Associated Colleges of Illinois: Mentor Online

There are somewhere near 1,000,000 Native American students in school today, most in schools where they constitute such a small minority that they are seldom even noticed, much less served. Most do not have teachers who look like them. Most do not have teachers who speak their languages or understand their cultures. As a result, education is seldom a friendly experience for them. All too often, even with well-meaning teachers, their cultures are presented stereotypically, a fact that contributes greatly to the incredibly high dropout rate among Native American students (placed at 60% by some researchers!). Good, well-meaning teachers alone cannot solve this complex dropout problem, but there are things they (you) can do to not make the problem any worse. The website below is one all teachers should be familiar with, as it offers a number of things teachers should do and not do when teaching Native American children and teaching about Native Americans.  http://www.ableza.org/dodont.html

Posted by Dr. Jim Vandergriff

I was recently talking to one of my college students about her hometown. During the conversation, I asked her what it was near, so she named a couple of other towns – Naperville and Aurora specifically. I still couldn’t figure out where it was, so I asked if it was North, West, South, or whatever.  She didn’t know.  So, I asked what highways ran through it.  She didn’t know. I finally opened MapQuest on my computer and located the town. Honestly, I was astonished that a college student didn’t really know how to get home!

How many of your students know where they live? Of course, a lot of younger kids probably know the street address – in case they get lost.  But how many of them truly know where home is relative to the rest of the state and the country and the globe?

The research on social studies teaching says that kids learn the foundations of social studies during the elementary years, so it’s probably a good idea to put some focus on the standards that deal with that, specifically the following geography standards.

Early elementary:

17.A.1a   Identify physical characteristics of places, both local and global (e.g., locations, roads, regions, bodies of water).

17.A.1b   Identify the characteristics and pur­poses of geographic representations including maps, globes, graphs, photographs, software, digital images and be able to locate specific places using each.

Late elementary:

17.A.2a  Compare the physical character­istics of places including soils, land forms, vegetation, wildlife, climate, natural hazards.

 17.A.2b  Use maps and other geographic representations and instruments to gather information about people, places and environments.

posted by Dr. Jim Vandergriff

One key element in teaching – and one that is too often ignored – is to figure out why you are teaching what you are when you are. You can only get to the what and when after you know the why. Of course, in the day of “standards,” you are somewhat more limited in the what and when – often that is determined for you. Still, to exercise whatever curricular liberty you have, you really need to grapple with why:  why teach social studies; why teach “Westward expansion”; why teach about the pilgrims; why? Why? Why?

Scholars have pretty much settled on some steps to take in figuring out the whys. For one thing, you need to figure out the goals and content of the program – whether it is being imposed on you or you are designing it yourself. What is it and what do I want the students to get from it. You also need to get clear in your mind what you believe about how children learn and sort out which learning theory you operate from. Next, you need to figure out what community (or communities) is being served. Who are you accountable to for your students’ knowledge? It may be the local community, some special interest group, the state, the nation, human civilization, or some combination of those. If you don’t know that, how can you know what is “important” for the kids to learn? You also need to think about how your social studies program fits into larger goals of the school.  Why does your school require it (or not)? What does the school think it’s for? And, along this same line, you need to specifically focus in on determining the school’s role in teaching citizenship. (Do you need to teach “how to vote,” or will kids learn that from some other social agency?) Further, you need to clarify how your program syncs with what kids are likely to experience outside of school and how the program considers and responds to human diversity.

These principles need to guide pretty much everything you do – from designing and teaching a single lesson to creating an entire social studies scope and sequence.

Posted by Jim Vandergriff

Well, it’s that time of year again – Black History Month. As I’ve done before, I strongly encourage you to go to the Teaching Tolerance website.

http://www.tolerance.org/teach/activities/activity.jsp?ar=794

Particularly, look at the list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts.” Here’s their list:

DO…

Incorporate black history year-round.

Educate yourself.

Reinforce to students that “black” history is American history.

Relate lessons to other parts of your curriculum.

Connect issues in the past to current issues.

Come to class fully prepared for the lesson.

Include the political and social context.

DO NOT…

Stop your “regular” curriculum.

Decontextualize heroes or holidays.

Focus on superficial cultural traits based on stereotypes.

Talk about black history in solely “feel-good” language.

Limit the presentation to lectures and reading.

Teach with little or inaccurate information.

Shy away from controversial, ambiguous, or unresolved issues.

Give Black History the respect it deserves.

Posted by Jim Vandergriff

January is Bill of Rights month. If you are interested in ready-made lessons dealing with such issues, check out this site: http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/default.htm

While the lesson plans are not always what educators think of as complete plans, the provide good resources and discussion prompts from which you can make your lessons.

One of the featured lessons concerns the REAL-ID issue – whether or not states are going to have to change their driver’s license issuing procedures to fit the new federal requirements for a “secure” and “tamper-proof” license. You’ll find that lesson at http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/instructional/resources/Lessons/Lessons_List.asp?action=showDetails&id=189&ref=showCatD&catId=6

<>So, check out this site.

Posted by Jim Vandergriff

Illinois Learning Standard 16.D.3a (US) Describe characteristics of different kinds of communities in various sections of America during the colonial/frontier periods and the 19th century.

