I’m currently an undergraduate student at university and I’m writing a paper about the use of code talkers in the World War Two. I need a certain amount of primary sources and I am wondering if this could be considered as a primary source?

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2019/08/29/chester-nez-interview-last-29-original-navajo-code-talkers/1840520001/

I'm going to end up with a spare day after my Civil Rights unit, but before my next unit. The kids have been working super hard, so I'd like something kind of easy, and we haven't had a chill video day in months.

Any suggestions for a video on Civil Rights that students have especially connected with?

I'll say we've especially had interest in the KKK and the Black Panthers, so any sort of deeper dive on either of those groups would be great.

Video can be anything. Could be powerful documentary footage, or fictional representation of an event we've covered in class; just anything that you feel would make an impact on high school students.

Appreciate the suggestions!

I’ve been trying to be a History teacher for years but can’t pass this test! Anyone have study guide that helped them? Thanks!

I’m going to do a project over 90s icons and I was wondering how I could make this interesting and fun for them, given it is the end of the year?

I just graduated college in December 2023 and I feel like I just don't know enough. I'm currently day-to-day substituting in different content areas, so I do not have to actively teach anything. I'm worried that when I do get a permanent job teaching Social Studies I won't know the content well enough to teach it. I know I learned this stuff throughout my schooling, but I feel like it didn't stick well enough for me to teach it. I know that when I get a job I'll have to reteach myself. Will this concrete knowledge come teaching it for a long time? Or should I already know everything? Has anyone else experienced this?

I am co-sponsor of our school’s Rho Kappa society. We require students to complete community service, and my co-sponsor and I want it to be focused on civic engagement, local history, etc whenever possible. Currently, we work with a local cemetery to do a clean up and participate in Wreaths Across America. However, we’d love to expand and get our students involved in other ways.

For those of you with RK chapters, how do your students meet the required hours? Any suggestions of types of organizations or groups I can reach out to and form partnerships with?

Thank you in advance!

I teach a senior level topics in world history elective. I was thinking as the year winds down doing a cinema study unit would be good. However, I’ve never taught film analysis before. So I’m curious if anyone has any suggestions for movies high school seniors would like and can really be dug into and analyzed.

Off the top of my head I was thinking Jojo Rabbit could be good simply because I’m a huge Taika Wattiti fan and can already provide some strong artistic insights into it. But I’m sure there’s better options.

That is all 😔

Hey all, I'm student teaching 9th grade and am having a hard time thinking of a good variety of activities to engage students. Any suggestions would be really great.

I have already planned the first 10 minutes of what should be a 45-minute lesson, describing the course of the Assassination in Sarajevo and the escalation into world war. I have a rough outline of the rest where I would describe the 4 MAIN cause: militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism (in whatever order). Before all, I am from Croatia so this acronym doesn't hold much value in itself.

How can I present those causes in a way that would they could reach the conclusion by themselves? I plan on using sources ofc, so I would be much obliged if you know of some juicy ones.

For imperialism, I plan to use the map of Africa before the scramble and after, some quotes by Cecil Rhodes, the expansions in the Balkan and so on. From there on I can segway into imperialism then into militarism. Nationalism I feel I can use at the beginning to help explain Princip's actions and one of the reasons why AH felt it necessary to conquer Serbia.

I would be thankful for any help you may offer. I can answer any question you might ask.

EDIT: They are elementary school students.

Hello all, this is my first year teaching and we have just finished taking our state test. All our lessons have been working towards since the beginning of the year. We started with the Colonial Era and ended with Reconstruction. My co teacher mentioned spending time on geography, but I am unsure how long that will last.

The students worked fast through Sectionalism forward since our test was moved up early. We now have 25 days until the end of the year. I want to make this last month more fun/engaging, so what are some “fun” units that you do?

I have some free licenses from my district that I have to use up soon. Anyone have some favorite Resources from TpT? I teach HS Modern World History and HS US History.

When I teach my High School American History lessons (particularly I am approaching lessons on the Civil Rights era of the 1960’s) is it better to say “Black people” or “African-American people?” Is it ok to use them interchangeably or should I pick one and stick with it, and if so which one is more appropriate?

Scenario 1: You are up teaching middle or high schoolers and several side conversations spring up among students like you aren’t even in the room. What do you do?

Scenario 2: You take steps to begin class with middle or high schoolers and announce loudly you “Need everyone’s attention up front”, but students act like you aren’t even in the room and continue talking. What do you do?

