What happens when a trusted source publishes an incredibly problematic article? We refute it.

In this episode, Virginia Council for the Social Studies President, Sam Futrell, is joined by Matt Simpson from the Virginia Holocaust Museum to break down Dara Horn's poorly researched attack against Holocaust education. Published in the May 2023 issue of The Atlantic, Horn's piece "Is Holocaust Education Making Anti-Semitism Worse? Using Dead Jews as Symbols Isn't Helping Living Ones" leverages the work of educators in museums and classrooms around the country to get clicks.

Also featured in this episode:

Jennifer Goss, Echoes and Reflections

Kelley Szany, The Illinois Holocaust Museum

Echoes & Reflections Survey

ADL Study, Antisemitic Attitudes in America

Are you a teacher looking to participate in professional development this summer? Want to make the most out of your summer as a teacher? Don’t feel overwhelmed by the application process. We can help Our panelists - Ben Boyce with the Jack Miller Center, Sarah Harris with the National Constitution Center, and Jeff Scott with the Freedoms Foundation - are insiders with nationally renowned institutions who share with us their firsthand experiences and all the tips you need to get accepted into the program of your dreams! 

Register for the 2023 VCSS Conference!

NEH Institutes

• Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge offers summer teacher workshops each year at their Valley Forge campus. Join the over 14,000 educators who have enriched their knowledge and their classrooms through our critically acclaimed and accredited seminars. For over 50 years, teachers like you have connected with our course content taught by extraordinary scholars and thinkers.
• This March the Foundation will offer complimentary acceptance to one lucky attendee at the VIrginia Social Studies Conference in Richmond. Register to attend the conference: https://sites.google.com/view/vcss-2023-conference/home?authuser=2
• Summer Workshop Link: https://www.freedomsfoundation.org/teachers/
• The National Constitution Center recognizes not only the importance of primary sources, but also the importance of engaging with teachers across the nation. Throughout the year, and particularly during the summer months, NCC offers their Summer Educator Institute series. Every summer, the National Constitution Center hosts educators from across the country in its summer institute series, bringing together top educators and ideologically diverse constitutional scholars. Through both weeklong in-person sessions and three-day virtual sessions, educators work with content experts throughout these programs to deepen their knowledge of constitutional topics and their historical contexts and modern understandings. While working with teacher facilitators and the Center's education team, participants discover and develop innovative, nonpartisan ways to make the content relevant to their students. Educators gain new content knowledge, teaching tools, classroom-ready resources, and skills for improving constitutional literacy.
  • Summer Educator Institute Link: https://constitutioncenter.org/education/professional-learning-opportunities/summer-educator-institutes
• The Jack Miller Center website offers a variety of resources for learning more about American political thought and development. These include articles, videos, useful websites, and fellows’ publications. Each summer the Center builds and provides collegial-level educational opportunities for teachers to engage in academic discussions relating to political and governmental topics. The incentive to support educators is derived from the will to build a movement of civic educators to reach the next generation with the principles of equality, liberty, and opportunity that lie at the heart of the American political tradition. Summer workshop offerings will be available soon on the Jack Miller Center website.
• Jack Miller Center Link: https://jackmillercenter.org/

At their November 17, 2022 meeting, the VBOE declined to accept State Superintendent Jillian Balow’s redraft standards and asked for a combined standards document that brings together the respective strengths of the original August 2022 standards with the November 2022 redraft standards, along with consideration of public comment. On December 20, 2022, a joint work group of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium (VSSLC), the Virginia Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (VASCD), and the American Historical Association (AHA) released a set of collaborative standards for History and Social Science Education and submitted their draft to the Virginia Board of Education (VBOE).

Join VCSS President and host Sam Futrell as she discusses Virginia's social studies standards with members of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders' Consortium, Dr. Ma'asehyahu Isra-ul, Beau Dickenson, and Dr. Taylor Snow. 

Links for this episode:

Attend the 2023 VCSS Conference!

Listen to Leading by History 

Follow us on Twitter:

@sam_futrell1

@HCPSSnow

@beaudickenson

Current trends in social studies education, including within Virginia, point towards deeper learning experiences as the north star of desired practice. In 2015, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) revised curriculum framework for social studies introduced a standard dedicated to history and social science thinking skills. Emphasizing the use of disciplinary concepts and a pedagogy centered on inquiry, Virginia’s future embraces constructivist pedagogies and the use of performance assessments to demonstrate student learning.  The shifts are polar opposites of what many VA. teachers have been used to since the early 21st century. In turn, rote memorization and teacher centered instruction continue to be held as markers of successful and valuable teaching and learning.  The alternative to this approach is a pedagogy of deeper learning.  

