It should be no surprised that Dwyer would emphasize the loyal service of tens of thousands of “black Confederates” – or what he describes as “Forgotten Blacks in Gray” - given his analysis of slavery. The author emphasizes this long-standing myth throughout the text and offers his usual service of vague generalizations, meaningless definitions, and [...]
Teaching
It’s true that you can’t always judge a book by its cover, but you can judge it by the number of black Confederates that are claimed to have loyally served. As a teacher I think it is important to stay up to date on new textbooks and other classroom resources, so with that in mind [...]
Check out these short videos at Gilder Lehrman’s YouTube site, which include interviews with Gary Gallagher, Ed Ayers, Allen Guelzo, Thomas Bender, and Ira Berlin. Search the full list of videos and you can view interviews with James and Louis Horton and David Blight. They can be used in the classroom, though they range in [...]
Now that things have calmed down a bit re: the petition asking Obama not to send a wreath to the Confederate monument at Arlington, I thought it might be time to offer a few words of advice. James Loewen recently offered some thoughts in the wake of the controversy. He finds it difficult to understand [...]
It’s hard to take issue with someone who is passionate about the teaching of civics and American history in our classrooms. Apparently, actor-turned activist, Richard Dreyfuss even took a few years away from his acting career to study at Oxford in preparation for his non-profit campaign. Dreyfuss is working on a video series that pulls [...]
No surprise that the most popular search engine query this week has to do with the AP US History Test which is scheduled for Friday. I’ve received a number of emails from students asking for tips on studying as well as from fellow teachers who are desperately trying to figure out what the DBQ will [...]
Last night I made my acting debut in the Tony Award winning play, “The History Boys.” It’s the story of a small group of pupils in a British school who are being groomed for admission to Oxford and Cambridge. The story follows this small group as they navigate through two very different teaching philosophies as [...]
I can always tell when the school year is beginning to wind down by looking around campus. The campus explodes with an array of colors. The flowers are beginning to bloom, students spend more time outside and you are likely to find one or more classes taking advantage of the large trees that dot the [...]