Tag: Education

Book Review – Erasing History: How Fascist Rewrite the Past to Control the Future by Jason Stanley

Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future

By Jason Stanley

Reviewed by Hank Bitten, NJCSS Executive Director

“Wars are won by teachers.” Vladimir Putin

This quote published in the Washington Post on May 7, 2024 is the opening statement in Chapter 1 of Erasing History. It is a powerful statement and thesis for this book and a compelling reason for teachers to read the arguments presented by Jason Stanley, Yale University Professor of Philosophy. There are numerous examples in this book explaining the biased perspective of American history regarding Black Americans, Latinx, Native Americans, women, children, etc. and there are examples of how history has been erased in Kenya, Palestine, India, China, and Ukraine.

Every teacher of U.S. history teaches the different views of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois to assimilate into American society at the turn of the 20th century. However, the perspective presented by Jason Stanley offers students in our classes the opportunity for a critical debate regarding two different paths towards assimilation.

“In his public writings, Washington urged Black Americans to prioritize industrial education over political education, and thus to place greater emphasis on their productive potential as workers than on their identity as democratic citizens.  As Du Bois saw it, this approach served white supremacy.  He counseled Black American citizens instead to seek a liberal education, whose purpose was not only to elevate the soul but also to give them skills to democratically advance their own interests.” (page 39)

Some societies and governments favor a part of their population as the dominant or protected class and discount or “erase” the contributions of other people in their state. The technological advances of artificial intelligence present new challenges for teachers as history can easily be revised from quoting textbooks, historical papers, and extremist views from the past and make them appear as valid scholarship.  The increasing popularity of PraegerU is an example of how school districts, Departments of Education, and individual teachers are accepting the information and lessons provided by non-academic institutions. Teachers have a unique responsibility and position because they are trusted by students and what they say is transformed from sight and sound to memory.

Teachers will find the historiography and analysis of the concepts of nationalism, American exceptionalism, and colonialism to be helpful for the development of lesson plans in both U.S. history and world history. It is less about ‘erasing’ history than changing history or emphasizing certain historical themes while ignoring others. Curriculum designers and teachers have both power and responsibility in how lessons are structured, implemented, and assessed. One example from the book is including the “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and ignoring his many contributions in the civil rights movement.

This is an important debate regarding assimilation in a society with a dominant class. A current example is the debate of how the working class earning an hourly wage without benefits can assimilate into the middle class. Is the best way to address this through subsidized education, new tax policies, or paying a living wage?

Teachers must have a strong content background in the westward movement, labor, Reconstruction, civil rights, Ukraine, Palestine, etc. to be aware of what is missing in the sources and resources they are using with students. The example below provides different points of view on the 1932-33 engineered famine that killed millions of people in Ukraine.

“The most significant of these omissions pertains to Holodomor a genocide of the Ukrainian people, in which millions of Ukrainian peasants starved to death after Stalin demanded draconian requisitions of grain from them, knowing full well that this would have devastating consequences. In Ukrainian and Russian, the term “Holodomor” consists of two parts: “famine” and “to kill” or “make someone suffer” – the closest translation is essentially “someone making others starve intentionally.”  Importantly, although the word “Holodomor” and the tragedy it represents are well known throughout both countries, Russian textbooks describe the event using the generic term for “famine,” implying that Holodomor was merely a bureaucratic accident, and one that affected all of the USSR equally.  In Ukrainian textbooks, it is represented as a famine that Stalin inflicted specifically upon the Ukrainians, which is considerably closer to the truth.” (pages 67-68)

Fascism is not taught is most high schools and college courses may not have provided this instruction for teachers. Fascism, socialism, Marxism, communism, and Naziism are critical movements in world history and they are complicated to teach because the are not monolithic. Professor Stanley provides five major themes that are part of a fascist education: (page 78)

  1. National greatness
  2. National purity
  3. National innocence
  4. Strict gender roles
  5. Vilification of the left

The strategy that wins the support of people is often fear and patriotism.  In the United States, the theme of national greatness is most visible with “Make America Great Again” and defining the United States as the greatest nation or what is defined as American exceptionalism.  However, associating crime, poverty, homelessness, unemployment, etc. with a specific demographic group is part of the fascist goal of national purity. In Germany, it was the Aryan population.  In the United States it is critical race theory, structural racism, and making white Americans feel guilty. We see the theme of strict gender roles in the directives to teach traditional roles of women and banning references to the contributions of the LGBTQ persons. The placing of blame for everything on a past president or a specific political party is another effective strategy. Teachers should be aware of these five signs and why populations embrace it.

President Trump delivered a speech in September 2020 when he introduced the White House Conference on American History. Particularly, in the 250th anniversary year of the signing of the declaration of Independence, teachers need to be aware of how President Trump understands the teaching of patriotic history.

“Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character.  We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country.  We want our sons and daughters to know that they are citizen of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.” (page 81)

Erasing History dedicates three chapters to the importance of education in both preventing and promoting authoritarian rulers or advocating against democracy and for authoritarianism. Teachers of social studies, history, and literature have a responsibility to recognize bias and ignorance and to select the sources and perspectives that lead to an understanding of the American values of equality, liberty, and the rule of law.

“The dismantling of public education is backed by oligarchs and business elites alike, who see in democracy a threat to their power, and in the taxes required for public goods a threat to their wealth.  Public schools are the foundational democratic public good.  It is therefore perfectly logical that those who are opposed to democracy, including fascist and fascist-leaning movements, would join forces with right-wing libertarians in undermining the institution of public education entirely.” (pages 121,122)

The movement for school vouchers, criticisms of curriculum, the attack on the 1619 Project, and the emphasis on America’s greatness contribute to distrust about public schools and confuses parents.

“The goal of anti-education is not only to render a population ignorant of the nation’s history and problems but also to fracture those citizens into a multitude of different groups with no possibility of mutual understanding, and hence no possibility of mass unified action. As a consequence, anti-education renders a population apathetic – leaving the task of running the country to others, be they autocrats, plutocrats, or theocrats.” (page 133)

I found Professor Stanley’s analysis of classical education to be exceptional. The extreme right and the extreme left (and those in between) support the teaching of Greek and Roman civilizations. What I found interesting is how each side selects the leaders and documents that support their perspective of government. For example, Pericles Funeral Oration describes Athenian democracy:


“Its administration favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy.  If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life fall to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition….We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing…while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger.” (page 143)

While the above speech favors democracy, others look to Plato as evidence of a strong ruler with a clear authoritarian philosophy.  The Greeks and Romans supported gender and racial superiority, owned slaves, favored landowners and intellectuals, and had colonies. These examples support a fascist ideology. Teachers have the responsibility to teach historical context, provide the reasons for social changes, help students to analyze how freedom is related to continuity and change over time, and an understanding of equality, reason, liberty, and power. Concepts we thought had clear definitions have become complicated.

There are more compelling insights in this book than I can comment on in a book review. Teachers of all subjects should read this book, but in particular history, social studies, and teachers of literature. Pre-service teachers also need to read and discuss this book.  Let me conclude with these observations:

  1. Critical thinking is essential.
  2. Understanding a point of view and historical perspective are essential.
  3. The current movement away from democracy has been part of our American history for a long time. We see it in the separate but equal policy on race, segregation laws, imperialism, xenophobia, criticisms of the New Deal, Brown v. Board of Education decision, McCarthyism, civil rights protests, Nixon’s imperial presidency, supply-side economics, and in the reaction to the decline of the United States as a world power.
  4. Democracy ended in Athens, and in the Roman Republic. We need to understand how and why this happened.

As a teacher of history and/or social studies, you are on the front line and can expect to be criticized! Our responsibility as teachers is to include the experiences and contributions of all people – especially women, children, immigrants, people of different faiths, Black and Native Americans, laborers, individuals with disabilities, individuals who are LGBTQ, etc. Teaching history includes compassion, empathy, struggles, contributions, and the untold stories that you will discover. Erasing History is about forgotten and neglected history.

Telling School Tales: Rural School History Research

Telling School Tales: Rural School History Research

Casey Thomas Jakubowski

In 1998, my first teaching position in Little Valley Central School District in Cattaraugus County New York, as a social studies instructor led to a career exploring the nooks and hollows of educational history across the Empire State (Jakubowski, 2020; 2023). The former school district is part of the Appalachian region of New York State, which includes 14 counties from Lake Erie to the Catskills. This district was undertaking an annexation study, or school district reorganization attempt in my first year. I knew nothing of these events, and was unaware that there was a nearly 100 year history of rural school reform focusing on creating more urban-like schools in rural areas (Jakubowski, 2020).  The first major community activity surrounding a reorganization, or merger is the Boards of Education voting to undergo a study. After the districts are presented with the study, the Board then votes to accept the study. If this passes both boards, it is sent to the community in a non binding, or advisory vote (straw). When the straw vote passed in both Cattaraugus and Little Valley, people began to protest outside the school every morning and evening, to “save the panthers” or to “save the heart of LV” as I remember the sign read. My students were pulled from extracurriculars by their parents in order to protest the potential merging of the two districts, Cattaraugus to the north, and Little Valley, a one building K-12 district with just under 300 students. When the “binding vote” happened that year, and the Cattaraugus community defeated the proposed measure, we wondered, “What next?”

I left the district that fall, to move to central New York, and once again, a school centralization impacted my life. A family member’s teaching position was abolished, because the five year moratorium had expired. After a few resignations and retirements, the family member was once again employed. This is an all too unfortunate reality across Appalachia’s schools, as decreasing population, and wealth decline usually results in less money for school budgets, and personnel.  I was once again wondering “What next?” This time, I used a Masters level research paper (unpublished, 2004)[1] to begin to pursue what has been a twenty-year scholarly chase through the rural, upstate, and state education department policy of recommending schools which are, according to the 1947 and 1958 Master Plan for School District Reorganization, too small to produce efficient, or effective programming for their children[2]). I also learned that New York State’s policy towards rural districts is as Fulkerson & Thomas (2019) describe it “urban normative” or the urban areas are the norm, and should be promoted as an ideal form of local government.[3] So I dug deep, and researched cases of successfully undertaken and defeated centralizations, or consolidations, or mergers, or reorganizations.[4] The history of why so many reorganizations failed post 1960 became an obsession. I learned from my pursuit of the 20th and 21st century of educational history of New York two major tracks: most educational historians write on the early period (founding of New York as a colony to just after World War I) and second, the state’s citizens have experienced some major fights with the state bureaucratic system in Albany over really basic issues of democracy, local control, and what citizenship means.

Telling tales out of school, as the title implies is often thought of as a negative, and uncivilized approach, yet I view these two tales, about Kiantone and Morganville, as critical, and very necessary to explain some of the basic urban rural divide of New York State, and further the rural anger deployed at government, which observers believe is current, but is actually rooted in Post World War II actions by the the State Education Department.[5]

The State of New York has, as Tracy Steffes writes in her seminal work, been interested since the late 1800s in “reforming” rural schools through strategic aid packages to develop longer terms and more “professional” schools in rural areas.[6] Thomas Mauhs-Pugh described how the local school governing boards were once held as exemplars, because they created “12,000 little republics” that taught governing principles at the local level.[7] Benjamin Justice combed the archive to discover how religious governing practices amongst local Board of Education members often resulted in appeals to the State Education Department.[8] Heffernan’s article on the conflict between State Education Department expectations for school facilities and local board’s realities describe how dissonance started in the early 20th century between the professionals and the public.[9]  Chiles’ work on Progressive era school reform describes how Gov. Smith undertook school reform in rural areas as a signature effort among his governorship, and later presidential aspirations.[10] Loveland’s dissertation on the transition between the State Superintendent for Education to the University of the State of New York’s Commissioner of Education and President is a landmark in describing how the first three leaders at the newly created State Education Department had created a policy of rural school reform[11]. As Parkerson & Parkerson wrote in the crucial book on rurals school reform, the “ABCs” or Assessment, bureaucracy and consolidation, have haunted, especially in New York, rural schools who try to survive in the midst of population decline, decreasing wealth, and state policy which relies on a long standing deficit narrative, which Biddle & Azano expose as more than 100 years old.[12]

Having learned about the New York Master Plan for School District Reorganization (which is still in effect in 2023) I began to explore areas close to where I was living at the time, namely Genesee County, and discovered a huge gap in my understanding of the creation of the present day accepted “Central School Districts.” Many New Yorkers take for granted these post-Depression era created districts, many of which did not assume final form until the midst of the Cold War. These often hyphenated schools recall a vague history, or “mystic chords of memory” as Kammen would call it,[13] of the past, prior to the baby boomers (post World War II) entering school and gaining an affiliation as members of those relatively newly created schools. As Osterude describes in a profound work on the Broome County area, identity, and affinity moved from community to the newly created school districts, often built outside of town, and the social hub of the area.[14]  Yet I know from my own experience (auto ethnographic history?)[15] the process must not have been smooth, or why would perfectly rational people hold so closely to an identity or mascot, as much of the national research claimed was the reason centralizations/ consolidations/ mergers are defeated?

Seeking to understand school history, as Carol Kammen, or David Kyvig[16] calls “nearby history” led me to the Genesee County Archives, where I discovered the Morganville Question. At the bottom of the Byron Bergen Central School District 1958 Master Plan entry was a footnote, which caught my attention:

By alteration of boundary, effective Sept. 17, 1951, all of the property in the Town of Stafford, formerly C2 Stafford, was transferred from CS 1 Byron to CS 1 Le Roy. (p. 301).[17]

After meeting with the Genesee County historian, and reading the records from the New York State Archive on the town of Stafford, I went to the town historian, and museum and learned a bit about this “school tale.”[18]

            Stafford 2, Morganville, was one of the wealthier common schools in the area. A community with a pottery manufacturing center, and a two room schoolhouse, the community provided a grade 1-6 education to their children. In a tuition agreement very common until the creation of centralized school districts, and the birth of a semi modern high school in each C.S.D, Morganville partnered with South Byron by sending their secondary students for instruction. When the Centralization petition was launched, the Stafford 2 district residents overwhelmingly voted no, and wanted to maintain their two room schoolhouse, and independence. In records, memos, telegrams, and newspaper reports of the time period, the fight between Morganville (Stafford 2) and SED heated up, and became a back and forth with the end result of the community locking the South Byron Board of Education employee teacher out of the building. The parents refused to send their children.[19] The local school district superintendent, who is a field based representative of the commissioner of education, was on the side of the Stafford 2 (Morganville) representatives.

            The archival records in Genesee county, and the State Archives in Albany record the back and forth memos and telegrams of the bureaucracy and the local residents trying to enter into a positive, less public solution. What became the clue to a second quest was a note on one of the memos from senior SED officials to the bureau and the local superintendent: “We do not need another Kiantone.”[20] More on Kiantone below.

