NCSS+Conference+2010

I attended the National Council for the Social Studies Conference in Denver, Colorado from November 12-14 in 2010. The main theme of the conference was global education. There were quite a few guest speakers, but the two I went to see were most interesting. Sam Wineburg is a Professor of History at Stanford University. He has written extensively and researched teaching history to all ages of students. The two thrusts of his talk was that we have to teach the Social Sciences and teach them well if we want our students to understand history and other subjects properly. He emphasized independent inquiry by teachers and students alike. One study he headed was of 5th and 6th grade students in Seattle. He had them do original reserach on the Revolutionary War along side Ph.D's in History. They both studied primary documents and came up with theories and conclusions. As he thought, the professional historians knew more but were impeded by their positions and presumed knowledge. They jumped to conclusions too quickly that turned out to be false most of the time. On the other hand, the students systematically worked together to uncover the actual stories behind the documents. They acutally came up with more accurate original research when guided and encouraged to study history in the right way. Prof. Wineburg stated that all students have this potential if we turn them loose. He encouraged all teachers of Social Sciences to teach accurately with students and to get them much more involved in their own learning. He also exposed books that have been adopted by state curriculum systems that are so inaccurately written to be laughable.

The other speaker I saw was Pres. Obama's sister. I cannot pronounce her name, but she is his half-sister by his mother and Indonesian step father. She is a teacher in Hawaii who teaches classes on Peace Education to all ages of students while also sitting on the board of the East-West Institute in New York which promotes student/teacher exchanges between schools in the US and schools throughout Asia. She encouraged all teachers to integrate Peace Studies in their Social Studies curriculum because young people are ready to be of service in thier local and world communities. She thinks that education is the key to world understanding and will lower tensions if enough students and teachers get to know one another across cultural and ethnic divides. To that end, she made her curriculum available to all through her website.

The rest of the conference was rich in sessions about History, Government, Economics, Psychology, Human Rights, etc. I learned a great deal about teaching Chinese Studies from Chinese American and Native Chinese educators and much more about teaching the European Union. Both subjects are valuable to me in teaching AP Comparative Government. I also attended sessions on teaching geography through the National Geographic website as well as picking up information about Human Rights, the UN, current events, and interdisciplinary teaching of the Social Studies. It was a worthwhile experience and I have shared some of the material with department colleagues and will continue to explore the information I brought back as the year unfolds. I highly recommend the next one to members of the department. Mike Ferguson