More Podcasts, Thoughts on Core Themes, and a Free Resource

Some of our December posts garnered some good responses! Read on. 

More Podcasts

In response to the guest post by Whitehall High School teacher Merrick Parnell on using podcasts for high school social studies, Bozeman High School teacher Elaine Warn sent in a list of podcasts she loves: 

From the Washington Post:

• Presidential--an episode for each president
• Constitutional--an episode about various topics (less pointedly liberal than More Perfect)

Sounds like Hate from the Southern Poverty Law Center

Slow Burn from Slate (various seasons on interesting things like Watergate, Bill Clinton, David Duke, Tupac, and Rodney King)

Finding Fred, all about Mr. Rogers, seriously heartwarming, especially as an educator

Uncivil, looking at the Black perspective on the Civil War. There are some great episodes, such as one about women and their role in the war.

Give Me Liberty, The Making of American Exceptionalism, from The National Review

Floodlines, from The Atlantic about Hurricane Katrina

LBJ's War, from Public Radio International about Vietnam (great use of primary source phone transcripts in this one)

Unprecedented from NPR—similar to More Perfect and Constitutional, with a great look at some very important cases like Snyder v Phelps

Order 9066 from American Public Media about Japanese Internment

And Annie Hanshew of Helena suggested the first season of This Land from Crooked Media, which follows the United States Supreme Court case Sharp v. Murphy to discuss issues around Native sovereignty land rights. 

Core Themes

In response to "Tips from a Veteran High School Teacher," Red Lodge middle school teacher Steve Morris had this to say: "I sincerely enjoyed this post, thank you for sharing! Now in my third year of public school teaching, the 'core theme' concept has been one of my biggest learning points to date. This year I have been utilizing 'Questions are the Answer' which, of course, was sparked by my participation in the Right Question Institute workshop during the past summer. To complement this, I make sure that each unit I teach also focuses on this core question: How is this relatable to my life? Combined, these two themes ensure our studies utilize the newly adopted Social Studies Standards (Develop, Plan, Gather, Analyze, Communicate, Act) while reinforcing the wisdom of Frederick Douglass who opined that “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.” Time and again, I find the usefulness to be the sweet spot—that “aha” moment in which learners see the value of our shared time." 

A Free Resource

Bruce Wendt, whose philosophy of teaching history I shared in "Tips from a Veteran High School Teacher," wrote in with another recommendation. When he taught dual credit American history, he used The American YAWP: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook as his textbook. Published by the Stanford University Press, it is freely accessible online. I had never heard of this but it looks very exciting. Bruce says: "If you don’t know this text, it is fantastic with lots of links and visuals. Best of all, it is constantly updated and not 10 or 15 years old." He also reiterated that although he had students read the textbook, "class discussions/activities were based on issues, not the pages in the book."