            What finally concluded the “Morganville question” was a bit of bureaucracy, and the intervention of a neighboring district. LeRoy, a larger village in Genesee County, had a well developed secondary school, as befitting an Erie Canal town home to the creators of Jell-o. The leaders of LeRoy offered free transportation and free tuition for schooling to any family in Stafford 2 who could transport their children to the boundary line. Using this subtle recruiting technique, the narrative from Morganville changed from “independent” to “LeRoy” as their demands for a school centralization destination. In one of the communications between the Morganville leaders and SED, the justification given for the break in the previous relationship with South Byron was the expectation of a better quality of secondary education for children at the LeRoy schools. South Byron was, in the opinion of the Morganville leaders, too small and not robust enough.[21]

            The bureaucratic support arrived in the form of the New York State Thruway Authority, and its construction of the mainline branch from Buffalo to Rochester. The layout of the Eisenhower Interstate system, a divided, limited access highway modeled on the autobahn, was a technology and transportation revolution in the United States post World War II. As the Morganville community and the State were seeking a solution to the “question” of where would the children attend school, the Thruway authority indicated that the disruption caused by construction of the thruway and the needed overpass bridges for state and local routes would be a long term logistical problem for Morganville Children to attend South Byron. The authority provided the State Education Department face saving “cover” to move Morganville (Stafford 2) student population to LeRoy. The Morganville residents celebrated a win, and the State Education Department reaffirmed that the Master Plan was a voluntary policy, and the districts presented in the plan were recommended[22].

            This situation was very different than just five years prior, where the Kiantone community south of Jamestown, in the Northern Appalachian region,  experienced the wrath of State Education Department, while participating in a “farmers rebellion” that brought to the fore questions of democracy, local self determination and the international questions of communism, and totalitarianism post World War II.

            Just south of Jamestown, of the “outlying” urban areas of New York State in the mid 1800s, Kiantone was a farming community along the Kiantone creek, with early settlers engaging in what Fox calls resource clearance in the areas of lumbering and then farming. The Kiantone residents erected seven Common Schools as part of the State enabling legislation. As Jamestown to the north, the residents began a long term tuitioning partnership with the secondary academy in Jamestown. Through World War I, and then World War II, the region provided significant material and manpower, and as a local furniture manufacturing hub in Buffalo, became a large urban center devoted to consumer products, and then the war efforts.  At the Fenton- Chautauqua County historical society, the story of Kiantone is well known, and is a special area to the research people, because it represents the hypocrisy of national policy and local actions.[23]

            During World War II, the Rapp-Coudert commission was charged by the New York state Legislature with rooting out communists among college professors in New York City. It also became the leading committee examining how to create a more efficient and effective public school system, with a focus on rural districts. After the New York State Board of Regents inquiry into the condition of public schools in the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, the report concluded that rural schools were extremely inefficient, and ineffective. Prior to the centralization movements of the 1930s-1970s, New York was home to a large number of smaller common schools, offering grades 1-6, and or tuitioning children out to neighboring districts. The Master Plan for School District Reorganization reported that in 1930, there were over 10,000 districts in New York State. By 1945, there were just over 5,000 (today, there are just under 700). At the secondary or 7-12 levels, parents would send children to villages based or academies for a secondary education focused on the Board of Regents curriculum and end of course exams introduced just after the Civil War, as Beadie describes. The Rapp Coudert commission established minimums to ensure efficient and effective spending on public education in the state. The commission, under the guise of a voluntary or recommended reorganization plan of 1947 (p. 18) created an organized plan to ensure that proposed districts would meet minimums in grades 1-6 and 7-12.  Those minimums include 1500 dollars for elementary programming and 1800 for secondary expenditures. The minimums for pupil enrollment recommended at least 1000 students in a district.[24] As these recommendations emerged during the World War II era (1941-1945) the final report and “Master Plan” was released in 1947.[25] As the Master Plan was established, residents in each proposed district could submit to the local District superintendent of schools a request to begin the centralization process. Kiantone, with its long standing relationship to Jamestown, had been included in the Frewsburg Central School District proposed area. After some initial negotiations, one of the Kiantone schools was moved to Jamestown,[26] but the rest were included with Frewsburg. 

 Trustees of the Common Schools, and residents,  vigorously opposed this arrangement, and felt, at the minimum, two major negatives precluded their inclusion with Frewsburg. First, the long relationship with Jamestown was primary. Second, the program in Jamestown was far superior to Frewsburg offerings. The Common School trustees in Kiantone refused to turn the key to the school over, and in August of 1948, the attorney for the Frewsburg Central School, accompanied by a “Phalanx” of New York State Troopers “crashed into a human barricade “ (Jamestown Post Journal, August 24, 1948).[27]  A scuffle resulted, with a World War I veteran, who was waving an American Flag, pushed to the ground.  In the ensuing media coverage, comparisons with John Paul Jones, a demand for the House Un American Activities Committee to investigate, and a comparison to the totalitarianism of the USSR and Germany were published. Investigations were launched by the American Legion and the New York State Grange into the incident, and then the State Education Department’s response. Deputy Commissioner Jeru, interviewed by the Post Journal, was rather harsh, and described the residents of Kiantone as self-serving, and neglectful of their children’s future.[28] Commissioner of Education Franscis Trow Spaulding, in speeches, referenced troublemakers in rural areas, who did not see the bigger picture of centralization and the need to create more and better training opportunities[29]. Mrs. Potter, of the area, an Albany Normal School trained librarian, became the spokesperson for the community, and led statewide hearings, rallies, and pressures which resulted in some seismic shifts to state law and policy. First, the Kiantone residents created a private school, and the State Appeals court in Buffalo ruled that private, non organization sponsored schools were legal. This legalized schools unaffiliated with formal organizations, such as religious groups to operate. Second the process was altered (after Morganville) so that a majority of voters in the individual, in existence schools were needed to authorize the centralization or consolidation. This home rule precedent was crucial in the slowing down of enabling consolidations.[30]

The story does not end here, as many districts in the Northern Appalachian Region area of New York have experienced this pressure to reorganize, centralize, or consolidate. In every county, districts have faced pressure to examine consolidation. The ongoing drumbeat of efficiency, and effectiveness from the State policy and political leadership is often matched by local and regional media opinions that “bigger is better.” Yet in large urban districts, “smaller is successful” has been supported by politicians, philanthropists, and others. Why this dissonance? As Fulkerson & Thomas have pointed out, the schema of many policy makers supposes that urban is normal, cities are the way, and rural isn’t worth support or investment.

            These two examples of school district reorganization, whose stories exist in local archives, which to this point, have not been extensively researched, help fill a research gap into the rural rage and distrust of state officials. The two examples provide a demonstrable dissonance between the words, deeds, and actions of the United States government towards democracy overseas, and the internal state government downplaying local communities concerns that their rights were violated and should be subjected to state level bureaucratic planning. No wonder rural residents in New York view state government promises as fleeting and empty.[31]

            I would, in this short essay, recommend that scholars, students, and the curious examine these smaller, more local archives as sources of interesting, compelling, and frankly subaltern histories that do not mirror the narrative which explains the creation of our now taken for granted local governing structures.

References

Primary Archives:

Fenton Historical Society of Chautauqua County. Kiantone history files. Jamestown, NY

Genesee County historical society. Local history files. Batavia, NY.

New York State Archives.  Education Department Bureau of School District Organization. File B0477. Albany, NY.

Secondary sources:

Biddle, Catharine, and Amy Price Azano. “Constructing and reconstructing the “rural school problem” a century of rural education research.” Review of Research in Education 40, no. 1 (2016): 298-325.

Chiles, Robert. “SCHOOL REFORM AS PROGRESSIVE STATECRAFT: EDUCATION POLICY IN NEW YORK UNDER GOVERNOR ALFRED E. SMITH, 1919–1928.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 15, no. 4 (2016): 379-398.

Fulkerson, G. & A. Thomas. Urban normativity. Lexington, 2019.

Heffernan, Karen M. ““Much more chewing”: a case study of resistance to school reform in rural New York during the early twentieth century.” Paedagogica Historica (2021): 1-19.

Jakubowski, C. Rural school consolidation: A case study. Unpublished seminar paper, SUNY Binghamton, 2004.

Jakubowski, C. Hidden Resistance. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, SUNY Albany, 2019.

Jakubowski, C. School Consolidation. New York State Archives Magazine 20.1, 2020.

Jakubowski, C. A Cog in the Machine.  Alexandra, VA: Edumatch, 2021.

Jakubowski, C. Rural Education History: State Policy Meets Local Implementation.Lexington, 2023.

Jakubowski, C. Schooling for a Fight. Lexington Press (expected publication 2025).

Justice, Benjamin. The war that wasn’t: Religious conflict and compromise in the common schools of New York state, 1865-1900. SUNY Press, 2009.

Kammen, Carol. On doing local history. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Kammen, Michael. Mystic chords of memory: The transformation of tradition in American culture. Vintage, 2011.

Kyvig, D. et al.  Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You, 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

Loveland, Fred Gerald. Victor M. Rice and Andrew S. Draper: the origins of educational centralization in rural New York State. State University of New York at Buffalo, 1993.

Mauhs-Pugh, Thomas J. “12,000 Little Republics: Civic Apprenticeship and the Cult of Efficiency.” New York History 86, no. 3 (2005): 251-287.

New York State. Master Plan for School District Reorganization. Albany, 1947

New York State. Master Plan for School Districts Reorganization. Second Ed. Albany, 1958.

Osterud, Nancy Grey. Putting the Barn Before the House. Cornell University Press, 2012.

Parkerson, Donald, and Jo Ann Parkerson. Assessment, bureaucracy, and consolidation: The issues facing schools today. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

Spaulding, Francis Trow. Addresses and Papers of Francis Trow Spaulding ,President of the University of the State of New York and Commissioner of Education from July 1, 1946-March 25, 1950. University of the State of New York, State Education Department, 1967.

Steffes, Tracy L. “Solving the “rural school problem”: New state aid, standards, and supervision of local schools, 1900–1933.” History of Education Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2008): 181-220.

[1] Jakubowski, 2004 (SUNY Binghamton, History Department Masters presentations).

[2] NYSED, 1958

[3] Fulkerson & Thomas, 2019

[4] Jakubowski, 2019

[5] Initial findings  presented at multiple Researching New York Conference and Jakubowski (2025)

[6] Steffes, 2008

[7] Mauhs-Pugh, 2005

[8] Justice, 2009

[9] Heffernan, 2021

[10] Chiles, 2016

[11] Loveland, 1993

[12] Parkerson & Parkerson, 2015, Azano & Biddle, 2016.

[13] Kammen, 2011

[14] Osterude, 2011

[15] Jakubowski, 2021

[16] Kammen, 2014; Kyvig, et al, 2021.

[17] NYSED, 1958

[18] Genesee County historical society, Batavia, NY. Local history files. NYS Archives, Bureau of District Reorganization files.

[19] See footnote 18

[20] See note 18

[21] See note 18

[22] See note 18

[23] Fenton Historical Society, Kiantone School Consolidation files, Jamestown, NY.

[24] Reports of the New York State Legislative Commission (Rapp-Coldert Commission, 1941-1945)

[25] New York State Master Plan for School District Reorganization, 1947.

[26] Master Plan, 1947 p. 107 & 122.

[27] Fenton Historical Society, Kiantone File, Newspaper clippings.

[28] See note 27

[29] Spaulding, 1967

[30] See note 27

[31] Jakubowski, 2019

Obsolete but Preferable: The Role of Textbooks in the Modern Social Studies Classroom

Obsolete but Preferable: The Role of Textbooks in the Modern Social Studies Classroom

Mitchell Meyer

Introduction

Despite everything we’ve been led to believe over the past two decades, books have not completely disappeared from our society, nor our schools. Indeed, the world has rapidly moved in the direction of technological reliance at a seemingly infinitely higher rate since it entered the 2020s. This is especially true in educational settings, as teachers have begun to use a vast array of online tools, and many students across the country are more and more completing digital assignments. Yet, with all of this progression, texts themselves have not been completely phased out. No analyzation of the American education system can be generalized for every single school, let alone every single teacher. However, it is clear that the majority are still based on or at least reference some form of text. Still, this begs a question regarding the nature of the role that physical textbooks still play in the modern classroom, especially social studies ones considering so much of said subject is based on text interpretation. Ultimately, it is clear that textbooks generally are no longer the sole basis for classes’ entire curricula but are still used as valuable reference points. In addition, there has been a major shift away from traditional physical textbooks, and a move towards more differentiated options. 

Literature Review

To begin my research, I first looked into suggestions on how textbooks could continue to be useful tools. As my research isn’t catered towards one specific grade level, the article “A Content Analysis of Vocabulary Instruction in Social Studies Textbooks for Grades 4-8″ by Janis Harmon, Wanda Hedrick, and Elizabeth Fox from The Elementary School Journal proved a useful starting point. These authors posit that the real issue with the current usage of textbooks is not the book itself, but the way it is used. The primary alternative method of using textbooks regards vocabulary terms. Specifically, the authors claim that “effective practices for promoting vocabulary development stress the importance of instruction that affects comprehension, not just word knowledge alone” (Harmon, Hedrick, and Fox, 254). Thus, textbooks can’t be used to create simple repetition practices, they have to challenge the students in innovative ways which force them to exercise critical thinking skills about the matter at hand. Therefore, vocabulary terms are one of the most essential parts of a textbook, but there must be a dramatic shift away from how this device is being used at present, and how it has been used in the past.

The second article, and perhaps the most important I read, comes from the Georgia Educational Researcher and was written by two professors from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Amber Reed and Dr. Bailey Brown. Their article “Divergent Representations of Africa: A Qualitative Analysis of Georgia Social Studies Textbooks” explores the complexities of textbook usage in the deep American South, and how inherent biases towards various cultures is manifested in their content. In their research of Georgia’s public schools, they found that these issues are systemic and institutionalized. As such, they claim that “research also finds that educators are often ill-prepared to teach global perspectives in the social studies curriculum and that teachers’ biases and Eurocentric framework for teaching material can reproduce misconceptions about other countries” (Brown and Reed, 26). Thus, the biased nature of textbooks, at least in Georgia, is almost guaranteed for renewal as such misconceptions are carried down from one generation to the next. Therefore, there is likely little malicious intent in textbook bias, but failing to recognize it plays into the Eurocentric attitude that the American education system has long subscribed to. As such, this article doesn’t necessarily argue for doing away with textbooks altogether, but it does explain the need for a serious overhaul of the “traditional” methods they inspire.

The final article I referenced comes from the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Written by Professors Sarah Matthew and Craig McGill, “Honestly, I Had a Very Strong Reaction to This Reading” contrasts to the aforementioned pieces by actually arguing in favor of moving away from traditional textbooks. They explore what the term “graphic” means in a literary context and how it can often be misconstrued. On the one hand, it can immediately act as a scare tactic many use to support banning certain titles as it assumes such content is either violent or pornographic. But in reality, “graphic” doesn’t have to imply any extreme at all, and at its most basic level just refers to the use of imagery or illustrations (Matthew and McGill, 433). As such, Matthew and McGill heavily advocate for the increased use of graphic novels as alternatives for traditional textbooks, arguing that they can bring a new perspective and encourage certain critical thinking skills not found otherwise. Not only that, but they also advocate for teaching banned material itself, in order to show students why titles are challenged, and what implications doing so holds. 

