The power of democracy is its adaptability to a changing world. We can envision and work toward a society that is more just than the present. History education is more relevant now than ever. We offer ideas and strategies that can transform the history classroom into a space for understanding the past with the explicit purpose of learning from the…

In "Teaching about the Vietnam War: Centering Southeast Asian Refugee Voices through Children's Literature," Sohyun An provides content and pedagogic knowledge for teaching about the Vietnam War through Southeast Asian refugee children's books. The author provides a brief overview of the war from Southeast Asian perspectives and…

By some estimates, over 1.2 billion tons of soil was blown across the Great Plains during the height of the Dust Bowl. The so-called "black blizzards" these massive dust storms caused suffocated cattle, sickened children, and destroyed thousands of family farms. Formerly prosperous farmers, unsure why they had such bad luck, wondered if…

The authors provide an overview of teaching war and explore ways to situate these notions in the elementary classroom. As part of this discussion, they offer a guide for selecting appropriate texts for a thematic text set for children involving issues of war and peace.

There are notable historical figures commonly taught in social studies curriculums across the country, often without much controversy. Because they are seen as "elemental" to many World and U.S. histories, they mostly remain in standardized curriculum while recent censorship of content concerning race, gender, and sexuality has…

On a blustery day in March 2021, a line of bundled-up, masked first graders walked from school to a house on the National Register of Historic Places in their south Minneapolis neighborhood. For these 23 young learners, it wasn't just a walk. This COVID-era field trip was a culminating activity in a series of lessons, "Unearthing…

This article features highlights from an integrated curricular unit designed to challenge how the gender gap influences young learners' gender stereotypes of STEM professions by allowing students to question their own biases about these occupations while learning herstory. It was implemented in a third-grade classroom in a suburban elementary…

The complexities of the civil rights movement are rarely presented in elementary social studies. Year after year, students repeat the same decontextualized "I Have a Dream" crafts and assignments, tasks that do little to help students understand the country's history of racism or the racial dynamics of today. Instead of perpetuating the…

This article draws on my reflections from a year-long study in a first-grade classroom in a Midwestern public elementary school during which the author read and discussed a total of fourteen Asian American picture books with the class. In this article, she discusses the children's interactions with Asian American stories and provides suggestions…

In this article, I consider the use of Asian American digital archives as sources of critical inquiry for the elementary social studies classroom. First, I provide a brief overview of early South Asian American history, focusing on Punjabi and Bengali migrations. Then, I orient educators to two noteworthy community archives, the South Asian…

Discerning the intent of the author of a historical document is critical as we seek to interpret it. Disciplinary literacy uses specialized skills that seek to maximize student engagement and achievement within specified subject areas. In social studies, one of these critical skills is "sourcing." Sourcing involves exploring who produced…

In this article, the author describes three inquiry activities based on a children's book set in the Philippines during World War II. In many U.S. history and modern world history curricula and textbooks, events in the Philippines (and more generally in the Pacific theater) during World War II are not covered well. Because these events cannot be…

Election day is perhaps the most exciting day to teach elementary social studies. For a moment in time the entire nation, and most importantly our students, are captivated by the democratic process that will determine our next leaders. The 2020 election is particularly appealing because it coincides with the centennial of the passage of the 19th…

Social studies in general, and Black history in particular, are marginalized at the elementary level. The ways Black history has been taught are problematic, focusing on either celebrating civil rights heroes or lamenting the oppressive treatment of Black people, thus flattening the rich and varied histories of Black people. An almost singular…

I am a teacher educator from South Korea. In this article, I introduce two international children's books on the Korean War and a fifth grade lesson based on the books to teach the Korean War through a critical lens. Before proceeding, I first explicate why teaching about wars critically, including the Korean War, is vital.