<>A good way to help ensure that your students meet this state goal is to use the document collections of the Library of Congress. <>

<>http://tps.nl.edu/

<>

Then click on the library icon: T

<> CliThen click on the “American Memory” collection, where you’ll find images of various communities during these eras. Have your students study these collections:

Broadsides and Printed Ephemera ~ ca. 1600-2000

California, First-Person Narratives ~ Books ~ 1849-1900

Chesapeake Bay and Washington, D.C. ~ Books ~ 1600-1925

The Chinese in California ~ Multiformat ~ 1850-1925

Great Plains ~ Photographs ~ 1880-1920

Louisiana Purchase ~ Maps ~ 1572-1902

Maritime Westward Expansion ~ Multiformat ~ 1820-1890

Ohio River Valley ~ Multiformat ~ 1750-1820

Prairie Settlement, Nebraska ~ Photographs and Letters ~ 1862-1912

Traveling in America ~ Books ~ ca. 1750-1920

Turn-of-the-Century America ~ Detroit Publishing Company ~ Photographs ~ 1880-1920

Upper Midwest ~ Books ~ ca. 1820-1910

Utah and Western Migration ~ Multiformat ~ 1846-1869

Posted by Dr. Jim Vandergriff

Illinois Learning Standard 16.A.3b (Middle School) Make inferences about historical events and eras using historical maps and other historical sources.

A good way to ensure that your students meet this state goal is to use the document collections of the Library of Congress.

<>Go to this link: http://tps.nl.edu/

Then click on the library icon:

Then click on the “American Memory” collection, where you’ll find an abundance of “historical sources,” primary sources held by the Library of Congress. You’ll find both maps and documents here.

Of course, there are numerous other collections here you’ll want to explore as well!

posted by Dr. Jim Vandergriff

Illinois Learning Standard 18.A.1 says that early elementary students should learn how to “[i]dentify folklore from different cultures which became part of the heritage of the United States.” That sounds like a fun goal to me, since so much of American folklore is really transplanted from other cultures. For instance, the Brer Rabbit stories are really reinterpretations of African folk tales. Most of the Appalachian folk tales are reinterpretations of Scots-Irish folk tales. Texas folklore would be much less rich without the wealth of Mexican folk tales, and the whole culture would be poorer without the Native American offerings. And so on. Reading this tales to or with your students, then comparing them to the originals from other cultures would not only help your students understand how American culture developed, but also show them how valuable the various cultures have been to America’s development. If you need me to direct you to some specific books or collections of tales, please respond to this blog.

<>Posted by Jim Vandergriff

It has been said many times that students today are much more “visual learners” than students of earlier days.  I don’t know if that’s really true, but I’ve altered my teaching to add a lot more visual material.

So maybe you’re teaching your kids how to compose an analytical History paper. (Let’s assume you’re teaching upper elementary or middle school social studies.) It’s always a big issue to find something everyone can write about.  Here’s an idea:

First, schedule your class into the computer lab for a couple of days in a row for 30-45 minutes each time.

On the first day take them to this website: (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html)

And have them browse the collections. You may want to provide a study guide on which they note what they’ve seen, or one that requires them to find some particular item in each of the collections. The idea is to sort of force them to browse the site.

When you get them back to the classroom, help them compose a research question based on the collections. For instance, “How did Native Americans dress in the time period from 1860 to 1920,” or “What can we learn about baseball between 1860 and 1920?” (These are just off-the-cuff examples.  You can come up with much better ones, I’m sure.)

Then, on the second day, take the kids back to the computer lab and have them browse the relevant collections, take notes on what they find, and download a couple of images to support their conclusions.

Posted by Jim Vandergriff

Did you ever hear a small child call a cat a “doggie” or a dog a “kittie”? That’s an example I use when I try to teach my students about constructivist learning. When my daughter was first learning to talk, our only house pet was a Siamese cat, so my daughter didn’t often see dogs. One day, when she was about nine months old, she pointed out the car window and said “Kittie”; she was pointing at a dog. Why did she say “kittie” instead of “doggie? She was constructing knowledge.

Prior to this experience, ever four-legged creature she had seen was a cat. So, when confronted with a new species, she applied her existing knowledge to it. If she had seen a horse, she would have said “kittie.” If she had seen a cow, she would have said “kittie.” But, as she saw different animals, she had to broaden her definition and her vocabulary. In other words, she had to rearrange what she already knew to make a place for the new knowledge.

Let’s assume you are beginning a unit on Native Americans. Try this with your students. Ask them to draw a picture of the kind of houses Native American used to live in. Chances are they will draw a tepee. Then, on your classroom computer, go to this website in the Library of Congress” American Memory collection and ask them describe what they see.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?cdn:6:./temp/~ammem_oXta::displayType=1:m856sd=ichicdn:m856sf=n009355:@@@

They will have to rearrange their idea of “Native American house.”

Or, ask them to describe – on paper or aloud – what an Indian looks like. After some discussion, take them to this web address, also in the American Memory collection:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?cdn:19:./temp/~ammem_oXta::displayType=1:m856sd=ichicdn:m856sf=n083967b:@@@

Then, as if anyone knows where Indian Hills is in the Chicago area and why it is called that. You can then explain that the Indians depicted in the first picture lived where Chicago is now, and that Chief Robinson, depicted in the second picture, lived where Indian Hills Forest Preserve is now.

What you have done is two-fold: to some extent, you have activated the prior knowledge children have about Native Americans in general and, secondly, you have spurred them to begin reconstructing what they know. Now you are ready to teach them about Native Americans.