Methodology

After doing my preliminary research into contemporary attitudes towards continuing textbook usage, I developed a two-pronged approach for my own research into this topic. The first prong involved transferring my findings from the articles I found into questions for three teachers I interviewed. While only three teachers’ opinions can be difficult to form conclusions upon, they are from different parts of New Jersey, and all teach at different levels. One teaches ninth and eleventh grade social studies at Ewing High School. Another teaches sixth grade ancient civilizations at Community Middle School in West Windsor. The final teaches sixth grade social studies at West Brook Middle School in Paramus. They were each asked the same five questions, three of which pertain to the above articles, and I have decided to retain their names in order to further encourage honesty in their answers. Moreover, they were not shown the data collected or previous teachers’ answers until after the interview was completed thereby ensuring autonomy in their responses. The five questions I asked these teachers were: overall, what do you believe the role of textbooks should be in the contemporary classroom; what kind of textbooks do you use, if any at all; do you believe textbook vocabulary terms can be beneficial if taught the right way; have you found that textbooks are generally more biased or unbiased; and how do you feel about teaching banned books, is it important that students are exposed to such material?

In contrast, the second prong focused on the student perspective. For this part of my research, I created a survey which I used to sample students in the class of the aforementioned teacher from Community Middle School. I was also able to obtain some responses from outside West Windsor from other students I work with, particularly in Byram and Stanhope in Sussex County. However, about 90% of the responses came from Community. As such, again I approached drawing blanket conclusions from this data with caution, but it still provides valuable insight into the direction at least this type of school is moving in. For the students I also asked five questions, inquiring about what type of texts are most appealing to them, which types they have used before, which types they believe would be most beneficial for them going forward, how positive an impact they believe textbooks have been on their education so far, and how strongly they believe textbooks can still play a positive role going forward.

The Results

Surprisingly to me, and with few exceptions, each teacher shared very similar answers to the five questions. The consensus seemed to be that textbooks should only act as complementary material to otherwise well-constructed lessons. Furthermore, you needn’t actively seek out textbooks for the niche purposes of vocabulary terms or just for the sake of teaching banned material. This can be done more organically, which is more beneficial to the fluidity of the unit at large. And textbooks, at least those in use in New Jersey, generally try to present information in unbiased ways, but as with any written material, biases do poke through. Hence why it is again important to not rely upon textbooks, or any one source for that matter, so heavily. Put most straightforwardly, the teachers I interviewed were in general agreement that textbooks can’t be the basis of an entire class but can still serve as one of many important resources for instruction or reference.

Similarly, the data I received from the students was not what I was expecting. In terms of what they found most appealing, graphic novels took about 1/3 of the responses. However, traditional textbooks achieved nearly the same number. Unsurprisingly, traditional textbooks were overwhelmingly the most used type of text, but eBooks fell not far behind, and graphic novels again took about 1/3 of the responses. Most surprising of all, traditional textbooks took the plurality of the responses for what type of text students believed would be most beneficial for them going forward, receiving about 40%. And finally, most of the responses for the final two questions fell somewhere in the middle, with zero responses indicating that they strongly disagreed, and 15% indicating that they strongly agreed. 

Conclusion

            The twenty-first century so far has seen a dramatic increase in reliance on technology and advancements in this field. And yet despite the seemingly resulting trend that physical textbooks have become obsolete, they can still play a role in the modern classroom. In completing my research, I have found that few have argued that such resources should be done away with entirely. In fact, many authors who have written on this subject have simply made suggestions for alternative practices. In addition, the teachers I spoke to were also generally supportive of continuing usage of textbooks so long as they do not dominate an entire class. Even students, who in general as an entire demographic have long been stereotyped as vehemently anti-textbook, seem not only willing, but happy to continue learning from them going forward. Again, it is important to acknowledge the small sample sizes used to conduct this study, and further research would have to be completed in order to make any type of generalization. But the general conclusion I draw from this project is that not only can textbooks still play a role in the modern classroom, but they must continue to be a commonly used resource.

 Implications

The data I received both from the teacher interviews and the student surveys somewhat contradicted the information I found in the articles. First and foremost, it seems that the educators I talked to have few issues with the systematic bias in textbooks. They don’t negate its existence; rather they just see them as any other type of text which has to be approached with caution. They see the bias actually as useful, because any source is going to include it. Thus, it can be beneficial to have their students look for biases and point them out when they find them. The implication of their lack of hesitation in this regard seems to be that the era of fully textbook-based classes is just about over. A simple reliance on one textbook dooms students to a narrow view of the world, especially in social studies settings. Moreover, running your class as such is a dangerous reversal of the current trend which aims to facilitate critical thinking, rather than simple content knowledge.

Furthermore, continued textbook usage is completely acceptable, but it has to be supplemented with abundant material from other sources. And not only do students see continued textbook usage as necessary, but many even see traditional textbooks as having played a significant and even positive role in their education. Thus, while it is important to supplement traditional textbooks with other material, it seems we cannot be so extreme as to throw them out entirely. They serve as a familiar source of knowledge which many might feel lost without. So, to answer the initial question this research was based off of, textbooks can absolutely play an important and expansive role in the modern classroom. We just have to ensure that they are being used the right way and are not the only type of source students are exposed to. 

References

Brown, Bailey, and Reed, Amber. 2023. “Divergent Representations of Africa: A Qualitative Analysis of Georgia Social Studies Textbooks.” Georgia Educational Researcher 20 (2): 26–44. doi:10.20429/ger.2023.200202.  

Harmon, Janis M., Wanda B. Hedrick, and Elizabeth A. Fox. “A Content Analysis of Vocabulary Instruction in Social Studies Textbooks for Grades 4-8.” The Elementary School Journal 100, no. 3 (2000): 253–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1002154.

Mathews, Sarah A., and Craig M. McGill. 2022. “‘Honestly, I Had a Very Strong Reaction to This Reading’: Social Studies Pre‐Service Teachers’ Application of Literacy Frameworks While Engaging with a Graphic Textbook.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 65 (5): 431–39. doi:10.1002/jaal.1224.

Fairness Counts: Integrating Math and Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom

Fairness Counts: Integrating Math and Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom

Marilyn M. DePietto

“That’s not fair!” Any teacher who has spent time in elementary school classrooms knows the frequency and passion with which this sentence is declared each day.  As early as 3 years of age, children have a developed sense of fairness that concerns not only allocation of materials, but also the distribution process (Englemann & Tomasello, 2019). This desire to regulate games, play, and sharing of resources in early childhood continues to develop through the elementary years, and it provides a remarkable opportunity for teachers to leverage the integration of mathematics and social studies.

Social studies standards in New York explicitly refer to “gathering, interpreting, and using evidence” and “chronological reasoning and causation” (New York State Education Department [NYSED], 2017a).  The Next Generation Standards for Mathematical Practice include “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others” and “Look for and make use of structure,” which refers to finding patterns over the course of time (NYSED, 2017b). The overlap between these two subjects, particularly in the early grades, is significant and useful in settling disputes of tangible fairness and in the upper elementary grades, in providing support for students to think about more abstract concepts of fairness and equity.

Math and social studies integration for early childhood (PK-2)

Most early childhood classrooms have objects that are in short supply and coveted by many children at once.  Common ones might include the “good” bean bag chair for reading, the block corner, or the newest art supplies. Some teachers generate and implement systems for managing these situations so that students are treated fairly. Other teachers might feel that students ought to learn that sometimes they can’t get what they want and adopt mantras similar to “you get what you get, and you don’t get upset.”

Both teacher-imposed systems of fairness and teacher-imposed systems of control miss a crucial opportunity to allow students ownership of their class rules and also an opportunity to show how social studies and mathematics are integrated and relevant. Consider the example of the bean bag chair that, for some reason undiscernible to adults, students have decided is the “best” one. In the reading corner, despite the fact that there are four seemingly equivalent places to sit, one chair always causes an argument or a dash across the room to get there first. It is important for teachers to know that even if it seems not to make sense, children assign tremendous value to objects. In fact, studies have shown that even very young children view objects as extensions of self (Diesendruck & Perez, 2015). Leveraging this assigned significance into learning opportunities should be at the forefront of teacher’s agendas.

An interdisciplinary solution to the bean bag chair problem might begin by first naming the issue and helping children articulate their feelings and questions about it. Then, the teacher might set up a democratic process for students to share what they think are good solutions. There are many literary resources that would be good starting points for student participation. Fair Shares by Pippa Goodheart, Share and Take Turns by Cheri J. Meiners, and Friends Ask First by Alexandra Cassel are a few popular choices to anchor a discussion.

Once all students have had an opportunity to ask questions and share their ideas for a fair system, the teacher might consolidate all of the ideas into two or three options. It is important to explicitly model thinking critically about ideas of fairness for students to help them broaden their understanding and expose them to different points of view (Bjervås, 2017).  Ideas elicited from early childhood students would likely come under a few different categories: 1) some kind of system where everyone gets the same amount of time 2) a taking turns system, where if someone else wants a turn, the person in the chair has to give it up 3) a Darwinian system that indicates something to the effect of whoever gets there first gets the chair, and 4) other less fair, or more difficult to articulate systems. Through questioning and debate facilitated by the teacher, students would likely come to the conclusion that the time system is fairest.  In PK-2 classrooms, setting up a ballot measure and having students vote would be a clear way of establishing an example of the democratic process.  Age-appropriate social studies concepts met during this process include gathering, interpreting and using evidence, chronological reasoning and causation, and civic participation (NYSED, 2017a).

After everyone has participated in this form of civic engagement, mathematics plays a larger part.  The very process of counting and representing the results of voting is a mathematical concept.  Using a Unifix cube or a similar concrete manipulative to represent each vote, students can stack them to construct a three-dimensional bar graph showing how many votes were cast for each option. This visual and tactile representation of the votes will make it clear to students the option with which more students agree. This representation itself ticks several boxes for mathematical standards and concepts appropriate for PK-2 classrooms. 

Counting objects, sorting them into categories, arranging them in a line to assign ordinal numbers, comparing the quantity in each group by using words like more than or fewer, and representing data in a display and reading said display are all mathematics concepts that students should learn in early childhood grades (NYSED, 2017b). Research has long since established that students not only retain mathematics content more effectively but are also better able to transfer and apply skills they learned through the context of their own social and cultural values rather than word problems with “real world” situations involving carts full of watermelons from a textbook (Boaler, 1993; Lazic & Maričić, 2021; Taylor, 1989). Establishing classroom rules that are fair for everyone is a high priority for young students, and therefore the mathematics and social studies concepts associated with the construction of such a classroom will likely be learned deeply and effectively.

The idea of “fairness” holds within it the essence of “equality,” which is a mathematics concept that is tremendously important but often misunderstood, particularly in early childhood (Sophian, 2022). Furthermore, concepts of equal parts of a whole, equal groups of objects, and showing equal quantities in different ways are found throughout PK-2 math standards (NYSED, 2017b). To keep with the time in the bean bag chair example, this activity can be further developed by facilitating a discussion among students about how much time in the bean bag chair is fair.  If independent reading time is 20 minutes, and there are 20 students in the class, one option that can be shown using concrete or digital manipulatives is for each student to get 1 minute per day in the chair. Most young children have not yet developed understanding of lengths of time, and understanding the duration of a minute is an important concept taught in the early grades.

Discussion and practical testing of this idea might lead students to the realization that a single minute is not enough time for quality reading and relaxing.  Therefore, through discussion and some experimentation with manipulatives representing minutes, the teacher might suggest that only fewer people per day get to sit in the chair, but for a longer time, and ask students to try to come up with a system for keeping track of students and times. 

Including this amount of thinking and discussion about the bean bag chair will likely result in taking several days to create and revise the plan.  The time invested in having students involved with and responsible for making a fair system is easily justified by the lessons and concepts they will learn about mathematics, social studies, literacy, and collaboration. An additional benefit to facilitating a series of lessons like these is the reduction of students wondering “why do we need to know this?” The meaning behind the instruction is already implicit: students will develop the skills and capacity to eliminate fighting over the bean bag chair.

Math and social studies integration for upper elementary (3-6)

As students mature throughout elementary school activities and lessons like the one above might become less relevant; students become more capable of regulating fairness in social situations without adult intervention.  Additionally, items like the bean bag chair or favorite toys might become less significant in upper elementary classrooms.  However, there still exist many opportunities for students to integrate mathematics and social studies concepts to gain a better understanding of fairness in the world.

Gathering and examining evidence, constructing arguments, and critiquing the reasoning of others are skills that both mathematics and social studies standards mention explicitly (NYSED, 2107a, b). Common examples of how to integrate mathematics and social studies include examining percentages, reading and interpreting graphs and charts, and analyzing change over time. One facet that may not be traditionally examined thorough the lens of both mathematics and social studies is a calculation of the amount of voting power that citizens have in an indirect democracy. 

While younger students are quick to point out “that’s not fair!” when tangible resources are inequitably distributed, older students should be encouraged to think critically about the fairness and equity in more abstract terms by systems of which they are a part (Lee et al., 2021). Elementary school students begin learning the structure of the United States government and have some understanding of what government representatives do. They are also beginning to develop understanding of fractions, extremely large and small numbers, and operations with these numbers. These sets of concepts can be integrated to give students real world understanding of the amount of power their votes have by exploring representative democracy.

This activity focuses on U.S. Senate representation. If students are unfamiliar with representative democracy, a teacher might want to demonstrate using a concrete example with students in the class:  If students in a class of 20 are seated 5 to a table, for example, an election for table representative can be held. Students should understand that these representatives will, with the direction of the teacher, help make some of the rules for the classroom and advocate on behalf of their constituents (tablemates). Therefore, they have to think carefully about who they want to represent them. In this example, there are 4 student representatives who will be part of the discussion and vote on rules.  Each of these student representatives, therefore, has of the total voting power in any matter on which they vote. 

The next question is, how much voting power does each person at the table have? By facilitating discussion, the teacher should be able to elicit that each student has  of the voting power, since everyone was able to vote for their own representative.  This can be found two ways; the first one indicated below is the most straightforward, while the second might be less obvious. Nevertheless, students might notice and articulate this strategy if they are given the chance to explore it. This is also the skill students will need to find answers to questions later in this activity.

  • Each student is 1 out of the total 20 in the class, therefore each vote is  of the total.
  • Each table gets  of the vote via their representative.  That  of the vote comprises 5 students, so each student gets  of that .  Students can draw a model of fourths, then divide each of those fourths into 5 sections (Figure 1) to show that every smaller section is then .  Some students might realize that  of  also means , which is also the same as .

