In 2020-2021, school districts across Massachusetts will fully implement student-led civic engagement projects in every 8th grade and every high school. Projects will occur as class assignments, but students may request the option to complete individual projects. Later in November, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) expects to announce a small grants program to support implementation. 

A new lesson for high school students uses primary sources to engage students, including those whose reading levels may not yet be at grade level, in exploring the changes in policy in who is admitted to the United States.

EmergingAmerica.org happily announces new website resources and features to support powerful teaching of diverse learners. Long-established features also got major rebuilds, including Radical Equality exhibit and Windows on History local history projects: 

There are two new opportunities for teachers to learn more about culturally relevant pedagogy, in addition to the excellent videos and other teaching materials linked on the Engagement Strategies page of the Accessing Inquiry section of this website. 

Visual Literacy: Making Lessons Accessible and Inclusive

Guest Blog Post by Wendy Harris, High School Social Studies & Teacher of the Blind at Metro Deaf School in St. Paul, Minnesota.  

You want to get your students to work with primary sources, but you have students who struggle with reading English text. Maybe they have a learning disability, English is not their most comfortable language, or any number of other reasons. Sound familiar?

Guest Post by Lori Austin: A personal reflection on the Industrial Revolution by a 4th grade teacher

Over the summer of 2019, 70 teachers participated in an immersive NEH-funded Emerging America workshop exploring transformational innovation in Springfield, MA and up and down the Connecticut River Valley. Teachers learned about causes and consequences of precision manufacturing processes invented here. On this Labor Day, we publish Lori Austin’s thoughts on how this workshop helped her gain personal connections to the past.

Massachusetts, as part of reform that builds civic education into the curriculum each year from Kindergarten through high school, passed a law in 2018 to require that each student be offered an opportunity to participate in a student-led civic engagement project in middle school and in high school. As teachers and schools embark on planning for how the student-led projects will be organized, it will be valuable to think about what will support full participation by students with disabilities in this important new opportunity.

How can we teach students the most vital skills to function as citizens? Since the early 19th century, preparation for civic life has been the central reason for public schools. As part of a multi-year effort to reinvigorate the civic mission of schools, in 2016 the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) added “readiness for civic life” to its core definition of what it means to be educated in the state. http://www.doe.mass.edu/ccr/

“I’ve found that if I pick the right primary sources…[I can make the lesson more accessible]. For example, I just gave some students an evacuation poster (after Order 9066 [–forcing Japanese relocation to camps]) that was selected for its minimal text which was heavy on vocabulary they would know or be able to figure out such as dates and places. I gave other students letters to the editor about the Japanese American “evacuation” and internment, and also used political cartoons.

Pi Day has become a celebration of growing festivity in many American educational settings. March 14, as expressed 3.14 in ‘month.day’ notation, is an opportunity to talk about π*, to have a celebration that connects to science and geometry, and to brighten the muddy days of March with the pleasures of pie.