Explore Disability History at the NCSS Conference
Scheduled workshops on disability history:
The team from the #TeachDisabilityHistory Easterseals and Emerging America – Desi Forte, Rich Cairn, and young adult disability activists – will co-present a workshop: How to integrate voices of people with disabilities into the curriculum. They will demonstrate activities and curriculum for sharing disability history with broad audiences. Friday, November 22 - 3:00-3:55pm - Rm 308, Hynes Convention Center.
Library Congress Teaching with Primary Sources poster session: Friday, November 22 - 9:00-10:30am. Exhibit Hall D on Level 2 of the Hynes Convention Center.
Poster: Rich Cairn and Graham Warder will present Student Research Guides for Disability History: Background, Collections & Curriculum as part of the .
Poster: Desi Forte and the #TeachDisabilityHistory campaign will be available to talk about their work and connect with schools interested in collaboration.
Network with thousands of dynamic educators from across the country for the 104th annual conference of the National Council for the Social Studies. Register
#TeachDisabilityHistory at Easterseals Massachusetts
The #TeachDisabilityHistory campaign began at Easterseals Massachusetts years ago. With their support, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education partnered with Storyline Motion Pictures to make the film Lives Worth Living and accompanying curriculum available to schools.
The campaign team advised and review lessons from the Reform to Equal Rights: K-12 Disability History Curriculum, published free online by Emerging America in 2023. The curriculum was created with support from a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) grant.
Easterseals Massachusetts also secured a Library of Congress TPS Eastern Region grant to create a professional video and to share its work in Massachusetts and nationally through the Library of Congress TPS Consortium.
See the #TeachDisabilityHistory video and sign up to have a team present to your conference or school on the Easterseals Massachusetts web site.
After the Conference: Teach Disability History Interest Group
Early in 2024, Emerging America and many of its partners, including Keene State College, launched a quarterly virtual sharing and discussion group of almost 100 teachers, scholars, disability activists who meet quarterly to share their latest research and work on curriculum. The group also discusses efforts to help teachers meet state standards and/or mandates to teach disability history in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other states.
Anyone interested in learning more or in joining the interest group at their next meeting, December 19, 5-6pm Eastern Time – or in participating in the group's July 8 2025 conference at Keene State can contact Graham Warder <gwarder@keene.edu> or Rich Cairn <rcairn@collaborative.org>.