Figure 1

The reasoning in the second explanation can be further explored by changing some conditions about the representatives. For example, what if there were still 4 tables, each with 1 representative, but one table had 8 people, and the rest had 4? Would everyone still have the same voting power? The table of 8 would have  of the voting power each.  While the tables of 4 would have  of the voting power each. There are several mathematical questions that can be asked at this point to facilitate exploration with fractions:

  • Who has more voting power? How do you know?
  • Is that fair? Which table would you want to sit at?
  • What does the size of the denominator tell us about the size of the fraction?

This activity can be extended over the course of several days to expand students’ understanding of voting power on a larger scale. They can be asked to find reliable sources of information indicating the population of each state in the U.S. and to calculate the voting power of the citizens of each state in the U.S senate if each state is represented by two senators. These calculations would involve operations with very large numbers, and comparing unit fractions that represent extremely small quantities, both of which are included in upper elementary mathematics standards (NYSED, 2017a). Students might be surprised to learn that in terms of senate votes, U.S. citizens have drastically different voting power. Extension questions might include:

  • Citizens of which state have the most voting power in the senate? The least?
  • How many times as powerful are the votes from the state with the most power per citizen compared with the state with the least?
  • Is this the case in all branches of government? Should it be? How does representation in the other branches work?

Conclusion

Both the activity described for PK-2 students and the one described for upper elementary students integrate mathematics and social studies in an age-appropriate, real-world context. Social studies and mathematics are not always considered easy to integrate smoothly, but many concepts and skills are clearly interdisciplinary between these two subjects. While meeting content standards is important to ensure equity of mathematics and social studies knowledge among students, it is even more important to give students the tools to think critically, advocate for themselves, and engage in civil discourse (Lee, et al. 2021). These skills ought to be taught through relevant applications that demonstrate to students why it is important to have them. For this reason, leveraging students’ deeply developed feelings that some things are unfair (Engelmann & Tomasello, 2019) into motivating lessons about how to quantify fairness and equity is a powerful bit of pedagogy.

References

Boaler, J. (1993). The Role of Contexts in the Mathematics Classroom: Do they Make Mathematics More” Real”? For the learning of mathematics, 13(2), 12-17. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40248079

Bjervås, L. L. (2017). Teaching about fairness in a preschool context. In Values in Early Childhood Education (pp. 55-69). Routledge.

Diesendruck, G., & Perez, R. (2015). Toys are me: Children’s extension of self to objects. Cognition, 134, 11-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.09.010

Engelmann, J. M., & Tomasello, M. (2019). Children’s sense of fairness as equal respect. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(6), 454-463. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.03.001

Lazic, B., Knežević, J., & Maričić, S. (2021). The influence of project-based learning on student achievement in elementary mathematics education. South African Journal of Education, 41(3). http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.hofstra.edu/10.15700/saje.v41n3a1909

Lee, C. D., White, G., & Dong, D. (2021). Educating for Civic Reasoning and Discourse. National Academy of Education. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED611951.pdf

New York State Education Department. (2017a). New York State K-8 social studies framework.https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/standards-instruction/ss-framework-k-8a2.pdf

New York State Education Department. (2017b). New York state p-12 learning standards for mathematics. http://www.nysed.gov/new-york-state-revised-mathematics-learning-standards

Sophian, C. (2022). A developmental perspective on children’s counting. The development of mathematical skills (pp. 26-46). Psychology Press.

Taylor, N. (1989). Let them eat cake: desire, cognition and culture in mathematics learning. Mathematics for All, 161-163.

Book Review: Human Geography: A Concise Introduction

Human Geography: A Concise Introduction, by Mark Boyle.  Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2015, paper, 318 pages.

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This is a very interesting book because it is not from mainstream sources and is not a traditional format text.

This is a textbook meant for college and university courses within the United Kingdom, but the book can be used as a textbook anywhere, good background reading, and interesting data for writing social studies units and lessons in K-12 classrooms.  Meant for a semester-long course, the book includes major points in history to illustrate what human geography is.

As in most of my reviews, I try not to give away all of the content and key ideas in the review.  I talk more in this particular review about the overall approach of the book, some interesting features and themes, my personal reaction, and some possible uses for the book.  I begin here by discussing how the book’s author sets up the discussion.

The author uses a historical approach in discussing human geography and this is mirrored in the way the book is organized—from the beginnings of civilization and the notion of what geography is.  The vocabulary and basic concepts of the subject are presented in the first chapter.  

There are 12 chapters, including a wide range of watershed events, natural disasters, migration, changing economies, and our current understanding of geography.  Each chapter begins with a table of contents and a list of learning objectives.  Each chapter ends with a conclusion of the most important points made, a bank of three essay questions, and references for further reading of what was found in the chapter.  The format of the chapters could be helpful for students seeking lots of clarity in their reading. 

One thing that really stands out in the book is the use of the “zoom-in boxes.”  These are similar to sidebars, but they take up sometimes a full page or more than one page of text, stories and examples related to whatever the information is they interrupt.  The problem is, there are so very many of them that they are aggravating.  Right in the middle of a section on a given topic or subtopic, there is some discussion of how something is an example of X.  When faced with these,

I did not know if I should stop reading the chapter and read the zoom-in box instead, or read for a while and come back to it.

The zoom-in box phenomenon was a very strange aspect of the book for me.  Perhaps this sort of zoom-in box is a tradition in some fields, or in some lands, but it was something I did not ever get used to.  I did not know how to incorporate them into the flow of what I was reading.  Maybe the use of the zoom-in box is aimed at readers with short attention spans?

Another noticeable aspect of the book for me was the persistent theme of the West having imposed its will so strongly worldwide that this has resulted in a strong and pervasive clash of cultures noticeable around the globe (e.g., p. 99).  This sentiment appears throughout the book and is also spelled out at several points.  Readers will see it early on, and they will draw their own conclusions from it.

In responding to this text, I must admit I enjoyed very much the topics and discussion of the different themes and components of what makes geography work.  Aside from the strange tone of the book, and the zoom-in boxes, I got a great deal out of reviewing this topic—one I have always felt is greatly slighted in schools. 

I remember in my own case studying geography in elementary school—we had a book on it one year!  In high school, I took a course on physical geography—in addition to taking French, German and Spanish language courses.  A survey course on cultural geography was one of the very first electives I took in college.  I went on to study several other world languages in college. 

Of course, in studying about other languages and cultures, a knowledge of geography is essential.  Therefore, I do not need to be convinced it is an important topic for study.   

I would recommend the book to give teachers of social studies, world languages, and other subjects a different perspective and a way to connect history and geography.  It is always interesting to me to see how books are laid out in other countries and learn from different points of view.  This is good material for a teacher’s professional library, and the book can also be used to help inform and design units for the classroom. 

Because the book is too long for a short professional development session, it fits more in the category of resource and reference material for teachers of cultural and world-focused subjects. 

Human Geography: A Concise Introduction, by Mark Boyle.  Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2015, paper, 318 pages.

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This is a very interesting book because it is not from mainstream sources and is not a traditional format text.

This is a textbook meant for college and university courses within the United Kingdom, but the book can be used as a textbook anywhere, good background reading, and interesting data for writing social studies units and lessons in K-12 classrooms.  Meant for a semester-long course, the book includes major points in history to illustrate what human geography is.

As in most of my reviews, I try not to give away all of the content and key ideas in the review.  I talk more in this particular review about the overall approach of the book, some interesting features and themes, my personal reaction, and some possible uses for the book.  I begin here by discussing how the book’s author sets up the discussion.

The author uses a historical approach in discussing human geography and this is mirrored in the way the book is organized—from the beginnings of civilization and the notion of what geography is.  The vocabulary and basic concepts of the subject are presented in the first chapter.  

There are 12 chapters, including a wide range of watershed events, natural disasters, migration, changing economies, and our current understanding of geography.  Each chapter begins with a table of contents and a list of learning objectives.  Each chapter ends with a conclusion of the most important points made, a bank of three essay questions, and references for further reading of what was found in the chapter.  The format of the chapters could be helpful for students seeking lots of clarity in their reading. 

One thing that really stands out in the book is the use of the “zoom-in boxes.”  These are similar to sidebars, but they take up sometimes a full page or more than one page of text, stories and examples related to whatever the information is they interrupt.  The problem is, there are so very many of them that they are aggravating.  Right in the middle of a section on a given topic or subtopic, there is some discussion of how something is an example of X.  When faced with these,

I did not know if I should stop reading the chapter and read the zoom-in box instead, or read for a while and come back to it.

The zoom-in box phenomenon was a very strange aspect of the book for me.  Perhaps this sort of zoom-in box is a tradition in some fields, or in some lands, but it was something I did not ever get used to.  I did not know how to incorporate them into the flow of what I was reading.  Maybe the use of the zoom-in box is aimed at readers with short attention spans?

Another noticeable aspect of the book for me was the persistent theme of the West having imposed its will so strongly worldwide that this has resulted in a strong and pervasive clash of cultures noticeable around the globe (e.g., p. 99).  This sentiment appears throughout the book and is also spelled out at several points.  Readers will see it early on, and they will draw their own conclusions from it.

In responding to this text, I must admit I enjoyed very much the topics and discussion of the different themes and components of what makes geography work.  Aside from the strange tone of the book, and the zoom-in boxes, I got a great deal out of reviewing this topic—one I have always felt is greatly slighted in schools. 

I remember in my own case studying geography in elementary school—we had a book on it one year!  In high school, I took a course on physical geography—in addition to taking French, German and Spanish language courses.  A survey course on cultural geography was one of the very first electives I took in college.  I went on to study several other world languages in college. 

Of course, in studying about other languages and cultures, a knowledge of geography is essential.  Therefore, I do not need to be convinced it is an important topic for study.   

I would recommend the book to give teachers of social studies, world languages, and other subjects a different perspective and a way to connect history and geography.  It is always interesting to me to see how books are laid out in other countries and learn from different points of view.  This is good material for a teacher’s professional library, and the book can also be used to help inform and design units for the classroom. 

Because the book is too long for a short professional development session, it fits more in the category of resource and reference material for teachers of cultural and world-focused subjects. 

Human Geography: A Concise Introduction, by Mark Boyle.  Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2015, paper, 318 pages.

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This is a very interesting book because it is not from mainstream sources and is not a traditional format text.

This is a textbook meant for college and university courses within the United Kingdom, but the book can be used as a textbook anywhere, good background reading, and interesting data for writing social studies units and lessons in K-12 classrooms.  Meant for a semester-long course, the book includes major points in history to illustrate what human geography is.

As in most of my reviews, I try not to give away all of the content and key ideas in the review.  I talk more in this particular review about the overall approach of the book, some interesting features and themes, my personal reaction, and some possible uses for the book.  I begin here by discussing how the book’s author sets up the discussion.

The author uses a historical approach in discussing human geography and this is mirrored in the way the book is organized—from the beginnings of civilization and the notion of what geography is.  The vocabulary and basic concepts of the subject are presented in the first chapter.  

There are 12 chapters, including a wide range of watershed events, natural disasters, migration, changing economies, and our current understanding of geography.  Each chapter begins with a table of contents and a list of learning objectives.  Each chapter ends with a conclusion of the most important points made, a bank of three essay questions, and references for further reading of what was found in the chapter.  The format of the chapters could be helpful for students seeking lots of clarity in their reading. 

One thing that really stands out in the book is the use of the “zoom-in boxes.”  These are similar to sidebars, but they take up sometimes a full page or more than one page of text, stories and examples related to whatever the information is they interrupt.  The problem is, there are so very many of them that they are aggravating.  Right in the middle of a section on a given topic or subtopic, there is some discussion of how something is an example of X.  When faced with these,

I did not know if I should stop reading the chapter and read the zoom-in box instead, or read for a while and come back to it.

The zoom-in box phenomenon was a very strange aspect of the book for me.  Perhaps this sort of zoom-in box is a tradition in some fields, or in some lands, but it was something I did not ever get used to.  I did not know how to incorporate them into the flow of what I was reading.  Maybe the use of the zoom-in box is aimed at readers with short attention spans?

Another noticeable aspect of the book for me was the persistent theme of the West having imposed its will so strongly worldwide that this has resulted in a strong and pervasive clash of cultures noticeable around the globe (e.g., p. 99).  This sentiment appears throughout the book and is also spelled out at several points.  Readers will see it early on, and they will draw their own conclusions from it.

In responding to this text, I must admit I enjoyed very much the topics and discussion of the different themes and components of what makes geography work.  Aside from the strange tone of the book, and the zoom-in boxes, I got a great deal out of reviewing this topic—one I have always felt is greatly slighted in schools. 

I remember in my own case studying geography in elementary school—we had a book on it one year!  In high school, I took a course on physical geography—in addition to taking French, German and Spanish language courses.  A survey course on cultural geography was one of the very first electives I took in college.  I went on to study several other world languages in college. 

Of course, in studying about other languages and cultures, a knowledge of geography is essential.  Therefore, I do not need to be convinced it is an important topic for study.   

I would recommend the book to give teachers of social studies, world languages, and other subjects a different perspective and a way to connect history and geography.  It is always interesting to me to see how books are laid out in other countries and learn from different points of view.  This is good material for a teacher’s professional library, and the book can also be used to help inform and design units for the classroom. 

Because the book is too long for a short professional development session, it fits more in the category of resource and reference material for teachers of cultural and world-focused subjects. 

Human Geography: A Concise Introduction, by Mark Boyle.  Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2015, paper, 318 pages.

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This is a very interesting book because it is not from mainstream sources and is not a traditional format text.

This is a textbook meant for college and university courses within the United Kingdom, but the book can be used as a textbook anywhere, good background reading, and interesting data for writing social studies units and lessons in K-12 classrooms.  Meant for a semester-long course, the book includes major points in history to illustrate what human geography is.

As in most of my reviews, I try not to give away all of the content and key ideas in the review.  I talk more in this particular review about the overall approach of the book, some interesting features and themes, my personal reaction, and some possible uses for the book.  I begin here by discussing how the book’s author sets up the discussion.

The author uses a historical approach in discussing human geography and this is mirrored in the way the book is organized—from the beginnings of civilization and the notion of what geography is.  The vocabulary and basic concepts of the subject are presented in the first chapter.  

There are 12 chapters, including a wide range of watershed events, natural disasters, migration, changing economies, and our current understanding of geography.  Each chapter begins with a table of contents and a list of learning objectives.  Each chapter ends with a conclusion of the most important points made, a bank of three essay questions, and references for further reading of what was found in the chapter.  The format of the chapters could be helpful for students seeking lots of clarity in their reading. 

One thing that really stands out in the book is the use of the “zoom-in boxes.”  These are similar to sidebars, but they take up sometimes a full page or more than one page of text, stories and examples related to whatever the information is they interrupt.  The problem is, there are so very many of them that they are aggravating.  Right in the middle of a section on a given topic or subtopic, there is some discussion of how something is an example of X.  When faced with these,

I did not know if I should stop reading the chapter and read the zoom-in box instead, or read for a while and come back to it.

