NCSS National Conference Update

November 21-23, 2014 seems a long way off, but yet for the NCSS National Convention and those dates in Boston, it is right around the corner. The Conference’s theme is Let Freedom Ring! The Civic Mission of Our Schools and NCSS has already contracted with the Hynes Convention Center and the Sheraton Hotel to host the event (we will also be using the Marriott and Westin hotels, as they are all connected via sheltered walkways and malls).

The chairs of Boston 2014 are Michelle Herczog from California and Norm Shacochis from Massachusetts. Preliminary meetings have been held in Seattle at last year’s National Conference and again in St. Louis at the end of our own NERC Conference week. And so it is time for all of MCSS, all of New England, and all Social Studies educators and advocates to begin considering how they might help, might be involved, and might contribute and gain from the NCSS Conference in Boston.

I will be seeking 2 Local Arrangement Co-Chairs to oversee many roles and committees. The great amount of the “heavy lifting” is taken care of by NCSS staff and by the Program Planning Committee while the Local Arrangements Committee is asked to concentrate on staffing the conference with a team of volunteers (from HS students to college students to classroom teachers), directing presenters and speakers throughout the Convention Center, and generally making the conference experience pleasurable and positive for all our attendees. The following committees will each have 1-2 chairs and they will coordinate their volunteer teams:

Facilitators: the largest need – this committee oversees all presentations, distributes and collects evaluation form, checks that rooms are set up properly, and take tickets for all ticketed events.

Registration: a large group will be needed to stuff conference bags prior to the conference, and then a smaller group will staff the Registration area during the conference, with the greatest need on Friday and Saturday mornings.

Hospitality: this committee sells Boston! The tours will be set up by NCSS, but attendees will be coming to the Hospitality table for directions, suggestions, and where the tours are and which might be recommended. It is necessary to attend the St. Louis Conference to represent Boston and distribute Visitor literature.

Exhibitors/Vendors: will check in all vendors & exhibitors and tend to the needs of them as they are spending a considerable sum to be at the conference.

Tours: serve as part of the Hospitality Committee; all tours are set up by NCSS after hearing from this group in April 2014.

Social Events: suggest to NCSS some unique Boston themed events that may be fun and exciting.

Outreach/Publicity: contact local school districts, universities and provide information about Professional Development accountability.

Students Living Social Studies (SLSS):  recruit teachers/students/schools to present innovative SS lessons or activities/projects in a designated open area of the conference

This is a great opportunity for Massachusetts and New England to shine. We have much to be proud of, much to benefit from, and much to learn as the life-long-learners we all profess and seek to be. I will be calling on many of you, but please call on me to let me know how you can and will serve. This will be a great adventure for us all.

Braintree High School will be hosting its annual “The Courage to Remember” exhibit from March 28 through April 4, 2013, to commemorate the fallen and survivors of the Jewish Holocaust. This will be the high school’s sixth year hosting this exhibit. It will be on display in the media center at Braintree High School. This is also part of the district’s Modern World/U.S. History curriculum for all tenth grade students. Students will view the exhibit during their classes during the week. Students will also participate in an essay contest about lessons learned from the Holocaust, and why remembering the victims of the Holocaust is so important.

The exhibit is also part of our anti-bullying campaign; it is an opportunity for students to reflect, think, and discuss about hate, bullying, and the role of bystander and the implications and consequences of being indifferent and doing nothing when witnessing acts of bullying and hate toward others.

On Wednesday, April 3, 2013, Day 3, grade 10 students will be attending a special assembly featuring a Holocaust survivor or a child of Holocaust survivors in the auditorium as part of the Braintree High School Holocaust Remembrance Week.

•        9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. – Dr. Samuel Bernstein, Northeastern University (Blocks 5 & 6)

•        11:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. – Mr. Fred Manasse (Blocks 7); students will have Lunch C at noon.

•        12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. – Mr. Jack Trompetter (Blocks 1 & 2)

The exhibit will be open for public viewing on Wednesday evening, April 3, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

As educators of history and social studies, you are all welcome to visit and view the exhibit and hear our speakers. I will also be happy to share with you how I was able to put this annual event (as well as other events) together so that you may consider hosting this at your school. If you are interested in visiting our school, please let me know. The exhibit will be on display until the morning of April 4.

