About the Program

Teaching American History:

Exploring Controversies to Better Understand America’s Past

Statement of Purpose

Every teacher develops a unique style of instruction that is an expression of their personality and their vision of good teaching.  Each teacher’s personal teaching repertoire should be well grounded in effective instructional practices.  Within the realm of good practice, there is I believe a great latitude for an informed and motivated teacher to work.

I believe that a social studies department should be a place where teachers good practice is encouraged.  Teachers should find ways to embrace collaboration in the classroom and seek out collegial relationships with peers.  This is a good way to begin to become a better teacher.  The culture and structure of the educational institutions should support this collaborative investigation of ideas that work in the classroom.

It is important to begin this process by asking questions and setting individual, grade level and program wide goals.  Once goals are established our department is encouraged to use peer observation and reflective discussion to refine our efforts.  Teaching is complex.  It is a simple truth that teachers who care about their work and their students remain the most important element in a high achieving school.   This program intends to treat teachers with respect.  It offers them choices and new opportunities to work with distinguished professional historians and their peers.

I believe all of us still have much to learn about the art of teaching.  I hope that our project, Exploring Controversies to Better Understand America’s Past, will offer the teaching staff real opportunities to improve their historical knowledge and their understanding of the value of collaboration inside and outside the classroom.                

- Michael Chlystun    

Introduction

When I was a student, I wondered why the one subject that I loved was presented in such a deadly fashion.   Teachers seemed to be consumed by the memorization of names, dates, and battles.  We copied our notes off the board, outlined textbooks and saw filmstrips that outlined the same type of information that we read in the text.   We took tests that asked us about these names, laws, dates and battles.

We rarely saw evidence that the events we half-heartedly studied were peopled by real flesh and blood.   There was a deadly lethargy about the whole endeavor that went a long way to killing any interest in the subject.

Still, I remember looking at illustrations of the great clipper ships and wondering what it might be like to be a sailor on one of them.   I liked to read about famous people to try to understand the personal qualities and achievements that made them stand out from the crowd.  My parents bought me books and brought me to museums that helped me visualize how people in the past really lived.   I grew up thinking that I might be able to help kids see that history, in particular the history of our country, was far from dull if it could be presented in an imaginative manner.

When I got a chance to teach I found that I too often fell short of my ideal vision of the instruction of history.   I used texts often, showed deadly filmstrips and probably spent too much time on the same names, dates, and battles.   

I also found that some materials were indeed more interesting than others.   Kids liked to read an exciting story, they enjoyed music even music from the past.  Essay writing went over better when I carefully chose the materials and asked questions that forced the kids to really think.  Cooperative groups, oral history projects, historical fiction, and well planned field trips often helped.   Outside professional groups like the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards opened my eyes to the potentials of really accomplished teaching.   Little by little I got better at my job and I had some really good lessons, but my teaching seldom reached the high bar for the teaching of American History that I set for my own teachers and myself as a child.

This program, Exploring Controversies to Better Understand America’s Past hopes to offer teachers assistance and new insights so that truly inspired teaching an becomes more consistently attainable goal.    

- Michael Gatto