The zoom-in box phenomenon was a very strange aspect of the book for me.  Perhaps this sort of zoom-in box is a tradition in some fields, or in some lands, but it was something I did not ever get used to.  I did not know how to incorporate them into the flow of what I was reading.  Maybe the use of the zoom-in box is aimed at readers with short attention spans?

Another noticeable aspect of the book for me was the persistent theme of the West having imposed its will so strongly worldwide that this has resulted in a strong and pervasive clash of cultures noticeable around the globe (e.g., p. 99).  This sentiment appears throughout the book and is also spelled out at several points.  Readers will see it early on, and they will draw their own conclusions from it.

In responding to this text, I must admit I enjoyed very much the topics and discussion of the different themes and components of what makes geography work.  Aside from the strange tone of the book, and the zoom-in boxes, I got a great deal out of reviewing this topic—one I have always felt is greatly slighted in schools. 

I remember in my own case studying geography in elementary school—we had a book on it one year!  In high school, I took a course on physical geography—in addition to taking French, German and Spanish language courses.  A survey course on cultural geography was one of the very first electives I took in college.  I went on to study several other world languages in college. 

Of course, in studying about other languages and cultures, a knowledge of geography is essential.  Therefore, I do not need to be convinced it is an important topic for study.   

I would recommend the book to give teachers of social studies, world languages, and other subjects a different perspective and a way to connect history and geography.  It is always interesting to me to see how books are laid out in other countries and learn from different points of view.  This is good material for a teacher’s professional library, and the book can also be used to help inform and design units for the classroom. 

Because the book is too long for a short professional development session, it fits more in the category of resource and reference material for teachers of cultural and world-focused subjects. 

What You Need to Know about Plagiarism

What You Need to Know about Plagiarism

By Steven Richman, the New Jersey State Bar Foundation

This article was reprinted with permission from https://njsbf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/plagiarism_2016.pdf

            What is plagiarism? Generally speaking, plagiarism is the taking of someone else’s ideas or means of expression and passing them off as your own work. In some cases, educational institutions define plagiarism in faculty or student handbooks.

Is plagiarism a crime? There is a fair amount of misunderstanding about this. For an act to be criminal and punishable by law, legislation would need to be passed by either a state legislature or the U.S. Congress. Some sources refer to plagiarism as an “academic crime,” but that should not be confused with state or federal law. If a state were to pass a criminal law that described behavior understood to be plagiarism, that behavior would be a crime under that particular state’s statute. As a matter of federal law, while there is no national crime of plagiarism, there is criminal liability for certain copyright infringement.

Is plagiarism fraud? Plagiarism could be considered a form of “fraud” because you are misrepresenting as your own someone else’s ideas or work product, with the intention that others rely on it. Whether or not it is actionable and can subject you to liability would depend upon the rules and regulations of your academic institution or the laws of the state in which the act occurs. It may also be deemed “misappropriation,” which may also be actionable.

Is plagiarism cheating? The online version of Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists one definition of “cheat” as “to practice fraud or trickery.” Since you are acting dishonestly or fraudulently when you plagiarize, it could be considered cheating. Whether it subjects you to punishment in an academic context would depend on your school’s rules and regulations. Some academic institutions may deem it a “breach of contract” based on an expressed or implied contract between student and school.

Is it considered plagiarism if someone takes parts of an old research paper turned in last year and uses it for a current assignment? Some teachers will look upon plagiarism in its broad sense as representing that you have done work that you really have not done, and may view you as plagiarizing yourself to the extent you try to pass off a paper in one class as new and original, when you previously submitted it in another class. Some may not view this technically as plagiarism since you are not taking someone else’s work product. However, if you do not reference that it is a prior paper, then some may consider it a different form of cheating. Even if you are expanding on a prior paper, it is better to cite your own prior work rather than simply recycle it as a “new” paper. If you are using certain information from your prior paper in an entirely new way it may not need to be referenced, but it is probably better to err on the side of caution and cite it.

How can someone avoid plagiarism when doing research? How can information be rewritten without using some of the original writer’s words? Many academic institutions offer advice on their websites on how to avoid plagiarism. Your teachers may have their own ideas as well. In general terms, you should: (1) take careful notes and citations; (2) put quotation marks around any direct quotations; (3) identify specific citation information when you paraphrase; (4) indicate in your notes where you have injected original thoughts or comments. Because plagiarism can occur even when it is not intentional, you need to be thorough not only in your note taking but in how you reference your sources. Direct quotations, paraphrases, reference to another’s ideas or theories, and use of another’s charts or graphs, for example, must be acknowledged. Common facts do not have to be cited, such as the fact that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. There is probably no one definitive statement as to what is common knowledge; if in doubt, consult your teacher. Even when you use attribution, if you overdo it, and have very little of your own work, it may be considered inappropriate, if not actually plagiarism.

What is the distinction between summarizing and paraphrasing? When you summarize, you are condensing the main points or ideas from someone else. When you paraphrase, you are restating the way someone else expressed something in your own words.

If information is summarized or paraphrased, must the source still be cited? Yes, unless you are summarizing or paraphrasing common facts.

Is an author’s permission needed to use long passages from his or her book or article in a report? The Copyright Act permits you to use appropriately cited material from someone else’s work as “fair use,” if the use is for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching…scholarship, or research…” However, whether you need permission from an author is not simply a function of the length of a particular passage; it would depend upon the “purpose and character of the use,” the “nature” of the other work, the amount and substantiality of the passages used in relation to the other work as a whole, and the effect of the use on the market or value of the other work. Different journals and academic institutions themselves may have rules of thumb as to how substantial the passage must be in order to require permission. When in doubt, consult your teacher.

What source material needs to be cited in a report to avoid a charge of plagiarism? Different teachers will have different requirements. There are certain reference works, such as The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, (CMS), or A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, (Turabian). These books will tell you what information you’ll need for your bibliography and your footnotes or endnotes, and how citations are used internally and in bibliographies, and in different subject areas. For example, you will generally need to cite in a bibliography the author, title of the work, publisher, city of publication and year of publication.

If parents help to write a paper, is that cheating? Your paper must be your own work product. Most would probably agree that if you write a 20-page paper and ask your father or mother to read it and they say, “It was interesting, but I suggest you rewrite these paragraphs since they are not clear, and you have some spelling errors,” this would not be cheating. However, to the extent your parents actually write part of the paper for you, or give more than the kind of suggestion a teacher might, you are probably crossing the line. Because of the vagueness of the term “help,” there is no hard and fast rule, other than the work must be your own.

What does it mean when someone says to “use your own voice?” You should try to interpret things in your own words and bring your own independent thinking to the subject.

Does writing about personal experiences or thoughts ever require citations? Generally not, unless you are referring to an earlier published or submitted work of your own.

Can you plagiarize facts? Generally, you cannot plagiarize commonly known facts or items of common knowledge, but if the fact itself is someone else’s work product, then failure to cite it appropriately could be considered plagiarism. The University of Pennsylvania calls common knowledge “information that the average, educated reader would accept as reliable without having to look it up.”

What if something is considered common knowledge and is found in several sources? Must each source be cited to avoid a plagiarism charge? You should have a bibliography that refers to all the books you consulted. One school of thought is that if identical information is found in five different sources, then it is common knowledge and does not need to be cited. If the common fact or knowledge, however, is expressed in a particularly different way and you express it that way, you should cite the source of that expression. Again, if in doubt, consult your teacher.

What is the public domain? The public domain refers to works that are no longer copyrighted as a matter of law and that are open to use by anyone. For example, all works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain as a result of expiration of copyright.

Is citing material in the public domain necessary? Yes. While you are not subject to copyright infringement issues, if you do not appropriately cite the source, you would be plagiarizing. Consider, in an extreme example, if you are given a creative writing assignment and you turn in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, passing it off as your own. You would not be liable for copyright infringement in that instance, but you would be plagiarizing, because you have passed off someone else’s book as your own.

How do you know if you have “substantially rewritten” information you obtained through research? This is very fact sensitive. There has to be some level of common sense and good judgment. One way to approach this is to ask yourself whether the average, objective reader would think that you have simply copied the passage. If, for some reason, the issue reached the courts, various technical tests would be used to determine if there was any type of infringement. If you have any doubts, you should probably try to rework your writing and/or consult your teacher.

Is copying material from the Internet considered plagiarism? Copying material from the Internet and passing it off as your own and not appropriately explaining it is plagiarism. The same rules apply in determining whether you have engaged in copyright infringement. The words appearing on a website are someone else’s product and should be treated the same as a hard copy source. There is no difference between copying from the Internet and copying out of a book. The only thing that matters is whether or not you are passing off someone else’s work as your own, and the same tests will apply. The fact that it is easier because you can cut-and-paste does not change the principle.

What is the appropriate use of Internet material? The same rules apply as for hard copy sources. It’s another published source. Consult the style manuals noted above for the particular format of such a citation.

Is it illegal to purchase an entire term paper from the Internet? If you purchase a term paper and pass it off as your own product, then it is plagiarism. If you wish, however, to purchase the legitimate work product of another for your own reference, you may do so, assuming that work itself is not infringing and the website or company selling the paper is legitimate. For example, you may be able to purchase a student’s unpublished thesis that is in the library of a university and use it as another source. Note: In some states it is illegal to sell terms papers to students.

Can a teacher tell if a term paper came from the Internet? If so, how? In many cases, teachers can tell. First, there are software programs that teachers may use to analyze your paper. Another way the teacher can tell is if the writing or quality of work is uncharacteristic of the particular student; for example, if the vocabulary reflects words that the teacher has never heard the student use or the writing style is inconsistent with prior work. In other instances, the teacher may be familiar with the idea or theory being passed off as the student’s own.

Can someone be suspended or expelled for purchasing a term paper off the Internet and passing it off as their own? If your school’s disciplinary code indicates that one of the penalties for plagiarism could be suspension, then it doesn’t matter from what source you got the paper. What matters is whether you have plagiarized and violated the school’s rules. Plagiarizing someone else’s work and passing it off as your own can be a serious offense, depending upon your school’s rules. Other penalties may apply depending upon the teacher’s rules or policies, particularly in a high school setting.

Is copying information out of the encyclopedia considered plagiarism? Encyclopedias are treated no differently than any other source. While a fact is a fact and you are entitled to use that fact, you cannot simply copy word for word an entry in an encyclopedia and pass it off as your own.

Is copying information from a sourcebook considered plagiarism? There are two different issues here. If someone has prepared a table or chart of data, you should cite the source of that chart or data. On the other hand, if you are citing a particular fact that is a common fact, it would probably not be plagiarism. For example, if the sourcebook contains the annual rainfall over 10 years in the Brazilian rainforest, you should not just copy that chart and pass it off as your own. If you wanted to refer to the rainfall in one year, that, too, may not be a commonly known fact, and you probably should cite the source—not only for protection against plagiarism, but to identify the source for other interested persons. If the sourcebook places information in a particular or creative form, that, too, should be acknowledged. On the other hand, if the sourcebook lists the presidents of the United States and their terms of office, that information in and of itself is commonly known and should be able to be utilized without concern. Again, when in doubt consult your teacher or your school’s website and plagiarism policies.

How can it be proven that someone did not plagiarize? The proof is going to be a comparison of the source or sources to what you wrote. You would seek to prove that either you documented the source and that you’ve given credit, or that you did not need to because you were referring to common facts, or that you have appropriately utilized your own language and thoughts. In essence, you would need to prove that you did not do any of the things that have been discussed in this brochure.

What are the consequences of plagiarism? It depends on an individual school’s policies. Apart from personal embarrassment and damage to reputation, you may be subject to discipline that could include suspension, expulsion or delay in obtaining your degree; or receive a failing or reduced grade on the paper or in the course.

What does “ignorance of the law is not a defense” mean? What this means is that even if you have inadvertently plagiarized, you may still have a problem. Schools have made clear in their rules and regulations, and on their websites, what is and is not permitted, so it is probably not going to help you to say you did not know, particularly if you have had the opportunity to find out. While it is an oversimplification to say in all instances that ignorance of the law is not a defense, it generally means that you cannot rely on ignorance when you have a responsibility to find out what your obligations are. In some instances where intent is required, ignorance may be a mitigating element.

What if you accidentally plagiarized a passage because you couldn’t remember if you copied it from somewhere or rewrote it in your own words? Are you still liable for plagiarism? Yes, you can be liable for accidental or inadvertent plagiarism. While it might be a mitigating factor, in other words the school may take into account the fact that your plagiarism was accidental, depending upon the school’s rules, you might still be subject to disciplinary procedures.

Who is hurt by plagiarism? You are hurt by plagiarism because you are not learning proper research habits or disciplining yourself in proper research and writing techniques, and you are not fully thinking through your arguments. The integrity of the academic institution is hurt if this kind of behavior is tolerated. Other students are hurt because they are competing against someone who is taking unfair advantage and otherwise cheating.

If someone is accused of plagiarism, must the accuser prove that he or she plagiarized, or must the accused prove that he or she didn’t plagiarize? In an academic context, the institution needs to show that you plagiarized. If someone accuses you of copyright infringement, they have the burden of proof. However, once they prove ownership and substantial copying, you have the burden of proving your defense, such as fair use.

Is it better to try to turn a paper in on time even if you have to plagiarize, rather than get an “F” on an assignment? No, since there is no guarantee you’ll get a failing grade if you discuss the situation with your teacher prior to submitting the assignment. Moreover, if you are caught plagiarizing, you can still receive an “F” anyway. If it is a true emergency, most teachers will probably work with you. If you have simply waited until the last minute, however, then you have brought the problem on yourself. You cannot justify plagiarism to cure your own lack of planning.

If caught, should the plagiarist be publicly identified, or should the matter be handled privately? An honor code may provide for a type of private intervention by one student to another as a means of ensuring compliance, and the school’s disciplinary proceedings may have confidentiality requirements. Sometimes dealing with a situation privately does more good than publicly embarrassing someone. On the other hand, the particular institution may have different policies on how public or private a particular incident becomes. Certainly, in a civil lawsuit for copyright infringement, the allegations are generally public.

What is an honor code? An honor code is a set of commitments you make to honor certain principles, whether you’re at a company or in an academic environment. In some circumstances it might take on contractual status, which if breached can trigger consequences in accordance with a school’s rules and regulations.

Is plagiarism a violation of the honor code? Most honor codes would make plagiarism a violation, but each school’s code would have to be consulted for the particulars. The penalty for plagiarism under an honor code would be for an individual school to decide. An honor code may provide for sequential and increased penalties for subsequent offenses. Offenses can include getting a zero or the equivalent of receiving a failing grade on the particular assignment, withdrawal of school privileges, and suspension or delay in receiving a degree, and may depend on whether the institution is a public or private school.

