This paper is an analytic essay that examines the treatment of the Cherokee Trail of Tears in a North Carolina fourth grade textbook. I begin by offering a satiric look at an imaginary textbook's treatment of the Holocaust that is based closely on the actual narrative of the Trail of Tears written in the fourth grade text. Following this, close…

Historicalthinkingmatters.org, a collaboration between the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, pioneers of online historical resources, and Stanford University's History Education group, a research center that investigates the teaching and learning of history, addresses the problem of an abundance of historical texts and a…

There is a long history in the United States of collaboration between the academy and K-12 educators. Indeed, history, as an academic discipline in America, began in an atmosphere of professorial concern about history's place in the schools. In this article, the author provides a brief and general overview of the history of collaborative efforts…

How are educators moving museums' interpretive goals beyond exhibition galleries? How are programs creating new relationships between a museum and its adult audiences? As plans for physical transformation at the Chicago History Museum took form, the education department launched a parallel process of planning to redefine the "look and…

Studying the Holocaust provides an opportunity to explore a fascinating historical topic whose impact on the contemporary world cannot be overstated. As such, the topic is now an accepted part of the American secondary school curriculum. For such curricula to be of maximum benefit to students, clearly defined perspectives that direct the students'…

The author reports on various aspects of teaching economics in an interdisciplinary, team-taught course, including reflections on a unique experiment in teaching economics to nonmajors. By the incorporation of selected topics of gender economics into the interdisciplinary course about the changing economic statuses of women throughout history, the…

Research on historical cognition has capitalized on developing the thought processes of expert historians in students. Biofunctional theory points to several limitations to this approach: (a) developing from novice to expert is probably not a direct process; (b) developing expertise requires more time than the historical thinking approach…

This article presents a social studies unit plan taught to fifth graders in a gifted resource class that infuses technology into student-centered activities. The unit demonstrates how the teacher and students were able to use the technology to learn about life during the Klondike Gold Rush. The goal of the unit was to show how the Klondike Gold…

In this article, the author relates how she realized that she needed to differentiate her approach in teaching the subject of immigration to her students. She realized that most of her students find themselves far removed from the experiences of immigrants. The unit that she developed at her class in Trinity has much in common with the…

In response to the educational challenges countries face after violent conflict, the authors explored the links between larger political processes and decisions about teaching history. The authors focus on secondary schools in Rwanda, where they have been working on educational issues since 2001, and ask the questions: How can material for a…

Researchers widely agree that learning history should involve more than learning historical facts and should include competencies of historical thinking. Various models of historical thinking view students' competency to take historical perspectives as a standard in history education. In this study we introduce a standardized measure for…

There is so much more to preparing a citizen than merely running students like lemmings through a three-year succession of history survey courses. Everyone is neglecting most of the social sciences in American high schools today, favoring the sequential and systematic delivery of history. What should be primary in the teaching of social studies,…

In 2004, an upper Midwestern school district received a grant to administer content-specific professional development to teachers of American history. A series of nine master's level, degree-eligible courses were developed and administered by the local university's history department. At the conclusion of the grant activities in spring of 2008,…

Ji-li Jiang's extraordinary memoir "Red Scarf Girl" transports readers to a tumultuous time in Chinese history--the first two years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Caught between conflicting forces--joining the Revolution's call for rebellion, protecting her family, and fitting in with her peers--Jiang describes how her…

This pilot study aimed at developing and validating an evaluation model to assess the impact of participation in the National History Day in Ohio program (NHD-OH) on students academic achievement and intellectual growth by using as key indicators: a) High-stakes tests, i.e., Ohio Graduation Tests (OGT) in Social Studies, Reading and Writing; b)…