this on the homefront during World War II was one objective of the Office of War...

Latina Women Speak.(oral history)
September 1, 2001... Using Oral Histories in the Social Studies Curriculum WHAT IS AN ORAL HISTORY? Simply put, an oral history is a record of spoken memories. Oral histories turn ordinary people, their lives and their stories, into a collection of credible,...

A Picture's Worth.(historical photographs)
September 1, 2001... Analyzing Historical Photographs in the Elementary Grades A PICTURE CAN BE WORTH a thousand words--and maybe a lot more. Imagine the response of students as their teacher holds up a black-and-white photo (Figure 1) in which vintage cars...

Asking the BIG Questions:.(Great Irish Famine)
September 1, 2001... Teaching about the Great Irish Famine and World History IN MARCH 2001, an educational columnist for Newsday (New York) dismissed the New York State Great Irish Famine Curriculum Guide as another effort to promote ethnocentric history and...

Conflict Resolution and History: The War with Mexico as a Case Study.
September 1, 2001... What do history and fighting with your brother or sister have in common? Conflict. Looking at the history of national interactions over the centuries, we see a recurrence of conflicts frequently leading to wars that cost dearly in terms of...

Teaching Elementary and Secondary History Using the Internet.
September 1, 2001... ALTHOUGH the scope and sequence of the social studies curriculum throughout the United States has changed somewhat in the past decade, most students today are taking social studies courses very similar to those their parents took a generation...

Eugenics Past and Present.
September 1, 2001... Remembering Buck v. Bell "THREE GENERATIONS OF IMBECILES ARE ENOUGH." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes AT THE END of the nineteenth century, as Charles Darwin's theories of evolution were making their way to all levels of society,...

HISTORICAL THINKING AND OTHER UNNATURAL ACTS: CHARTING THE FUTURE OF TEACHING THE PAST.(Review)
September 1, 2001... HISTORICAL THINKING AND OTHER UNNATURAL ACTS: CHARTING THE FUTURE OF TEACHING THE PAST By Sam Wineburg Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. 255 pp. The lament that "kids don't know history" is very familiar to us today. As Sam...

ADDRESSING THE "NULL CURRICULUM": Teaching about Genocides Other than the Holocaust.
September 1, 2001... OVER THE COURSE OF the past few decades, there has been a flurry of pedagogical activity at the secondary and university levels in regard to teaching about the Holocaust.(1) Such attention to the Holocaust is significant and useful; however, it...

THE NCSS CURRICULUM STANDARDS: A Response.(National Council for the Social Studies)
September 1, 2001... IN THE SPRING OF 1992, the NCSS Board of Directors approved the creation of a Task Force on Standards for Social Studies.(1) The decision to convene this task force was not an easy one. The board was aware that bringing a group of ten or eleven...

Creating Effective Citizens.(history curriculum)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... A POSITION STATEMENT OF NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES National Council for the Social Studies believes that a primary goal of public education is to prepare students to be engaged and effective citizens. NCSS has defined an...

NHD NATIONAL HISTORY DAY.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... LIKE MANY social studies educators, we have always believed in the virtue not just of "teaching students history" but also of teaching students to be historians. After a stint as judges in this year's National History Day contest in June, we...

Examining the Motives Behind Standardized Tests.
September 1, 2001... What is it that we are assessing when we give a standardized test to our students? What is such assessment for? I find myself pondering these questions more and more, as a parent and teacher. Unfortunately, the conclusion I'm reaching is that...

Adobe Bricks.
September 1, 2001... Social studies teachers are eternally vigilant for new materials or teaching strategies that will assist them in reaching the educational goals of the district, the state, and the nation. They are required to be familiar with curriculum...

MUD MATTERS: STORIES FROM A MUD LOVER.(Review)
September 1, 2001... MUD MATTERS: STORIES FROM A MUD LOVER Written and Illustrated by Jennifer Owings Dewey, photographs by Stephen Trimble New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1998. 72 pp. $15.95 hardback. This delightful memoir tells of the author's lifelong love...

"Dear Teacher.
September 1, 2001... Letters on the Eve of the Japanese American Imprisonment March 24, 1942 Dear Miss Evanson, Because of this situation, we are asked to leave this dear city of Seattle and its surroundings. I am sure I will miss my teachers and Mr....

Handout: Part I.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Monday December 8, 1941 Middle school students wrote these compositions upon returning to class after a school-wide assembly. It was the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. These students were American citizens, of Japanese descent. They...

Handout Part II.(Brief Article)(Transcript)
September 1, 2001... March, 1942 Middle school students' wrote these letters to their homeroom teacher, Miss Ella Evanson, after the U.S. government announced that it would force them and their families to leave their homes and move to prison camps for...

Conscientious Objectors.(WW 2)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... In 1944, sixty-three young American men stood trial for resisting the draft at the concentration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. They were ready to fight for their country, but not before the government restored their rights as U.S. citizens...

TOUGH STUFF.(building materials in history)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... SOCIAL STUDIES AND BUILDING MATERIALS Have you ever thought about the social studies side of durable building materials? There might be a lot of history, anthropology, and geography hiding in there between the bricks. Test your knowledge of...