Yesterday I spent about an hour on the phone talking with a writer at Education Week about the teaching of Civil War history during the sesquicentennial. We talked about a wide range of issues, but at one point I was asked if I can discern any noticeable difference between the teaching of this history in [...]
Teaching
I haven’t done a Civil War Roundtable talk in some time, but I almost always enjoy the experience, especially the Q&A with folks who share my passion for this history. Today I accepted an invitation from the North Worcester County Civil War Roundtable to give a talk on black Confederates. The talk is scheduled for [...]
Update: Chris Wehner has responded to my post in the comments section below. He takes issue with just about every point I made, but I stand by what I’ve written. What troubles me most about Wehner’s post is the claim that the work of Howard Zinn and the Social Justice movement somehow explains what is [...]
[Hat-Tip to Vicki Betts] Vicki was kind enough to send along these two brief newspaper notices. I’ve seen plenty of these references in the course of my research – just about every one is from early on in the war. Here is your chance to be a historian. What do you make of these brief [...]
Today I am teaching my final class on the American Civil War at the St. Anne’s – Belfield School. It’s not going to be a memorable class by any stretch of the imagination; we’ve been looking at film for much of the trimester and today we need to wrap up the last scene of Shirley [...]
[Hat-Tip to Jubilo! The Emancipation Century] This video could easily be shared in the classroom to generate an interesting discussion. For me its the cadence of the auctioneers voice and the constant refrain of Bid ‘Em In that helps to bring home the horror of the slave trade. It’s incredibly powerful.
A few days ago I mentioned that I was in contact with a 7th grade history teacher in Boston, who wanted to introduce the subject of black Confederates as part of a unit on the Civil War. Well, today the instructor reported back with a detailed overview of the lesson. I think it’s a wonderful [...]
For the past ten years I have lived and worked in the beautiful state of Virginia. Unfortunately, that time will be coming to an end this summer as my wife and I transition to a new life in Boston. This is somewhat of an unexpected move. We’ve been talking about moving for a couple of [...]
YouTube is probably the most popular social networking tool currently being utilized in history classrooms across the country. The vast majority of them are simply put, horrible. They reflect very little understanding of the medium by the student as well as their teachers. In my view it’s the clearest example of what is wrong with [...]