In describing the initial reactions to the Japanese attack on Pearly Harbor, historian Ian W. Toll observes that both civilians and military personnel were slow to comprehend the events they were witnessing.
In eyewitness accounts of December 7, 1941, this “belated comprehension—that an attack was unfolding—is “repeated again and again.”
Read MoreWorld History is arguably the most daunting survey course that secondary social studies teachers undertake with Economics a close second. World History’s complexity is illustrated by the series of events that sparked the Great War (or World War I). It is a tangled web of alliances, grievances, missteps, and miscalculations leading to a world-wide conflagration. In his classic study, The Origins of the World War, author Sidney Bradshaw Fay required two volumes and 569 pages to unravel the causes of the conflict.
How can teachers encourage students to untangle the circumstances that led to a world-wide conflagration?
Read MoreAs we approach this Memorial Day weekend, you'll appreciate Kenny's blog post, a letter to his children, which also speaks to the important place of the social studies in the curriculum.
Read MoreAfter flying to Minneapolis/St. Paul this past week, I drove up to the “arrowhead” over the weekend—the closest thing to visiting Canada without needing a passport.
Read MoreIn this week's blog post, Dr. Steve Bickmore, a good friend and a former colleague at LSU, whose expertise is in English Language Arts (ELA) Teacher Education and Young Adult (YA) Literature has co-authored a post that celebrates collaboration while pointing to the ways that Young Adult Literature can be used as a tool to bridge the subject silos of both Social Studies and English Language Arts classrooms.
Read MoreIt is a crisp (high 30s) mid-April morning—in Mississippi we would say “cold morning!”—in Washington, DC as I commute from my Arlington, Virginia hotel to the Library of Congress. This day, for me, like that of so many Captial City commuters, requires using the Metro system--a fixture in this walking city. Previously, this mode of travel seemed foreign, distant, and distasteful to this native Hoosier and current Mississippi resident. Over the last couple of years, this 22 minute subway ride has become surprisingly comfortable and familiar.
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