Discusses the historical and ecological significance of Christopher Columbus' contacts with the Americas. Suggests that 1992's Columbian quincentennial can be an occasion for improving teaching about Columbus. Underscores teachers' responsibility to provide a multidimensional view of the explorer's times. Cites the need to balance teaching about…

Provides an annotated list of materials dealing with Christopher Columbus. Includes articles, ERIC documents, children's magazines and books, discovery kits, films and videos, and other items. Concludes that educators are only now discovering the innumerable connections between Columbus' era and the present. (SG)

Discusses the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the Americas. Criticizes contemporary condemnation of Columbus as unproductive. Acknowledges the deaths of countless Native Americans through disease and warfare. Recognizes that the pre-Columbian Americas did not comprise a paradise. Concludes that commemorating the…

Suggests using primary sources in history and social studies instruction. Offers reasons for teaching with primary sources. Proposes activities for developing students' investigative skills. Includes lessons dealing with detecting source bias, differentiating sources, using conflicting sources, and evaluating sources. Presents varied…

Discusses the problems of teaching about women in history. Suggests that women are presented in basic historical survey courses as helping men do what men wish to do, for shock value, and in the politics of woman suffrage. Recommends developing means of viewing economic and social relationships as socially constructed rather than natural. (DK)

Examines levels of the pyramid model of history including complete past; surviving evidence of the past; discovered evidence of the past; what historians consider important; historians' version of history; and what appears in textbooks. Suggests that the model can show students that history as presented in textbooks is a small part of the overall…

Provides classroom procedures for adapting the nineteenth-century-style song slide show to middle school history instruction. Suggests student production of song slide shows as individual or group projects. Argues that the activity can capture the drama of history and stimulate student curiosity about the past. (SG)

Recommends the use of political cartoons in history instruction. Identifies characteristics of effective cartoons: (1) wit or humor; (2) basis in truth; and (3) moral purpose. Argues that the study of cartoons can promote creativity and social science skills. Identifies sources of cartoons. (SG)

Suggests that special interest groups have disrupted efforts to implement curriculum programs on human rights issues. Argues that history cannot be tailored to allow people to hide from the past. Identifies the challenges of battling those who attempt to revise history and of approaching teaching about the Holocaust. Recommends extensive teacher…

Discusses a curriculum on the Holocaust and genocide. Expresses the belief that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of human equality can be a world dream. Argues that the curriculum is not a "Jewish" one, because it addresses examples of genocide from many cultures, and its authors are educators of various faiths. (SG)

Describes the relationship between John Dewey and Eliakim Moore and discusses the parallels between their ideas on mathematics education and those of historical reform in mathematics education. Their ideas are related to post-World War II reform, the "new math," reactions to the new math, and the NCTM "Curriculum and Evaluation…

Describes how students in a history course for developing college readers assumed the investigatory role of a parliamentary committee to study the impact of industrialization in nineteenth-century Britain. (SR)

Describes an oral history assignment in a U.S. history class in which limited English proficiency students interview a U.S. immigrant. (SR)

Reviews the Educational Testing Service's five most recent "State of Achievement" reports on the quality of non-higher education. The value of these reports is questionable, because their bias seems negative and their standards too perfectionist. Apparent poor results for U.S. children, compared with children of other nations, may arise…

Current social, racial, and economic conditions in the United States are viewed as creating opportunities to undermine democratic values. A historical consciousness that acknowledges different interpretations of the past is seen as a prerequisite for maintenance of democracy. (MSE)