Realizing deeper learning practices in classrooms, however, is ultimately a local, classroom, phenomenon. How a teacher enacts a curriculum, therefore, is where practice intersects with policy. To this end, successful implementation of deeper learning practices involves the following six outcomes:
1. use of inquiry through student generated questions
2. constructivist approach  where students generate meaning and understanding
3. use of disciplinary concepts as part of student learning
4. connections are made to the student’s life or to the contemporary world
5. authentic demonstration of learning by students
6. time to reflect on how the content impacted their understanding of themselves or the contemporary world.

Craig Perrier is the High School Social Studies Curriculum and Instruction Specialist for Fairfax County Public Schools in Fairfax, VA. He is also an adjunct professor for the teacher certification program Educate VA and with Framingham State University. .  Previously, he taught at American Schools in Brazil for six years and for six years in public schools in Massachusetts. After leaving the classroom, Craig was the Coordinator for Curriculum and Instruction for Social Studies and History at Virtual High School and then the PK-12 Social Studies Coordinator for the Department of Defense Dependent Schools.  He has consulted with IREX, IIE, iEARN, The Global Campaign for Education, ABC-Clio, The World History Project, and the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. In addition, Craig has a M.A. in Global History, M.Ed in Education Leadership and  is pursuing his doctorate in Education Leadership  He presents at regional and national conferences, and is the creator of the free online teacher resource "U.S. History in a Global Context."

Links for this episode: 

• Globalizing US History https://sites.google.com/view/globalizing-u-s-history/home?authuser=0
• Ready to Use VT Routines  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CvIpxTN0X9LxEaq5tKQAG3q59RAGh4XU?usp=sharing
• Harvard Project Zero: http://www.pz.harvard.edu/thinking-routines#WithArtOrObjects 
• Register for the VCSS Conference, March 24-25, 2023! https://sites.google.com/view/vcss-2023-conference/home?authuser=2 

The study of economics can help students analyze their choices. But can economics lead us to choices that are good? That is, that are the right thing to do? In this episode Dr. Stephen Day from the VCU Center for Economic Education interrogates the ethical assumptions that form the background of economic analysis, explores thorny moral questions from an economic perspective, and introduces teachers to classroom resources that help them teach this important content, including activities from the new lesson plan book, "Ethics, Economics, and Social Issues Curriculum" from the Council for Economic Education.

In this episode we dive into the world of digital scholarship with Annie Evans from New American History. History is the turbulent, unpredictable, and deeply human record of everything that happened before this moment. Through interactive maps, video, audio, an algorithmic engine of journalism, and tools for educators, we hope to make visible what was previously invisible about our shared American story.

https://www.newamericanhistory.org/

https://www.bunkhistory.org/

https://twitter.com/mapm8ker

Apply to be a guest on the podcast! https://forms.gle/xgsdDe8dmvvurw8G9

Today's episode explores the War in Ukraine with Dr. Yannis Stivachtis and Colin Baker from the Center for the European Union and Transatlantic Transeuropean Space Studies at Virginia Tech. 

Visit the CEUTTSS website: https://liberalarts.vt.edu/research-centers/ceuttss.html 

Links from today's episode:

1) BBC lengthy story on the turning points in history and how Feb 24th is now one of these: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60767454 (March 19th)

2) https://movingwriters.org/2022/03/08/7-ways-to-get-students-writing-about-the-war-in-ukraine/ 

3) European History educators site, Euroclio, with a wealth of context and huge amount of resources and lesson plans: https://padlet.com/EuroClio_Secretariat/13ck4n4khw4voyxq?mc_cid=03ce0aaf9e&mc_eid=d8839c893c (March 18th, updated every week or so)

4) New York Times article and podcast (transcript available) on Putin/Russia by Ukraine/Russia expert Timothy Snyder - great context and depth: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-timothy-snyder.html (March 15th)

5) For real depth, Synder's books on Ukraine/Russia and democracy are invaluable: "Bloodlands" (1930s/40s eastern Europe), 2016 and "The Road to Unfreedom" 

6) Borders and Self-determination: Crimea

https://historiana.eu/historical-content/viewpoints/borders-and-self-determination-crimea?fbclid=IwAR0m-xCa8mHZ3C6bq86HKZoMIcdomCCZIwnB8XTF5lobXMqkKnU24l8auTQ

7) European and other news outlet reports on Ukraine - including articles in the original language (Frech, German etc...so may be of interest to World Language teachers and others)

https://www.eurotopics.net/en/276651/ukraine-crisis-between-war-and-peace?fbclid=IwAR0m-xCa8mHZ3C6bq86HKZoMIcdomCCZIwnB8XTF5lobXMqkKnU24l8auTQ

8) Choices Program:

https://www.choices.edu/teaching-news-lesson/unrest-in-ukraine/

9)  How Ukraine became Ukraine, in 7 maps

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/03/09/maps-how-ukraine-became-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR2AJymT9uKJwVYCI-Wi6Ca7qaCqAgtqLQWWaSSi66mGLd2kKyEN7R2iCHc