I'm a first-year (career change) teacher. I teach 8th grade US History. My classes are finishing up the Industrial Revolution and the kids were really engaged with this unit (a win but not the reason I'm excited). As an "end" to the unit, I showed two videos to my students that highlighted what we keep trying to explain to them: that knowing your history is important and an issue doesn't end just because a time period does.

The two videos I showed were "Fingers to the Bone" which discusses child labor in agriculture and a video (I can't remember the name) that highlights child labor in the mining of mica in India. For those that don't know, mica gives makeup that shimmery quality that's really big.

All of my classes were horrified to realize that child labor is still a thing. What's made my year is that several students came up to me afterward and wanted to know what they could do to change that. In the span of maybe 5 minutes they were throwing out ideas that included everything from petitions to crashing a Congressional meeting.

We only have a month left of school, but I'm now quickly putting together a PBL for my classes and I couldn't be more thrilled. I've spoken to teachers who have taught years and haven't had this kind of moment.

I just wanted to share.

Hello! I am currently majoring in BA history and am curious what the best path would be to getting a teaching job. Should I get an education masters degree? Or can I teach without having a teaching degree? I’m hoping to work in public schools in Texas for context.

Hi everyone I use to use a video that showed Hernan Cortez coming to see Montezuma and capturing him. I moved schools and can’t find it anymore. It had like reenactments of people portraying the event. I believe it was a history channel video or a National Geographic. I would really appreciate y’all’s help.

Besides Nat Geo's American Stories Survey, is there an 8th-9th textbook that covers the full sweep of U.S. history that doesn't end at Reconstruction or Industrialization?

Hello! I am looking to apply for social studies teaching positions in PA, specifically in the Pittsburgh area. I smoke and would like to know how likely it is that a district requires a test. Only one district has anything mentioned on their website, so I wanted to ask here and see what my fellow history teachers could tell me. I also thought I'd ask here because we are all students of history and I think we all understand that sometimes the government isn't as fair as it could be. Thank you for the help in advance!

I just built this Plato's Peach lesson plan that goes through the Battle of the Alamo, Battle of San Jacinto, Bear Flag Revolt and Mexican American War: https://www.platospeach.com/plans/mexican-american-war

Would love any thoughts or feedback on it and feel free to use in your lessons!

I’ll be graduating from my masters program with my P-12 SS and TOSD in May. I’ve been applying to jobs but haven’t heard much back. I’m wondering what the timeline usually looks like for this ? Do schools usually take a while to contact ? Should I email schools telling them I sent in an application ? In NJ

I work in a history museum and we are kind of in a bind! I’m looking for activities to put together tonight for a group of 6th graders coming in tomorrow morning.

We didn’t know they were coming (the school never confirmed or called back!) until we received an email today, and found out they are expecting to bring them by for 4 hours tomorrow. When students groups visit, we usually just do a 1ish hour guided tour, so I have no idea how to fill the rest of the time. I love kids, but I’m not an educator and have no experience coming up with lesson ideas!

I have elongated the tour, scheduled in a lunch break and made a crossword puzzle about the history of our city, but I think I need at least one more game or activity.

If anyone can recommend games/activities I can use to teach them local history, I would really appreciate it!

I’m switching from teaching US history to world history next year. I haven’t taught world history in nine years! Any books (or podcasts, shows, etc) that you recommend to review content material? It’s a fun feeling to kind of relearn something for the first time in a while. Thanks

My colleagues and I are using this image in our US History curriculum but we can’t find any information about the artist, date of creation, etc. Any leads would be appreciated!

I have the enviable task of spending about $1k before May 1.

History related or not what would get for your classroom?

Hi everyone. I’m student teaching in a seventh grade geography classroom this coming fall. However I taught my second lesson ever last week (we go once a week to our classroom this semester). My lesson was on the Cold War. We did a worksheet about the arms/space race and then read “the butter battle book” by Dr. Seuss and did a worksheet talking about the similarities between the book and the war. I feel as though my lesson was just lacking and like I couldn’t further expand on my answers. I’m overall just feeling very bummed about this lesson. Do you guys have any advice for when you feel like this? Appreciate it!

I saw a few months ago somebody here did a ww2 opener where the kids voted on candidates for 'president' and he gave them information about each candidate, like alcoholic, veteran, etc. i want to do this with Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Churchill, and FDR but I don't want it to be completely disingenuous and heavily favor certain people to show how fascism rose up. How can I do this?

Don't have any of my old materials, but I've always enjoyed teaching it. Anyone happen to have any cool resources or could point me to them!! Much appreciation!

(Only came back to teaching permanently last month so it's been a lot of scrambling)