Steven M. Richman, a commercial lawyer whose practice includes aspects of copyright and international law, provided the legal information contained in this brochure. The New Jersey State Bar Foundation thanks Mr. Richman for his time and diligence in the production of What You Need to Know About Plagiarism. For more information or copies of program materials, visit the New Jersey State Bar Foundation online at http://www.njsbf.org or call 1-800 FREE LAW. Please follow the Bar Foundation on Social Media and invite your friends to like and follow us as well. @NJStateBarFdn can be found on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The Foundation also has a YouTube channel.

Enhancing Student Learning with AI-Powered Image Features

Enhancing Student Learning with AI-Powered Image Features

Andy Szeto

Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla, a Bullring in Seville, Spain. Photo Credit: Andy Szeto

Artificial[HB1]  intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we approach education, providing tools that enhance student engagement and make abstract concepts more accessible. One such innovation is AI-powered image recognition, which has the potential to revolutionize real-world learning experiences, from understanding historical documents to visualizing complex ideas.

Instant insights: enhancing real-world learning

My recent experience in Seville, Spain, underscores how AI can make learning more dynamic and personal.  While traveling with my family in Seville, Spain in August 2024, my soon-to-be teenage daughter turned to me as we stood inside a bullfighting ring and asked, “Hey dad, what do the two red circles mean?” I acknowledged my lack of knowledge on the matter but soon recognized that AI could provide valuable assistance. 

Using my paid version of ChatGPT, I uploaded a picture of the bullring, and within moments, the answer appeared. The red circles in the Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza are reference points used during bullfighting events, helping the matador and participants position themselves during key stages of the fight. ChatGPT’s photo upload feature, available in its paid version, allowed artificial intelligence to analyze the image quickly and provide a detailed answer to my question, which amazed us both. My daughter was excited to learn this fact, while I marveled at the power of AI in delivering such precise information. This moment highlighted how AI could revolutionize education, by promoting independent learning and engaging students with real-world questions, both inside and outside the classroom.

AI in historical research

This small but powerful moment made me reflect on the broader implications of AI in education. Beyond answering real-world questions, AI can also assist students in engaging with historical materials in new ways, such as transcribing handwritten documents or visualizing historical events.  Students can utilize AI image recognition features to enhance their understanding of historical archival materials by uploading images of primary sources, such as draft cards, census records, or letters, into an AI system. These AI tools can process and analyze a wide range of documents, extracting key details such as names, dates, locations, and occupations that are often embedded in handwritten or faded text. This process allows students to work more independently with primary sources, reducing the manual effort needed to transcribe difficult-to-read documents, particularly those written in older or cursive styles.

While the technology is not flawless—certain handwriting styles, ink smudges, or document wear can cause errors—it offers substantial support, especially for novice researchers who might otherwise find these documents inaccessible. For example, students could create a prompt like, ‘Find attached an image, and extract every piece of information from the draft card,’ to encourage the AI to analyze the content in detail. This could include not just the soldier’s name and registration date, but also contextual clues like regional differences in draft registration forms or patterns in the types of exemptions requested.

Furthermore, by leveraging AI’s ability to scan and highlight particular elements, such as identifying a certain region mentioned or flagging unfamiliar terms, students can dive deeper into their analysis. In a classroom setting, teachers can encourage students to compare their own interpretations of a primary source with the AI-generated output, sparking discussions on the reliability and limits of technology in historical research. Through this process, students gain a more hands-on approach to examining archival documents, enhancing their critical thinking skills and historical inquiry capabilities (UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures, 2017)

Similarly, AI can help students transcribe historical handwriting, assisting them in reading handwriting from primary sources. For instance, a student may struggle to read government records, such as those about the Governor’s Mansion in North Carolina, detailing the cost of a house in Raleigh for the governor. In this case, AI can assist with the transcription (North Carolina Digital Collections, 2024). Additionally, AI can help students with cursive handwriting, making it easier for them to understand cursive text, which is often seen in older documents. Again, this technology, like extraction, is not perfect but is useful in supporting students as they delve into historical records. This allows for a deeper exploration of historical documents by aiding in the extraction of text and details that might otherwise be difficult to read manually.

WWI Draft Registration Certificate for Ernst Fritz Schuchard, issued June 5, 1917, in Bexar County, Texas

Governor’s Mansion: Payment to Penitentiary for Construction of Governor’s Mansion and Payment for Yard Work  An AI-generated Image depicting Election Day, November 1884, inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem.  

Visualizing historical events and concepts

Beyond text recognition, AI’s image generation capabilities further enrich student learning by bringing historical concepts to life. By transforming abstract texts, like Whitman’s poetry, into visual scenes, students can engage more emotionally and intellectually with the material.  Using AI’s image generation feature to create an illustration inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem Election Day, November 1884 offers a powerful and engaging experience. The poem reflects the importance of civic duty and voting rights during a significant moment in 19th-century America, when the concept of suffrage was expanding, but not yet fully inclusive. Through imagery rooted in historical contexts—voters gathered at polling places, and the somber, reflective mood of Whitman’s work—the visuals deepen students’ understanding of the era’s political and social dynamics.

This process highlights how visual learning can enhance comprehension of abstract or complex ideas, such as the evolution of voting rights and the struggles for representation. By turning Whitman’s words into visual scenes, students can grasp the weight of these moments in American history more profoundly. The combination of poetry and historical imagery helps students emotionally engage with the topic, making the importance of suffrage and the responsibilities of citizenship more tangible.

Beyond aiding comprehension, AI-generated image tools offer creative opportunities for students to engage with historical texts and events. For example, students can generate visuals that reflect their interpretations of political movements or historical milestones, giving a personal touch to their learning. By visualizing historical settings, they can immerse themselves in the world of 19th-century America, imagining what it might have felt like to be at the center of political change. This not only brings history to life but also encourages students to think critically about the significance of voting rights in a democratic society.

Data interpretation and visualization

Using the image analysis feature to teach data interpretation and visualization is an effective way to engage students in real-world data analysis across multiple disciplines, including economics. For instance, beginning with a handwritten data table, such as voter turnouts for a local election by demographic groups from 2011 to 2015, teachers can guide students in reading, interpreting, and analyzing the data from the image. This activity can extend into mathematics by encouraging students to calculate growth rates, percentages, and year-over-year comparisons. For example, students might calculate the percentage increase in voter turnout for Asian Americans in the five-year period or determine the rate of decline for another demographic group, applying key concepts from algebra and statistics.

Once the data is understood, it can be converted into a graph using tools like Python, Excel, or other data analysis software. In this case, a line graph might be created to visualize trends in voter turnouts. 

As another example, students can use data analysis tools to explore economic principles, such as by examining a company’s online sales data. They can utilize the image feature to create graphs that illustrate trends, such as a clear rise in online sales alongside a decline in phone sales over the years. This step could serve as a foundation for discussions around key economic concepts like supply and demand, market shifts, and consumer behavior. Students can also analyze the economic factors that may have driven the increase in online sales, such as the availability of faster internet services or changing consumer preferences for convenience.

Conclusion: The transformative power of ai image generators in education

From answering spontaneous questions in a bullring to transcribing historical documents, AI tools help make learning more relevant and personalized. These innovations empower students to interact with their studies in a hands-on way, fostering critical thinking and independent exploration.

AI-powered tools, such as image generators and recognition features, are transforming education by making abstract concepts more tangible and promoting real-world problem-solving. From my personal experience using AI to answer a question in a bullfighting ring in Seville, to students transcribing historical documents or interpreting data, AI fosters engagement and critical thinking across disciplines. It enhances inclusivity by providing personalized support, particularly for multilingual learners. As educators integrate AI into their practices, they can create more dynamic, interactive, and meaningful learning experiences that equip students with the skills needed to thrive in a complex world.

References

North Carolina Digital Collections. Governor’s Mansion: Payment to Penitentiary for Construction of Governor’s Mansion and Payment for Yard Work, Raleigh, North Carolina. Accessed October 6, 2024. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/governors-mansion-payment-to-penitentiary-for-construction-of-governors-mansion-and-payment-for-yard-work/5836538.

UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures. (2017). Object: Draft card. Retrieved from https://texancultures.utsa.edu/collections-blog/object-draft-card/

Challenges of Teaching African American History in Secondary Schools

Challenges of Teaching African American History in Secondary Schools

There are Four Perspectives in this article

Teaching the APâ African American Studies Course By Imani Hinson

Students Hunger for Cultural Knowledge By Romelo Green

Emphasizing Cultural Relevancy & Providing Different Cultural Perspective By Nefe Abamwa

Focus on Mass Struggle, Not Just the Black Elite By Adam Stevens

Imani Hinson, Romelo Green, Nefe Abamwa, and Adam Stevens

Imani Hinson, Romelo Green, Nefe Abamwa, and Adam Stevens presented on a panel at the 2025 conference of the American Historical Association. Hinson is a social studies teacher in the Howard County Maryland School District who formerly taught in Brooklyn and an item writer for the College Board AP African American Studies program. Green and Abamwa teach at Bellport High School in Suffolk County, New York and Stevens teaches at Brooklyn Technical High School. The session was chaired by April Francis-Taylor of Hofstra University and also included papers by Alan Singer of Hofstra University and Justin Williams of Uniondale High School.

Teaching the APâ African American Studies Course

By Imani Hinson

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – Maya Angelou

Each year I start my students off with a week of lessons to understand why we study history in the first place and to get students specifically to understand why varied viewpoints are so important. This year I had my students reflect on a quote from Maya Angelou and asked them why they thought some political leaders across the United States did not think African American history was important and why they thought this history was considered controversial.

My students responded with the understanding that by learning history we can hope to not repeat it but also that learning this history does not aim to make individuals feel bad for the deeds done but rather understand the historical situations in which our country was founded and the continued history that is shaping the way our country is moving forward today. Despite the pain and suffering lived by many in this country, especially African Americans, it is important to uncover truths about our shared history. The APâ African American Studies curriculum provides students with a chance to do just that; tackle tough questions, tough realities, glean an understanding of the world that they live in today, and it gives them a chance to acknowledge a history that many of them have not learned before.

The APâ curriculum has a fantastic starting place with the African Kingdoms of Mali, Songhai, the Hausa States, and more. Students are able to do a deep dive into the history of Africa that many of them had never been taught about before. A question I get often from my students is “Ms. Hinson why are we not taught this in World History or any other history class?” The truth is that a lot of this history was unknown or kept secret for many years. In my classroom, we delve into the nuances of this history so that students understand how it differs from the traditional documents and writings they usually learn about in Eurocentric history classes. I introduce them to griots and students learn that different cultures pass down history in different ways. Much of the early history we know from African civilizations was passed down orally making it much harder for historians to uncover truths about these societies.  My students learned that Christianity was in Africa before European arrival when they study about places such as Lalibela. They learn about trade starting in the 8th century along the East Coast of Africa that connect places with the Mediterranean region and Central and East Asia. Students uncover truths about the Great Zimbabwe and amazing structures, built not by Greeks or aliens, but by the local Zimbabwean people who garnered their wealth from the Indian Ocean trade routes. Timbuktu is not a fictional place, but a nation where trade, advanced institutions of knowledge, and wealth resided.

Before being exposed to this curriculum, my students were taught that Africa was backward, a continent ripe for exploitation. They saw Africa, not as the birthplace of humanity with rich cultures, but rather a place that Europeans conquered and a continent that continues to have issues to this day.

Challenging misleading notions continues as students learn about the African diaspora. Before being exposed to this curriculum, they believed African Americans had no culture and were only brought to the Americas for harsh work and enslavement because of the color of their skin. I overheard an exchange in my classroom in which one student of color was poking fun at another. A West African student asked another Black student, “Hey, where are you from?” The student responded, “Oh well, I am just Black.” The West African student laughed and said “Oh, I’m so sorry y’all don’t have any culture.” That was an eye-opening exchange. I joined the conversation and asked, “What do you mean by that?” The student explained that they never heard of any African American culture and that Black people did not know where they came from. The conversation continued:

“Well why do you think that African Americans don’t know where they come from?”

“Well, I am not sure I guess slavery.”

“Correct, but do you know about all that Black people had to do to overcome of the obstacles of enslavement? Do you know the years of oppression that then followed enslavement that African Americans continued to make strides towards crafting a new identity?”

“The music you listen to is African American culture, some of the pieces of clothing or slang that you use are African American culture. The food that you eat, a lot of is African American culture.”

“Wow I never thought about that.”

“You should take the APâ African American studies course so you can learn more about Black culture!”

The sad reality is that so many of our students think this way. They believe that Black people are a people without history and this misleading notion really stems from the fact that we have not done a good job as a society to unpack these misconceptions. In some states they still teach that slavery was a benevolent work system where the enslaved learned important skills, sugarcoating the reality of what enslavement was. Why don’t students learn that there was slavery in New York and in other northern localities? Why don’t students learn that Free Blacks and people who escaped from slavery played a crucial role in the abolitionist movement and that African Americans have fought in every war in the United States even before its inception, that 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors fought in the Civil War to end slavery and the right to be full citizens of the nation of their birth?

The hardest part about teaching APâ African American studies course is getting students to relearn the history that was taught to them over and over again since they entered school. Black people were slaves, the Civil War happened, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Reconstruction took place, African Americans got some rights, then skip to the Civil Rights Movement, and that’s Black history. But there is so much more to African American history. Students truly do not understand that African Americans as a people continuously strove to be accepted as valuable contributors to this great nation. Even when they were told to “go back to Africa,” they stayed and fought for equality. It is hard to teach history in a society that try to erase the African American past by making it seem Un-American to shed light on the contributions of Black people to this county.

As a society we have prevented students of color from learning the truth about their heritage and culture and permitted all students to believe in a factionalized past. As a corrective, APâ African American studies is not just a class for students of color. Ideally, African and African American history should be interwoven into World History and United States history classes, not just relegated to an elective.  Black history truly is both World and U.S. history.

It is challenging for many young people to see the correlation between history and the world that we live in today. I started a lesson on sugar being the driver for enslavement in the Americas showing students newspaper headlines discussing chocolate companies using child slave labor and asked students would they still eat chocolate knowing where it came from. Many of the students had to think long and hard about it, but eventually most of them confessed that “yes, they would still eat it.” After a gallery walk showing various documents about the correlation between sugar and enslavement and economics, we came back together to have a discussion. I asked my students how the legacies of sugar plantations and slavery continue to impact economic disparities and race relations today? A student raised her hand and said, “what we see is that enslaved people were working for free and that their enslavers were making loads of money because of their hard work.” I asked, “What does that mean for the Black community today?” Another student responded, “Well this means that many Black communities don’t have the same amount of money as white people because they got rich while we didn’t get anything.”

Another student added, “Well that is the reason why so many Black people have struggled to make generational wealth. It is almost as if we started at a different place” and then another explained “they basically had a 300-year start.” This is the reality that people who criticize the APâ African American studies curriculum are afraid of students uncovering; uncovering how this history continues to play out in America today.

