This Rethinking History article takes a look at history from two different perspectives.

The first perspective is from an educator by the name of Mr. Brenton. Brenton teaches by using lecture and stories which have little challenges for students to engage in critical thinking. This is the way history continues to be taught by most educators today. Ms. Todd is an educator who uses pedagogical and cognitive techniques to cover her instruction of investigating history. Although both Todd and Benton are experts, Todd is praised because her style of teaching addresses new assessments that cover state and local requirements while requiring critical thinking. Bruce VanSledright is the author of this article and he discusses the fact that Bretons teaching methods require reinforcement of interpretation rather than recalling facts. Bruce goes on to discuss fictional teachers and how each could improve their efforts to make history more approachable and understanding. VanSledright feels that assessment needs to be thought-provoking. VanSledright goals in changing how history is taught consist of making a better democracy and promoting social justice. This information is valuable because now is the time for history teachers to change the old boring way to relay information to students so they can memorize that information for a short temporary period. History should be taught with thought provoking and interpretative ways to produce critical thinking that can help students with lifes challenges. Unfortunately, there are a lot of old-school teachers that will refuse to incorporate any changes to the way they teach. I am afraid that it might take a generation to retire before these changes are used by the majority of educators.

Stoddard, J. (2011): The Challenge of Rethinking History Education, Theory & Research in Social Education, retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2011.10473468

This article is a book review entitled Whats taught in Global Education? This article is about global citizenship and how people could be affected if they viewed the world as one big community. Subedi Binaya, the author says that she would like to change the way the world looks at itself. Binaya feels that this is essential for the well-being of the human race. Binaya also talks about genocide as well as the invisible woman in the history books. Also discussed in

the book is how people have been affected since 9/11 and how difficult it is for people to get along with all the diversity in the world. Binaya feels like education in the United States is over generalized, stereotypical and inaccurate. Binaya also believes that students should be guided to challenge western, imperialistic world views. I personally feel the woman does not have a clue about the real world. There has been violence and hatred in the world long before America was every discovered. To suggest that we tarnish the way the world treats one another is crazy. I am sure there are some bias opinions out there but our history is just that, our history. To suggest that the world would be a better place if we all got along is a great idea; however, realistic is not in the equation. I would not purposely teach bitterness or hatred within a classroom. These problems are taught within our history because we need to learn how to be better people and develop better ways of thinking to prevent our past mistakes.

Ooka Pang, V. (2011): What's Taught in Global Education? Critical Global Perspectives, Theory & Research in Social Education, retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2011.10473467

Teaching American History (TAH) grants is the topic of this article. Since 2000 the U.S. government has given close to one billion in grants to better educate the teachers of American History. It also says that teachers with thirty or more professional development hours have improved student learning within their classroom. The grants are designed to improve the teachers content and pedagogical knowledge. Other goals include getting the students to improve reasoning process within the historical thinker. This is achieved by the educators learning new educational strategies, methods, research questions and group networking. While at the professional development conferences, the teachers are put in groups of three and assigned different principles that they know nothing about. They communicate through out the year and complete a survey to analyze the success of the workshop. The article goes into great depth to explain the fact and figures with in the study of the workshops. It gives examples,

observations, and surveys of the information to better explain the results of the professional development workshops. I think that professional workshops are a great idea to better equip the educators of today. I feel that it proves a point that just because you have a degree or teaching experience you should always be willing to learn new things to make you a better teacher. The article talks about networking teacher with new partners and with principals from other schools. This is an excellent way to keep the program alive instead of just making a minimum effort at professional development. De La Paz, S. , Malkus, N, Monte-Sano, C. and Montanaro, E. (2011): Evaluating American History Teachers' Professional Development, Effects on Student Learning, Theory & Research in Social Education, article retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2011.10473465

Student Voice in the Elementary Years: Fostering Youth-Adult Partnerships in Elementary Service-Learning is an article that looks at the foundation that should be laid down when children are given a voice in what is called Service-Learning. This is not always accomplished because there is little student participation involved at the elementary levels. Service-Learning is said to be one of the best ways to form an active citizen within his or her community. The author Stephanie Serriers definition is, Service-learning is a method by which young people learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully-organized service-experiences that meet the actual community needs. The article explains that one way this goal is accomplished it by giving students problems like, paper towel waste, and then offer different solutions and letting the students make the final decision. The teachers are instructed that this form of education works best when the students scaffold the information bit by bit. By slowly allowing the children to evolve they are able to see that the world is a much bigger place than just where they live. These tasks are small problems that arise during the school year which are addressed by the faculty and administration by holding meetings and deciding what role the students will play. The students ages vary but some of them are engaged as early as the fourth grade. The article has different examples and chart that one can

follow to help understand the process. It does mention that it takes a special kind of teacher to hand over control to children that young as well as special students that can handle the responsibility. This was surprising to me those children that young could make these kinds of decisions. I believe that children are capable of more than we as educators give them credit. It makes a good case to push students to become critical thinkers at an early age. I myself would support this, but I have no desire to participate with children that are that young. It would take special teacher for that, and I have fewer patients with middle school age children.

Serriere, S. , Mitra, D. and Reed, K. (2011): Student Voice in the Elementary Years: Fostering Youth-Adult Partnerships in Elementary Service-Learning, Theory & Research in Social Education, retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2011.10473466

How and Why I Teach Fiction is a short article with a great idea. It is from a teacher who uses fiction in history to place the students right there in the past. Jerry Lundquist is the author and has seven reasons listed as to why he uses fiction. His methods allow the students to take a small amount of information and build upon it to create their own history stories. He also introduces the idea of drawing posters with short infomercials to go with them. His article also includes teaching strategies with lots of web site to get even more ideas. He has a list of fictional books with suggestions for them as well. I think Jerry has some great ideas that I would like to borrow for my classroom one day. He has done a lot of ground work and seems to have worked out the bugs for this strategy. I think he has valuable information that could help break up the boring old class room lecture and introduce positive thinking and fun in the classroom. I could not think of any drawbacks at this time because again he seems to have been working on this for a while. Lundquist, J. , How and why I teach fiction, (n.d.) retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/why-how-i-teach-historical-fiction The Emancipation Proclamation

This article is very interesting because it goes into detail about the freedom act for the slaves that have been captive since their arrival and birth. The article has direct quotes from Abraham Lincoln himself as it was written in history. The article has lots of detailed dates and states where slaves are not free. It mentions parishes in Louisiana that do not participate in slavery. He also talks about our constitution and how he will enforce it within the land. I think this would be a good place to start a lesson about topics within that content area. It is history that young people should see in order to think about where we were as a country and where we are now. This article could be used to introduce other topics as well such as Jim Crow and Civil Rights struggles. How this bold statement by the President would not really be carried out for years. Mabry, D. , (n.d.) retrieved from http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=576