June 26, 2018 Today, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education unanimously voted to approve and adopt the 2018 revision of the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework. Congratulations to Dave Buchanan, Sue Wheltle, Heather Peske, and to the entire History and Social Science curriculum framework review panel for their hard work and dedication […]
Full (Complete) Statement from Gorman Lee, Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies, to MA Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
May 22, 2018 Good morning. My name is Gorman Lee of Boston, Massachusetts. I started my teaching career in Massachusetts in 1993. I taught in Medford and Braintree, and currently serve as the K-12 Director of Social Studies for the Braintree Public Schools. I am also the Director of Professional Development Programming and past […]
Participate in Mass Council’s Legislative Day at the State House on Wednesday, March 29, 2017!
The Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies (Mass Council) recently held a Legislative Day to advocate, promote, and support social studies education in our public, private, and charter schools at the Massachusetts State House on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. Twenty educators (both active and retired), college/university faculty, and interested stakeholders scheduled and met with over 35 […]
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 […]