I can't believe I didn't find this excellent resource earlier. Updated by 3 high school teachers, this blog (and it's two sister blogs for Government and World History) are full of useful links, material, great technology, games, online activities, lesson plans suggestions, videos etc... Perfect for any social studies teacher. Or for the curious amateur historian. I will definitely be referencing this site regularly.
In their own words, "this site is made by high school US history teachers and will have links to useful classroom sites, relevant articles, other useful blogs and more."
http://ushistoryeducatorblog.blogspot.com/
This isn't my typical "Links to History" where I share emails I've received from other sites and publishers and vendors... this is a blog I found this morning and had to share. Teachers, you have to go to this blog.
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4 comments:
Rock On Barack Obama!! ;)) Peace*
Great information. Do you ever educate your class on Constitution Day? I am trying to find lesson plans for the constitution day and will check out their blog. Also, on constitutionfacts.com they have some great educational games for students too! Thanks for the insight.
I’m trying to find a way to let history and social studies teachers know about a new website, News-Basics.com, that’s designed for them to use with their students.
I'm hoping you'll post a brief item about the site on your blog.
News-Basics provides concise background information about the major news stories of our time, including what liberals and conservatives have to say about each topic. There are links to in-depth information and opinion pieces. The site also includes a section, “For Teachers,” with suggested lesson plans and other ideas and resources.
News-Basics is different from other news-related sites: its purpose is not to report the latest events, but to provide background so students can make sense of the news as it unfolds. Unlike Wikipedia entries, each article can be read in a few minutes.
If you’d like to take a look at the site, here’s the link:
http://news-basics.com/
I hope you’ll agree that this is a valuable resource for teachers who want their students to learn about current events—and I hope you’ll help me reach them.
Thank you very much!
Mike Laser
973-746-6505
www.MichaelLaser.com
http://news-basics.com
am not a history teacher, but I teach psychology/neuroscience at city college of new york. I'm interested in history and politics, and like this blog very much.
In retrospect, I did not get as much out of my high school history courses as I think I might I have. I have a question about the teaching of US history in our high schools. I've read some of Chomsky, and I'm not a huge fan of his. But it does seem to me almost certainly true that a guiding principle of US foreign policy seems always (or nearly always) to be: we support foreign governments that open markets to U.S. companies; and we oppose those that don't (e.g., the coup in Guatamela to out Guzman).
In high school, I learned that the U.S. is always on the side of freedom. It wasn't obvious to me that I was missing a big part of the story. I suppose there are legitimate debates about the right of a country to 'defend its interests'. But how far should our 'interests' extend? Don't our students have the right to be a part of this discussion, or to at least be prepared to take part in the discussion?
I recently wrote about these thoughts in my blog (http://brain-and-mind.blogspot.com/), but really would like to know from a history teacher whether these types of things do come up in high school history classes. Would it be difficult to include these issues in the curriculum? Perhaps, I'm overstating the notion (above) that our policy has been guided often by business interests. Curious to know your thoughts. Thanks, Jon
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