Stipends for Summer PD

It's January, which means it's time to start day-dreaming about summer--and particularly summer opportunities to recharge and reconnect with your love of history and the humanities through professional development. 

I'm a huge fan of the NEH's Summer Seminars and Institutes for School Teachers, which offer tuition-free opportunities for K-12 educators to spend between one to four weeks on in-depth study of a humanities topic. NEH stipends of $1,200-$3,300 help cover expenses for these programs, which next summer include Discovering Native History along the Lewis and Clark Trail (Billings to Bismarck), Teaching Native American Histories (Martha's Vineyard and Cap Cod, MA), Re-Enchanting Nature: Humanities Perspectives (Helena), and The Battle of the Bighorn and the Great Sioux War (in Billings). You can find a list of all the different options from Shakespeare to the Civil Rights Movement to the The First Amendment in 21st Century America here. (Deadline to apply is March 1, but applications are competitive and typically require written recommendations, so start early!)

NEH isn't the only organization that provides dynamite teacher workshops.  The Gilder-Lerhman Institute of American History also is also offering a series of workshops this summer, including one on Westward Expansion, led by western history rock star Patty Limerick. (Program is free plus participants are offered a $400 stipend to reduce travel costs. Deadline to apply is February 18--and there are hoops to jump through to be eligible, so start early!) 

Once again the Montana Network of Holocaust/IEFA Educators is hosting "Worlds Apart But Not Strangers: Holocaust Education and Indian Education for All. The seminar is for all educators, grades 4 through college professors, who are currently teaching or interested in teaching the Holocaust and/or the Indian Education for All. Held on the campus of MSU-Billings, June 9-15, 2019, this intensive, inquiry-based seminar bridges past and present. Participants build background knowledge about the Holocaust and IEFA and gain writing-based classroom strategies for building community and processing difficult information. The seminar is free (three graduate credits are available for $135) and includes copies of selected books and teaching materials, lunches and most dinners, several field trips, and the opportunity to apply for mini-grants of up to $1,000. Low-cost dorm housing is available.

Finally, a colleague asked me to let folks know about the USS Midway Museum's Institute for Teachers in San Diego: The Cold War, Korea and Vietnam. Participants receive a $1000 stipend plus travel support, instructional materials and meas aboard ship. They have never hosted a Montana teacher and are very eager to recruit one (we're one of only 6 states they haven't touched and they are going for fifty.) Application deadline is March 4.