Some people fear the acquisition of knowledge because they know that with knowledge can come change. The APâ African American studies course should not be labeled controversial or Un-American; in fact, it is the exact opposite. African Americans fought to be a part of this country and continue to fight for the country to stand true to its democratic values of all people having the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The course does not blame students for the past but rather brings them into the conversation about how we can continue to hold America to its promise by including the history of all of the people who helped to build this great nation. Thank you.

Students Hunger for Cultural Knowledge

By Romelo Green

My name is Romelo Green. I am a social studies teacher in the South Country Central School District located on Long Island, Bellport, New York. I teach 11th-grade U.S. History & Government and 12th-grade AP U.S. Government & Politics. In both courses, African American history is a component of the course framework. Being a social studies teacher in the contemporary societal and political landscape presents various challenges. As historians and educators, we are entrusted with the responsibility of addressing topics that can often be sensitive and complex. It is imperative that we present these subjects in a balanced manner, offering to our students various perspectives. Many of these topics are deeply rooted in political discourse, requiring us to navigate these discussions with care.  Moreover, we face the ongoing challenge of countering the misinformation that our students see daily through various social media platforms. We also must remain informed about rapidly evolving current events. We must be equipped to respond to our students’ questions with a neutral stance. Additionally, it is essential for us to remain compliant with state standards, ensuring that we cover all mandated material effectively, and thereby preparing our students for state assessments.

As an African American growing up, I did not hear many lessons pertaining to the deep roots of my own culture. This would include my high school and college experience. Many of the more nuanced topics in (African) American history were only brought to the surface for me once I became a teacher and began to conduct my own research, or through collegiate circles within my own department. This would include the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Haitian Revolution, the true history of policing in America, and the fact that Africans sold other Africans into slavery. I almost never heard of the achievements of African Americans except for the popular few who are always brought to light at certain points in American History (MLK, W.E.B Dubois, Malcolm X, etc…) The drastic omission from our curriculum and our textbooks leaves us with a very limited view of the African American experience.

When we learn about our culture in a public setting, it is usually generalized and only discusses the traumatic experience of African Americans rather than highlighting the achievements of individuals representing our culture. In my school some of the teachers (who are here with us in the audience today) conducted a study using focus groups to try and create a more culturally responsive classroom. Through their research they found that students representing various cultural groups have high interest in learning more about their own culture, however, the students stated that when it is taught in the classroom it is either generalized or just taught wrong. In other words, they know more about their own culture than their teachers.

What I see is that we have two factors at play.

  • Our students hunger for cultural knowledge.
  • Many teachers are unable to conduct such discourse freely and/or accurately.

For example, the legacy of slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights Movement are pivotal components that require a sensitive and comprehensive examination. Inaccurate or incomplete teachings risk perpetuating misunderstandings and stereotypes. What we then need to do is find a balance where teachers are enabled to speak freely in the classroom providing students with facts and hard truths about historical cultural experiences. The students need to be inspired to think critically and be leaders of inquiry-based research. As such, the role of the teacher extends beyond mere instruction to include being a facilitator of dialogue, ensuring a supportive educational environment that encourages critical thinking and open discussion, while carefully steering conversations to be constructive rather than polarizing.

A teacher’s freedom of speech in the classroom is one that is of great complexity, although we all have freedom of speech under the first amendment, our right to freedom of speech in educational settings is not absolute. The question then becomes what must we do as educators? With greater political pressure from the media, parents and the community, how do we still educate and fulfill the students’ drive for knowledge, while maintaining accordance with school or state policy? I think this is where we lean on our students and allow them to be leaders in the classroom. Allow our students to ask the questions and conduct the research, allow them to present information to each other and to hear the perspectives of their peers. As I mentioned our job is now to facilitate and ensure dialogue proceeds in a constructive manner. In order to do this successfully, our students need lessons on misinformation, fact-based research, and evaluating reliable sources. All of which is in alignment with NYS standards. Our teacher preparation programs also need modules on culturally responsive teaching, equipping our prospective teachers with the tools needed to navigate sensitive material respectfully and effectively.

Lastly, professional development for educators is also essential. Teachers need training and resources to confidently navigate the difficult and often sensitive topics inherent in African American history. By investing in their development, schools can create more informed educators who are better equipped to address the diverse needs of their students.

Emphasizing Cultural Relevancy and Providing Different Cultural Perspectives

By Nefe Abamwa

Good morning, my name is Nefe Abamwa. I teach 9th and 10th grade Global History, as well as Pre-AP World at Bellport High School on Long Island. Today’s panel is geared towards the challenges of teaching African American history and how to make the content more relevant. However, I believe it is also a part of a larger conversation on how to make the classroom culturally relevant as well.

As a first-generation Nigerian-American, my culture has greatly shaped me. My parents immigrated from Nigeria to America in the 80’s and early 90’s for better employment opportunities. My father became an accountant for the NYC Comptroller’s Office, while my mother became an RN, ultimately practicing at Pilgrim State Psych Ward. They’ve always emphasized and instilled the value of education in my siblings and I. We were raised to view education as an essential tool for success and advancement. Nigerians often tend to joke that we have three options for careers; to either become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer. In our culture, an advancement in education and an outstanding career is nothing short of an expectation. Growing up in a household and with family where these values were the norm, you could understand the confusion I faced when I began to attend Amityville Public Schools. A district notoriously known for violence, poor academics and administration, and its low-income community.

Throughout my educational career in Amityville, there were many issues I observed that made an impact on me, in regard to the staff and students. I noticed a cultural disconnect between teachers, who were predominantly white, and students, who were predominately black. I noticed that many of my peers did not value school and did not seem to understand, or care, that it could lead to endless opportunity and an escape from their environment. Lastly, the most impactful observation I noticed was that many students and staff were very ignorant and uneducated about African culture. Unfortunately, many of these observations continued to trend throughout my college, postgraduate, professional, and personal life overall. From interactions with colleagues, college professors, church members, peers, and most recently a NYSUT a union member; African culture and history tends to be stigmatized, stereotyped, and homogenized. As I faced these experiences, I would often have conversations with my parents unpacking these interactions and how disappointing it was to have these encounters so often. During these discussions, my parents would share their own experiences in America, where they too have faced racism and ignorance from people of all races, backgrounds, and levels of education.

My cultural values and upbringing, compared to my educational experiences, inspired me at a very young age to go into education. I felt there was a strong need and lack of support for students in low-income communities that may not have proper guidance otherwise; I wanted to show students of color that there are opportunities beyond their environment; and I wanted to make the classroom experience more culturally relevant. I began to instill these changes during my student teaching assignment in a 6th grade classroom at Washington Middle School in Meriden, Connecticut. The demographics there were very similar to Amityville Public Schools, as were the observations I made initially throughout my primary and secondary educational experience. In my class, I began a daily segment at the beginning of the period called “Figure of the Day”. “Figure of the Day” started off as a daily 5-minute black history lesson, during Black History Month, after learning that students knew very little about any historical black figures. These 5-minute sessions would often unintentionally run over time due to the conversations and engagement it brought out of students. Soon enough, students were so intrigued, they would request people they wanted to learn more about. Eventually, that grew into wanting to conduct their own research and present their own projects. And it ended with us expanding “Figure of Day” to cover other races and cultures, well after Black History Month had ended. With each lesson presented, whether it was from me or their peers, I could tell each student found a connection, was inspired, and genuinely excited by what they were being taught because not only was it interesting, but very relatable. Many would go home and discuss what they learned with their parents and share more with their peers the following day.

During my first year at Bellport High School in 2020, I taught my very first Global 10 class. To describe that experience as challenging would be an understatement. 10th graders and 6th graders are quite different, as you can imagine. And this was during covid. Half of my students were in person, half of them online and I’ve never met, and engagement was at an all-time low. That year I decided to conduct a project to reflect on revolutions, a prominent topic in Global 10. Throughout the year, students learn about many revolutions including the French, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions, as well as unifications such as the German and Italian. All of these movements highlight the effects of nationalism, or pride in one’s country or culture. I wanted to show that many of the issues that lead to revolutions still endure today. At the time, the #EndSARS movement was occurring in Nigeria. This was a campaign to stop police brutality led by the Nigerian youth and made international news. I felt learning about this movement was a great way to connect students to issues outside of America as well as bring awareness to some African culture and societies. Students watched a cover of Childish Gambino’s “This is America” called “This is Nigeria”, which highlights political, economic, and social issues Nigerians face. Then, my students produced questions to ask one of my cousins in Nigeria about his experience there. He was able to respond to the questions with a series of videos. Through this and document analysis, students realized many of their own experiences and issues were similar. Many were also surprised to learn that my cousin had an iPhone and could make videos. For these students, this project helped humanize a continent that is often seen as lesser than and irrelevant.

Lastly, during the Imperialism unit, for Global 10, I emphasize the long-lasting effects of White Man’s Burden and eurocentrism, as many students are unaware of how these concepts influence many aspects of our lives. I include how these concepts have impacted the world’s view of anyone that is not a WASP. This is done through document analysis, where students study different events, letters, and political cartoons. I teach them to focus on tone, POV, and how images are portrayed. When conducting these lessons, it’s easier to find the British view of imperialism versus Africans. For African perspectives I use sources such as Jomo Kenyatta’s “Gentleman of the Jungle”, documentaries, primary documents, and my own parents and grandparents’ experiences of living in Nigeria and having government positions while under British occupation. We discussed how Europeans had many negative impacts, disregard and ignorance towards natives because they had different lifestyles and only cared for profit. We also study how ignorance and stereotypes play out in modern society, pop culture, and their own personal lives today. These activities often lead to discussions about common stereotypes and misconceptions about different races, cultures, and religions. When beginning these activities, students are often embarrassed and resistant to participate at first; but it opens up important dialogue about why it is dangerous to think that way. I find that not only are most students genuinely intrigued by history behind many of these misconceptions and stereotypes, but they often notice that these lasting impacts have affected them as well. What is most rewarding is when they are able to identify and call out these issues in their own lives and well after the lesson has been taught.

As a social studies teacher that emphasizes cultural relevancy and providing different cultural perspectives, I fear retaliation, being silenced, or accused of pushing certain agendas. I believe teachers must maintain a certain level of academic freedom and it is an absolute necessity for students to learn how to have hard and constructive conversations without having to agree with one another, especially in today’s climate. Unfortunately, I never experienced a teacher that brought these things to my attention but, I was fortunate enough to have a support system and grow up in an environment where I had exposure, which then fostered my own curiosity. I would like to pay that forward and not only be a support and role model for students, but to help them make the connections and realize the importance of education.

Focus on Mass Struggle, Not Just the Black Elite

By Adam Stevens

“Is Black resistance the highest form of Black excellence?” During Black history month the past few years this has been the focusing question in the Black history class I teach at Brooklyn Technical High School. By February we have been together since September, and the range of opinion on this question is wide. The room crackles with intellectual energy.  Scholarship and emotion combine to produce forceful arguments. Radical and conservative traditions contend. Outside the classroom we are saturated by a media environment where images of Black wealth are iconic, think Beyonce and Jay-Z. From time to time these Black images compete for our attention with images flowing out of what I’ll call a Black radical or activist tradition – think ‘End Racism’ appearing in NFL end zones or black screens on social media in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.

Inside our K-12 school buildings Black achievement is generally embodied in homage to great Black individuals, our unspoken mission is to lift our students out of the working class into the middle class or to keep them firmly planted in the American middle class. We may even provide a platform for a handful to become truly rich, to achieve ‘generational wealth.’. This unspoken mission is shared by parents, and if we are being honest, we hold it as a mission for our own children as well.

Our schooling involves an implicit renunciation of working-class life; under capitalism, workers are not winners. Yet workers are what most of our students will be. Black history in the United States is, by and large, the history of a working people. I have my students read passages from Barbara Fields’s seminal essay “Race, Slavery and Ideology in the United States.” Fields is careful to remind us that plantations in the American South existed to produce cotton first, not white supremacy. In small groups my students are taken aback by a passage that describes the numerous recollections of planters, overseers and enslaved persons of circumstances where the ‘smooth running’ of the plantation required the planter taking the word of the enslaved over that of the overseer, or of overseers being dismissed because of their management practices.

The power of economic development and class goals continued after the end of slavery. During a century of Jim Crow, a Black middle class and Black elite clawed their way up out of economic precarity, even as state-sponsored and vigilante racist terror haunted them. In the post-Civil Rights Movement era, a Black middle class was consolidated.  In April of 1968 elite institutions threw open their doors to the Black in a cynical but consistent response to the mass uprisings after the shooting of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April of 1968.

Should curriculum focus on the history of a Black elite? The tenets of ‘social history’ seek to ground historical investigation in the lived reality of the masses of the people, to get us away from understanding history as the work of ‘great men.’ When the masses are white, the rules of American racism have meant that we are studying a group that, over time, has experienced great chances for uplift, for rising in social status. Social history of the white working-class rests on a certain implicit substrate of hope. The problem in Black history is that for the whole era of slavery and much of the period after that ‘hopeful narrative’ is by definition closed.

This continent would not house a world power if it were not for the stolen  labor and amassed capital of the slavery era. Silence on slavery and its afterlife suits a ruling class that would have us forget this one fact. This is why the hysteria over Critical Race Theory. Forget slavery. Forget Jim Crow. Forget George Floyd. The U.S. ruling class knows what they did to get where they are, what they do to stay there, and they don’t want the next generation being reminded of it.

In the face of these stark facts of history and given the political headwinds, teaching of Jim Crow by retreating into the salve of figures of Black Excellence such as Madam CJ Walker feels safer not just in the face of conservative school boards, but as a way to boost the morale of a room where the course material can otherwise feel like a catalogue of Black suffering. Of course, by neglecting struggle, we don’t know what to do with Nat Turner, let alone John Brown, or Paul Robeson, or Claudia Jones, or W.E.B. DuBois.

That’s why historians and teachers matter so much. We need historians and teachers who can foreground the majesty of the Black struggle for liberation, for justice. We need historians and teachers who invite us to have pride in the broad masses of our ancestors, not just the elites. We grasp intuitively, perhaps, that it was the action of these broad masses that formed the motive force behind every great liberation movement of our history.  Black history as hero worship of great leaders disempowers every student who can’t see themselves becoming the next Martin Luther King. This problem is one that King grappled with himself on the day he died, there in Memphis, binding himself more closely to the cause of the sanitation workers of that city. He was building a Poor People’s Movement with a strong anti-imperialist element. The images of those Black workers with signs reading “I Am a Man” are iconic but they are iconic as protesters, not just as workers.

Eugene Genovese (Roll, Jordan Roll, Book Three, Part Two) helps my students understand slavery as a world where far more choice was exercised by the enslaved than we are given to imagine. I teach the returning veterans from World War I and World War II whose refusal to accept the business as usual of Jim Crow. Their energy gave birth to a Harlem Renaissance and a Civil Rights Movement. To see Black workers gathered in their masses, politicized, in motion against racism as the most powerful force in history, to see honor and glory in joining such a movement, this is an alternative view of Black Excellence and approach to curriculum. Teaching the struggles of ordinary Black people for dignity and equality is the curriculum focus we need to empower our students to survive and defeat the growing threats of fascism and war and to avert climate disaster. 