Gorman Lee
K-12 Director of History and Social Studies
Braintree Public Schools
glee@braintreema.gov

13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

The music is up-to-date, but the theme of the lyrics is Freedom and the Amendments freeing the slaves in the U.S. after the Civil War.

The SoundCloud web site provides streaming audio so you can easily set up the opportunity to play this engaging, meaningful song from a group called HistoryTunes. Engage your classes through music.

https://soundcloud.com/historytunes/13th-14th-and-15th-amendments

Thanks to @tsocko on Twitter for the heads-up.

Now, if you have not become involved with Twitter, perhaps you might reconsider.

The trick is to follow a selected group of people who share their passion through regular posts. Each post is short, with a maximum of 140 characters. Short doesn’t seem to matter though. The value of seeing these recommendations comes right through.

The hashtag #sschat is one of the elements of this tweet that matters, too. Not only can you follow a person like Tracy Sockalosky (@tsocko), you can track the posts that scores of people direct their messages to anyone tracking the chat about social studies.

Give it a try.

Now is the Time! For what? To nominate your colleagues for MCSS Awards to be presented at NERC. Check out the Awards section on the home page of the MCSS website for all the necessary information and categories. We are the best judges of our own outstanding educators. We see them every day. Why not take a few minutes to nominate someone deserving of recognition? Please submit your nominations today.

Hi to all Central MA Council for Social Studies Members!

Brrrr…. it’s cold out. So why not warm your insides by attending our traditional January meeting at O’Connors Restaurant.

The meeting will be held on Thursday, January 10th at 5:30pm. We will enjoy a presentation by Higgins Armory.

The meal will be on your own – the menu offerings are varied and include European and New England Fare.

Please RSVP to me at this email address <kmiller@qrsd.org> by Monday, January 7 (we need to know attendance in order to ask for the appropriate space).

I’ll admit it. I’m frustrated that I’ve been sold out of Lincoln twice already. I’ve received friendly advice to buy my tickets on-line, but does that really help? We still have to get there very early so that we can get decent seats and we end up with no room for coats, never mind elbows. I’m determined to see it while I’m comfortable, arriving 10 minutes before previews, and not arm wrestling with the guys on either side.

So last week, we went to see Anna Karenina instead. I’ve already identified that I love a true story, but I also love period pieces, so I was excited to be seeing Tolstoy’s classic. And yet, I knew within the first five minutes that I was going to be sorely disappointed. The story starts on a stage with a toy train traveling by. The actors move about the stage as if it’s their world. For example, when a character goes to see his brother, he climbs onto the catwalk and ends up in a different place. It is so confusing. Places are not where you expect them, and people are not identified. I found myself more than once asking my English teacher friend who a character was and how she/he related to Anna. So one minute on the stage, the next in a beautiful scenic place. Back and forth.  I kept remembering Dr. Zhivago so many years ago-a beautiful story, told clearly, beautiful scenery. Why did this film have to be “artistic”? Didn’t Tolstoy do a good-enough job. Why change it? Bottom line–Go see it if you’d like to see how a modern director can mess up a good story. Otherwise, go see Lincoln and definitely wait for Les Miserables.

December 12, 2012 – a day that was unique for many reasons, one being that it was Generation Citizen Day at the State House in Massachusetts. 300+ students gathered in the Great Hall of Flags in 2 different sessions to showcase their projects, discuss with judges their research work, plans, and reasons that the problems they were addressing were so important to citizens in their respective communities. Projects were done by middle school students and high school students, and covered such topics as community gardens, food programs for the hungry, language issues for a growing multicultural society, and bullying. Bullying was the topic of choice for several student groups, indicating the severity of the issue for students. It is wonderful to see that they recognize this, for we often see or hear parents and educators speaking about bullying but all too often the only voice of students is heard after some tragic event. It was very refreshing to hear students act in a proactive manner and provide some genuinely thoughtful ways to address the issue in an ongoing manner.

