For at least the past year, my blogging here has been obsessed with beginnings and endings. This post will continue, and perhaps fittingly, end that trend. This spring, I tried to think deliberately about how to create a memorable moment at the very end of the semester. While attending a church service, I was struck by…
A few months ago, Republican Representative Daniel Fisher introduced a bill to the Oklahoma state legislature, HB 1380, that would revoke all funding for advanced placement United States history classes and put in their place a curriculum of the legislature’s choosing. This bill has been discussed in the media – at TUSH and elsewhere –…
The other day I was complaining to my dad about revising an essay I’ve been working on. It’s been one of those things that really shouldn’t take that long, but I have been having a hard time getting motivated and just doing the work. He laughed and reminded me of something James Michener had said…
Established in 1986, the Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award recognizes outstanding teaching and advocacy for history teaching at two-year, four-year, and graduate colleges and universities. The award is named for the late Eugene Asher, for many years a leading advocate for history teaching. The Society for History Education shares the sponsorship of the award. The…
I could not have predicted the events that have punctuated the 2014-2015 school year when I opted to teach a course on the history of Jim Crow and race relations in America at a predominantly white liberal arts institution. The deaths of two black men at the hands of police were resounding punctuation marks. The…
For several years I have been a member of a student-run organization at the Graduate Center called the City University of New York Early American Republic Seminar, fondly abbreviated to CUNY EARS. This Friday, May 1st, is our graduate student conference, so first and foremost, my apologies for the unequivocal promotion. But if you are…
The clock is the real ruler of the history survey. One can begin a semester with a million different goals that involve deconstructing narratives, incorporating historiography, or flipping the classroom. By late April and early May, some of those dreams are stripped from us, especially when we look at the calendar and realize we only…
As far as I’m concerned, the toughest task a history teacher faces is getting students to make responsible connections between past and present. I think this is essential to doing good history. Even for professional historians, it is a major challenge, since we also want to understand the past, as much as we can, on…
In preparation for the Massachusetts Historical Society’s upcoming conference on the American Revolution, there have been some really great posts at the Junto and Historiann about the state of the field for the American Revolution. I’ve been particularly interested in the discussion about labeling this era and field of study: do we call it “the…
This is not a new or particularly original question but it has been on my mind since I started teaching my own course: how do you get a classroom of young, college freshmen to relate to a small group of elite men dead for well over two hundred years? How do you teach a classroom…
