We have all seen period films and realize that their historical accuracy often leaves much to be desired. Having just viewed Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies recently, I fully recognize that there were some liberties taken with events, dialogue, and so on. However… a huge “However”… this film does not take liberties at all in the […]
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The Boys in the Boat
Author Daniel James Brown met Joe Rantz only in the last weeks of Joe’s life, but asked Joe and his daughter if he could write Joe’s story. Joe said no, but that he could write the story of all the boys in the boat, the crew team from the University of Washington which developed its […]
Social Studies Education in Crisis
The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s decision to indefinitely suspend the History and Social Science MCAS in 2009 has placed social studies education in a high risk of marginalization in K-12 public school districts across the Commonwealth. The problem has only exacerbated with increased emphases of English language arts and mathematics in the […]
YouTube in the Classroom
With the announcement of the release of 85,000 videos to YouTube by the British Documentary Film company, Pathé the question of districts blocking YouTube in classrooms takes on a new importance. YouTube has many videos which are of significant value for classroom use in many subjects, but this release of important historical documentary videos is […]
A Tribute to Teachers
Picked up from The Washington Post, here is piece from the blog of Sarah Blaine, a parent, now a practicing attorney but previously a teacher: We all know what teachers do, right? After all, we were all students. Each one of us, each product of public education, we each sat through class after class […]
The Social Studies Teacher as a Political Activist
On Friday, January 17th I convinced my wife to accompany me to New Bedford to participate in a rally at City Hall to protest the decision by the school superintendent and the mayor to classify New Bedford High School as a “Turnaround” school. For starters, that was not easy. Lynne (my wife) doesn’t like the cold and […]