Generation Citizen is directed locally by Gillian Pressman, and the organization of this day/event required many details for schools and the State House to be well coordinated. Several guest speakers were on hand to emphasize to students that they – as a small group and as individuals – could indeed make a difference. This is something we often lose sight of as educators and as adults. One person can make the difference in a school, in a faculty, in a community; we are not saying it’s an easy task to accomplish, but each of us can be that one person. And clearly as a collaborative endeavor, much can be accomplished. This is the role of citizens we aim to encourage and endorse. In our own schools and classrooms, we seek to achieve this but it often gets lost in the considerable content that is so often part of course after course. And all schools include as some part of their mission statement a reference to educating or developing active or participatory citizens, so this approach, especially as an independent project, truly addresses the citizenship part of a school’s mission.

This program is ideal for a school that is seeking to incorporate a service learning or community service piece into their school environment, whether as a graduation requirement or as an elective program. The Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies encourages more schools to incorporate Generation Citizen programs into their middle and high schools to further the development of young citizens in the hope that they become fully participating citizens for many years to come. Congratulations to Gillian Pressman and her colleagues for a job well done, for a program that is wholly worthwhile, and best wishes for continued success bringing powerful citizenship to the students of our schools and of our communities.

By Sue Keane

Massachusetts State Coordinator for Geography Awareness Week

GEOGRAPHY AWARENESS WEEK (GAW) was celebrated from November 11^th to the 17^th.  This year’s theme is “Declare Your Interdependence!”  The National Geographic Society has created activities, lesson plans, and resource materials for educators at http://www.geographyawarenessweek.org to explore “the idea that individuals are connected to the rest of the world through the decisions we make on a daily basis, including what foods we eat and the things we buy.”  Lessons suggested include The Geography of the Pencil and Your Global Closet. The Massachusetts Geographic Alliance’s website (www.massgeo.org/) for The Geography of a Pizza is another useful resource.

Two years ago, the Massachusetts Geographic Alliance (MGA) initiated a statewide service learning project centered on the theme: “Fresh Water, Safe Water…Oh Well.”  The MGA teamed with the charity Mission to Liberia for this project.  As a result, students, educators and the Bridgewater State University raised enough funds so that four wells could be constructed in Liberia providing clean, fresh drinking water for approximately 4,000 Liberians.

This year the MGA is again teaming with Mission to Liberia. Schools are invited to participate in an initiative that would extend the activity Your Global Closet so that students could use an item in their own closets to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate. This year’s project will link Massachusetts’ students to Liberian students by donating an item from their closets to be repurposed to students in Liberia. (Remind students to be aware of the climate in this part of the world.)  Your students’ goods may be tracked on line with updates from the Steamship Line at every port of call.  Or American classes may be linked to Liberian classes to provide notebooks, paper or pencils.  A further extension for a class would be to support the education of a Liberian student for an entire school year, which includes tuition, supplies and uniforms for $100.

The people of Massachusetts have already made a significant difference in the lives of Liberians with the water project and we can do it again supporting schools and students.  Mike Cambra, Chairman of Mission to Liberia has offered, “to arrange for elementary schools in Liberia to become partners with their U.S. counterparts.” Please check both the Massachusetts Geographic Alliance’s website (www.massgeo.org/) and the Mission to Liberia website (http://www.missiontoliberia.org/) for more information.

Last year (Dec 2011) when I attended the NCSS National Conference in Washington DC, one of the workshops I sat in on was on the topic of what was being done to Social Studies curricula across the nation, especially now that very little federal attention was being paid to SS and especially History course construction. What was clearly stated was the very conservative slant that several states had created for their public schools’ US History courses. This site (http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars) is a sampling of what many texts and courses have as featured content. In my mind, sort of scary. I realize in the minds of educators and legislators from other parts of the nation, what we in the northeast might think and might be teaching is equally alarming, but while we may question events in our history as to motives and causes, we usually stay away from outright distortion of  - or even worse, creation of – facts (sort of reminds me of Daniel Moynihan’s great line – “You are entitled to your own opinion, but not entitled to your own facts.”). However, my concern here is that this approach in states does little to generate critical thinking; in fact it dictates what to think. This is not how history is to be taught. History is a great debate/argument (My favorite book: Thirteen American Arguments by Howard Fineman) and it should be taught as such, and encouraged as such.