Did 'No Child Left Behind' forsake elementary/secondary history education?

CNN today featured an interesting and troubling article about the state of history education in elementary and secondary schools. That piece raises the question of whether history education is suffering, in part, due to the fact that standardized testing in history is not required under the provisions of “No Child Left Behind". One of the primary goals of that legislation is to ensure that all children are proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 and some claim that the focus on those subject areas is coming at the expense of others.

History educators quoted in the CNN piece discussed their frustration over teaching what one referred to as “trivia” and their inability to delve deeper into important subjects. I was struck by one particular quote from a Texas high school teacher. “I think they learn information by itself, in isolation," Jeff Frazer said of his students. "But putting the big picture together is not happening."

Primary sources are essential tools for putting together that big picture. Staff at the National Archives describe the value of such materials as learning tools on a page devoted to teachers' resources. “Teaching with primary documents encourages a varied learning environment for teachers and students alike. Lectures, demonstrations, analysis of documents, independent research, and group work become a gateway for research with historical records in ways that sharpen students' skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities,” it reads.

I get some of the greatest satisfaction from my job when I’m able to help a student find that primary source that helps them build that big picture. That’s why I created this blog. Here’s hope you find something that helps you better understand the past and how it might impact your future.

The photo above is a page from The Book of the General Laws of the Inhabitants of the Jurisdiction of New-Plimouth. Housed at the Library of Congress, it is one of the oldest items in the Library's collection of American law.

Marking the 50th Anniversary of the Kennedy-Nixon Debates

50 years ago this week, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy squared off against Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the first-ever general election presidential debate. To mark that anniversary, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum has partnered with YouTube to make the full, unabridged debate available for viewing. The photo at right of the debate is a video still from the Internet Archive.

The Pandemic of 1918-1919

One of the websites I visit most every day is HISTORY.COM’s This Day in History. Perusing that site this morning, I learned that on this day in 1918 a parade in Philadelphia drew crowds to the city and helped spread the influenza virus throughout the region. The pandemic of 1918-1919 sickened people around the globe. When it was over, some 30 million people worldwide had perished after contracting the highly contagious virus.

The National Archives has put together and impressive array of digitized documents in their online collection, The Deadly Virus: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918. There, you’ll find photographs, telegrams, letters, and government documents. Additionally, The United States Department of Health and Human Services had compiled a rich collection of digital resources related to the outbreak titled The Great Pandemic: The United States in 1918-1919. Like the National Archives collection, it contains photographs, letters, and other documents.

The photo above of a New York City letter carrier was taken in October of 1918 and comes from the National Archives.

Happy Constitution Day!

On this day in 1787, 39 delegates signed the final draft of the Constitution. The document would then be sent on to the states and ratified the following year. In order to mark the occasion, I thought I’d highlight a few digital collections featuring Constitution materials. Our Documents: 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives features images of the Constitution (high resolution PDFs are available for download) and the transcribed text of the document. The Avalon Project at Yale University features The American Constitution – A Documentary Record. That collection provides access to primary source materials dealing with the U.S. Constitution. Those documents are divided into several broad categories including: revolution and independence, the Constitutional Convention and the ratification of the Constitution and the formation of the government. Finally, the Library of Congress’s Thomas site, the online home of federal legislative information, features a variety of primary source documents as well as resources for teachers. The image above is Signing of the Constitution by Howard Chandler Christy.

American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection

This morning I came across a news story on CNN about threats to the future of the Hoh people. That Pacific Northwest Native American tribe has for centuries lived along the westernmost coast of Washington State. There, where the Hoh River meets the Pacific, the tribe’s one-square mile reservation is located. Due to increased incidents of flooding in the region, the reservation is threatened. The CNN story spells out what options are being considered for the tribe’s future. After reading the article, I was more interested in the tribe’s past. I was able to find an impressive collection of primary source material relating to the Hoh tribe at the American Indians of the Pacific Northwest collection at the

University of Washington Libraries. The image at top comes from that collection. That photo was taken in 1905 and depicts a village in the reservation. The image below it shows drift logs at the Hoh River. That modern image comes from the National Park Service.