 

 

Virtual Reality as part of Inquiry into the Boston Massacre

Virtual Reality as part of Inquiry into the Boston Massacre

Russell G. Hammack, Elizabeth K. Wilson, Lisa Matherson

One of the major catalysts that began the American Revolution was the Boston Massacre. This event enraged the local colonial citizens after the increase in taxation and occupation of Boston by the British military. In March 1770, local citizens began to protest against the British by throwing snowballs and rocks on King Street (Reid, 1974). During this event, several British soldiers led by Captain Thomas Preston were detached to quell the conflict (Kellogg, 1918). However, the arrival of the British soldiers only further angered the colonials on King Street. Whether ordered, or unintentionally discharged, the British soldiers fired on the crowd. “On this, the Captain commanded them to fire; and more snowballs coming, he again said, damn you, fire, be the consequence of what it will (The Boston Gazette,1770, p.1). This resulted in the deaths of five colonists, including Crispus Attucks, and the wounding of six others (The Boston Gazette,1770). This article aims to provide social studies teachers the resources using virtual reality experiences as part of an investigative lens to teach the Boston Massacre while integrating the C3 framework of inquiry-based instruction.

Background

In 1767, the British government passed the Townshend Acts, which placed an additional tax on imported goods to the American colonies (Hinderaker, 2017). Although the British crown considered the tax a success, protests and boycotts began throughout the colonies, specifically in Boston. To end the colonial protests, the British government responded in 1769 by sending nearly 2,000 British soldiers to occupy Boston and enforce the tax mandate (Hinderaker, 2017).  “Reports of fighting between soldiers and civilians had been a staple of the Patriot press during the period, but, for the most part, local publications portrayed civilians as the victims of military aggression and praised the town and its leaders for restraining their anger at the abuse” (Messer, 2017, p. 509). By 1770, resentment for the British occupation exploded, resulting in the Boston Massacre. “By this fatal manoeuvre three men were laid dead on the spot and two more struggling for life; but what showed a degree of cruelty unknown to British troops, at least since the house of Hanover has directed their operation, was an attempt to fire upon or push with their bayonets the persons who undertook to remove the slain and wounded” (The Boston Gazette,1770, p.1).

Inquiry-based learning

Inquiry-based learning involves student-led investigations with proposed questions, collecting and analyzing data, and forming evidence-based arguments while the teacher is facilitating the inquiry process (Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn, 2007). Inquiry allows learners to examine authentic problems and enhance their understanding (Wirkala & Kuhn, 2011). Levy, Thomas, Drago, and Rex (2013), affirm that inquiry promotes academic investigation and the creation of evidence-based argumentation. Inquiry-based instruction builds upon disciplinary questioning, investigative evaluation, and reflection to develop and defend ideas and concepts (NCSS, 2013). Inquiry-based instruction centers on analyzing information, using evidence to develop arguments and support conclusions (Monte-Sano, 2010). Despite the framework, having students ask meaningful questions and draw conclusions from various sources leads to increased social studies content knowledge (Grant & Gradwell, 2010). However, inquiry-design should incorporate content-related questions, summative tasks in which arguments are developed, sources to support arguments that are constructed, and taking informed action where students take action on a contemporary issue (Grant, Swann, & Lee, 2017).

Virtual Reality vs. augmented reality: What is the difference?

The birth of VR and AR, as cited within most research, began in the 1960s with the work of graphics pioneer Ivan Sutherland (Bolter, Engberg, & MacIntyre, 2021). With the technological advances that have happened since that time, many state what Sutherland created was more aligned to AR than VR, but it paved the way for VR. AR and VR were “twins when birthed as they began as variations of the same technological idea” (Bolter, Engber, & MacIntyre, 2021, p 22).

So, what exactly is AR and VR?

  • Virtual Reality (VR): “an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (such as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one’s actions partially determine what happens in the environment” (Jerald, 2015).
  • Augmented Reality (AR): “AR allows the user to see the real world, with virtual objects superimposed upon or composited with the real world. Therefore, AR supplements reality, rather than completely replacing it” (Azuma, 1997)

            Improvements in computing power, software capabilities, and display technologies allowed VR and AR to become mediums with great promise. Afterall, we have seen what Hollywood has been able to do with this technology. Simply watch a George Lucas or Pixar movie. These possibilities have found their way into the world of education, such as the Boston Massacre which we highlight in this article.

The experiential learning of VR

One aspect of using virtual reality is creating a classroom environment where learners can feel more present in a virtual simulation than in other types of traditional learning (Kafai, 2006). Virtual agents allow a personalized learning experience tailored to individuals that might otherwise be expensive or unreachable (Baylor & Kim, 2005). These three-dimension virtual experiences provide sensory information for a more realistic and engaging immersion experience (Pstoka, 1996; Walshe & Driver, 2019). Thus, the user can be part of the virtual environment by performing actions (Bardi, 2019). This type of environment promotes learning about the past through the delivery of digital media and incorporating specific exhibits and artifacts from different historical sites (Harley, Poitras, Jarrell, Duffy, & Lajoie, 2016).  “By using realistic virtual depictions of dangerous crises, learners can experience the chaos and affective stressors that are typically accompanied with actual crises” (Bailenson, Yee, Blascovich, Beall, Lundblad, & Jin, 2008, p. 110). This type of augmented reality experience can immerse learners into the past with reeling life settings for engagement (Bronack, 2011). These virtual experiences offer opportunities for student investigations and real-life encounters not experienced in a traditional classroom (Christensen, Horn, & Johnson, 2008). Additionally, 3-D virtual environments can bridge the gap between experiential learning and representation in learning (Jonassen, Peck, & Wilson, 1998). 

VR devices

A trip into any store that offers for purchase a VR device will prove that there are a plethora of devices from which to select. The selection choice will depend on the type of experience you wish to have through the use of the device. After researching several articles, reviews, and personal trials, we offer three options below – a high, medium, low, if you will. However, we realize that most educators have very little funding and will look for the cheaper options. The experiences offered by the cheaper options, while not the same as the most expensive, are experiences that can still be valuable to students.

LowGoogle Cardboard (https://arvr.google.com/cardboard/) The Google Cardboard is one of the most affordable options at around $10.00. The headset is really a holder for the smartphone, which is where all the content plays. The content available for this headset is mostly free and more readily available than others. 
MediumVR Headset for iPhone & Android + Android Remote 1.0 – for Kids (https://www.amazon.com) This mid-range VR option is $59.99. This headset is a smartphone VR system that supports both apple and android products. The content and applications are also mostly free and more readily available.  
HighOculus Meta Quest 2 – (Meta.com) The Oculus Meta 2, at $399, offers a more robust VR experience in that audio is inside the headset and hand tracking with the controllers. Another option from this device is that you can connect to a PC via a cable to access more experiences from the library of apps and games.  

Before purchasing a device, you should review each device and make your selection based on what you wish for your students to gain from the experience.

The IDM

To critically evaluate the Boston Massacre, we propose using a model of inquiry; the Inquiry Design Model (C3 Teachers, 2016). Within this model of inquiry, we plan to implement the richness of a virtual reality experience. “The IDM approach, like the C3 Framework, respected the integrity of the core social studies disciplines but also recognized that authentic learning in social studies classrooms necessitated the interdisciplinary pursuit of a compelling question” (Cuenca, 2021, p.301). For teachers using the IDM, three major components must be considered: developing compelling and supporting questions, exposing students to resources, and developing tasks and informed activation activities (Crowley and King, 2018). “Beginning with a compelling question and standards alignment, the model suggests a series of supporting questions, related formative performance tasks, and sources for completing these tasks” (Molebash, Lee, & Heinecke, p.23, 2019). Cuenca (2021) stated:

Based on the nature of the compelling question, the tasks had different purposes, such as developing research, writing, and/or deliberative skills. Regardless of the purpose of the tasks, the inquiry narratives consistently featured teachers scaffolding tasks to ensure that students were able to address the compelling question they were pursuing. In short, teachers were often asked to facilitate how students organized inquiries to help them progressively become more skilled and independent enquirers (p. 306).

“The assumption is that teachers can take a blueprint and make it their own because they know their students’ strengths, they have their preferred style of teaching, and they understand their teaching context better than a curriculum writer” (Swann, Danner, Hawkins, Grant, & Lee, p.233, 2020). Swann, Lee, and Grant (2018) contend that:

The original IDM blueprint is structured so that students explore a compelling question through supporting questions, formative and summative performance tasks, and a range of disciplinary sources. The inquiry crescendos into an evidence-based argument, which can be broadened through an expressive extension and/or a civic experience. Teachers play an important role in this process by engaging students in the compelling question, scaffolding their source work, and ensuring they are mastering the content and developing skills through the successive formative performance tasks (p.134).

Our IDM

            For this specific inquiry-based learning segment, we have decided to use the richness of primary resources infused along with the experiential learning of virtual reality. At the start of the inquiry, teachers can select a topic from their state standards. For this inquiry, we have chosen the Boston Massacre. After selecting a standard and topic, the classroom teacher can begin to develop a compelling question. Our compelling question is: how did the Boston Massacre become one of the sparks that started the American Revolution? The compelling question is an overarching question that will take several days of instruction as part of a learning segment to answer fully. To begin the inquiry with students, there is an introductory activity called staging the question. We decided to have students watch a short video clip and then answer the following question: Who was responsible for the massacre and bloodshed on King Street in Boston?

For each day of instruction, the inquiry is divided into supporting or daily questions. Formative tasks to help answer the supporting questions along with featured resources, such as primary documents and virtual reality resources are used for each supporting question. For the first day, our supporting question is: what events led to the Boston Massacre? Students are asked to construct a timeline leading up to the Boston Massacre, thus, providing information on events and actions before the Boston Massacre. Students are provided with a list of primary resources and applications for developing the timeline. For the second day of the inquiry, students will answer: what were the colonists’ perceptions of the Boston Massacre? Students will be placed into groups, Colonists and British soldiers, and conduct a primary document analysis and watch a VR video on the Boston Massacre using VR headsets. After watching the VR experience on the Boston Massacre, students will be asked to construct a reflective journal on what happened on King Street. This will give students a unique perspective of each group, leading to historical empathy. For the third day of the inquiry, students will be asked: what happened to the British soldiers that killed the colonists on King Street?  After examining the featured primary resources, students will be asked to develop a judicial debriefing summarizing the Boston Massacre trial.

To assess students, the IDM offers the opportunity to participate in performance-based assessments geared toward answering the compelling question. Our performance assessment will divide students into three groups: Tensions rising (emphasizing events before the Boston Massacre), the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Massacre Trial. Each group will be assigned the task of conducting a live simulation/reenactment of their event in class. The reenactment should be no longer than 3-5 minutes. In an optional performance-based assessment, as part of the IDM, students will create and design their video of the Boston Massacre using a variety of AR and video resources. For social studies teachers, both assessments could be used as a student option or as a classroom extension.

At the end of the inquiry is the portion that provides tremendous relevancy to the curriculum, the informed action. For this part of the inquiry, we asked students to use their personal experiences with virtual reality and augmented reality and choose a local or community issue of concern. Students will design an augmented reality presentation or show, using Google Street View, displaying the issue in a community forum or school blog. Students might invite parents, teachers, and community leaders to discuss the issue and offer potential solutions.

 Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint™
Compelling QuestionHow did the Boston Massacre become one of the sparks that started the American Revolution?
Standards and PracticesSocial Studies Course of Study- State Standards Grade 5 Standard 7 Determine causes and events leading to the American Revolution, including the French and Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Intolerable Acts, the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party. Grade 10 Standard 3 Trace the chronology of events leading to the American Revolution, including the French and Indian War, passage of the Stamp Act, the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, passage of the Intolerable Acts, the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the publication of Common Sense, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Staging the QuestionUsing a video clip on the Boston Massacre, pose the question to the students, Who was responsible for the massacre and bloodshed on King Street in Boston? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2QNZf_8V_w  
Supporting Question 1 Supporting Question 2 Supporting Question 3
What events led to the Boston Massacre?  What were the colonists’ perceptions of the Boston Massacre?What happened to the British soldiers that killed the colonists on King Street?
Formative Performance TaskFormative Performance TaskFormative Performance Task
Students will construct a timeline leading up to the Boston Massacre; thus, providing information on events and actions prior to the Boston Massacre.    After watching the VR experience on the Boston Massacre, the class will be divided into two groups; Colonists and British soldiers. Based on the students’ perspective of the primary sources provided, including the VR video, students will be asked to construct a reflective journal on what happened on King Street.      After examining the featured sources, students will be asked to develop a judicial debriefing summarizing the Boston Massacre trial.
Featured SourcesFeatured SourcesFeatured Sources
British occupation of Boston
https://www.historycentral.com/Revolt/british.html
Stamp Act
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/stamp-act-1765
Quartering Act
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/quartering-act-1765
Declaratory Act
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaratory-act Timeline using Sutori, TimeGraphics, and Lucidchart		Boston Massacre VR Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O05rNWygHF4
Paul Revere’s Engraving
https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/resource/paul-revere%27s-engraving-boston-massacre-1770		John Adams Diary Entry https://www.famous-trials.com/massacre/199-diaryentry Boston Massacre Trial Evidence
https://www.famous-trials.com/massacre/210-evidence    
Summative Performance TaskArgumentThe teacher will divide students into three specific groups: Tensions rising (emphasizing events before the Boston Massacre), the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Massacre Trial. Each group will be assigned the task of conducting a live simulation/reenactment of their event in class. The reenactment should be no longer than 3-5 minutes.
ExtensionStudents will create and design their own video of the Boston Massacre using a variety of AR and video resources. Google Streetview
https://www.google.com/streetview/ Canva
https://www.canva.com
Taking Informed ActionFrom using their personal experiences with virtual reality and augmented reality, students will choose a local or community issue of concern. Students will design an augmented reality presentation or show, using Google Street View, displaying the issue in a community forum or school blog. Students might invite parents, teachers, and community leaders to discuss the issue and offer potential solutions. Google Streetview
https://www.google.com/streetview/

The purpose of this article is to provide a framework of inquiry, while using virtual reality to investigate the Boston Massacre. By advancing through the inquiry, students can develop a constructivist approach to their own historical knowledge and their personal experiences through the historical immersion of virtual reality (Wadsworth, 2004). In addition, students can further their technology-based skills by developing their own augmented reality video. The informed action portion of the IDM model gives civic meaning by addressing the community issues and problems, thus, promoting active citizenship. By transforming social studies classrooms into places where students can express these civic principles, democratic citizenship begins (Dewey, 1918). Our aspiration is to give social studies teachers the needed instructional resources, especially virtual reality, to be part of the overall historical learning experience for students. By using VR, students can further investigate and build their own historical knowledge.

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