r/historyteachers

Just curious what everyone's personal preference for numbers of preps is. Is it 1 for the workload or is does that become mind numbing if you teach the same lesson 5-6 times a day?

Hey I'm a Rising Junior in Undergrad. I will complete my BS in Data Science and International Affairs, a semester early as well.

For some context, I also speak Mandarin at Limited Professional Level and I can be trained to work in ESL OR ENL. I've been a Tutor since Junior Year of High School, so around 4 years of doing that. 1 year of that I worked at an Afterschool Program in DC Public Schools. I am going to work as a Program Assistant at an Education based Non Profit in DC, this summer. I've taken more than the necessary course work for most Social Studies or History based programs, but I will only have around 15 credits from 5 Math Courses. The rest of my Data Science Coursework is mostly focused on Python and R stuff which I won't bore you with.

I know I will qualify for a pretty good Social Studies MAT Program in or near NYC. I am much more worried if I will be a competitive applicant for a Social Studies Teacher in the current environment in NYC.

I guess ChanceMe?

There’s a lot of things out there by NGPF, and financial institutions in terms of curriculum, but I’m really looking for an activity or a simulation that is engaging / fun for personal finance.

I can only make so many “trust fund, 6’-5”, blue eyes” jokes during lectures. And, I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I would enjoy teaching a HS course on personal finance, but the kids are so much more motivated than normal. But I’m lacking a level of expertise needed to make a banger of a lesson, something you could sell ticket too, that the kids talk about it the next year and say, “remember when we did that thing?!”

I'm white and teaching my students about the Underground Railroad and abolition. I wanted to discuss the text of the Scott v. Sanford decision, which uses the word "negro" to refer to all Black Americans. Even typing it makes me feel icky and I don't like to say it out loud because to me, it feels like the n-word "lite". For Black educators, what do you think is best practice in this scenario? Non-black educators, how have you dealt with this in your classroom?

ETA: Thank you for the advice! I want to clarify, I have no intention of censoring the documents or changing the language. I'm strictly talking about me, as a white teacher, saying it out loud. Most of my students are white, with a plurality of Asian/Latino students and only two Black students. There have been incidents of racism against them from their classmates this year so I want to ensure they feel safe and valued.

Edit 2: thank you everyone for the suggestions! The advice I'm mainly seeing is that it's important to front load the lesson with an overview of the word's history and use, and establish guidelines for respectful discussion. I do not intend to censor it and will say it out loud if reading from a text/discussing the historical context. I appreciate the feedback y'all! Going to mute this now bc my phone's been blowing up lol.

Random side note: I just remembered when I was a preteen and the new Hairspray movie came out, and they used negro quite liberally. I was talking to my older cousin about the movie and when I began using the word to just refer to Black people in general, she scolded me and told me I shouldn't say it. Maybe that subconsciously imprinted in my memory lmao

I am being asked to create a 20 minute lesson that aligns to 6th grade CA common core history: ancient civilizations. I currently teach 11th grade U.S. history and need advice on how to approach this demo lessons, and to obtain any suggestions on what I could focus.
THANKS

Got any? Would love to end this year with some engagement as these kiddos are hanging on a thread regarding engagement.

Cheers in advance!

Building off of the post and the use of the word “negro”. I teach one ML ELA class and I spend a lot of time on the n word and why my students should not use it and why it’s never allowed in class.

Personally I pause and replace that word with my silence.

Dr Hiram Smith of Bucknell just published a book, “Wassup my nigga?” and on a recent facebook post he said that there are over 2000 instances of that word in his book. I have ordered the book and I plan on reading it over the summer. Has anyone else heard of it? Read it?

One interesting tidbit is that no one ever asked for the linguistic perspective.

Linguistics is my first love. I’m teaching history by accident- I was asked to teach an ML ELA class in addition to Spanish and my ML students are all having an awful time with their history class so I’m working to align my curriculum with that class.

Hi teachers! So growing up I always loved history but by eighth grade I was pretty frustrated that it would always be "native Americans, Columbus, revolutionary war, build up to civil war, little black history, little Holocaust, maybe we get back to the civil war, whoops the year's over." And recently I've been seeing that a lot of other people online saying they had the same experience.

So I'm wondering two things:

1. Does the school board/state/etc have a lot of say over what you teach? Like, are you guys basically being forced to follow this curriculum?

2. If you had full say over how you would teach your history course, how would you do it?

PS: I guess I'm asking this question from a US centric point of view, that's just the system I grew up but I'd love to hear from everyone

Hello everyone:

I am posting for recommendations on a solid ass US history textbook for my Junior High class. I have been using Prentice Hall's 2005 edition of the American Nation. My curriculum needs updating.

For reference, 7th grade consists of the early colonial period through the Reconstruction.

8th grade consists of the Progressive Era to modern day.

So far, I have checked out Nat Geo / Cengage's US history book, TCI's History Alive, and McGraw-Hill's Discovering Our Past.

What do you use or what would you recommend?

I have to design a one-off, 45 minute Salem witch trials lesson for 8th graders.

I typically teach U.S. history 1850-present, but I offered a gift in this year’s auction that a kid could pick a topic for a class and I’d make a lesson on their interests. The kid who won the auction wants a Salem witch trials lesson.

I’m gonna teach it as a one off on a day in June. Anyone have good ideas on resources to use?

Thanks!

Hello, I have just finished my second year as a social studies education major. With how fast the first two years were, I was looking towards the future and seeing how the job market is.

From my classes, economics is definitely my favorite subject and one I would really like to teach. My question is how is the market? And which positions are the best for getting your foot in the door. Do you have much say in what classes you teach, or is it a take what you can get situation.

Any opinions or stories help, and for reference I live and plan to begin teaching in Pennsylvania.

Those who teach middle school US History (colonization to reconstruction), where do you start?

I always start with Native Americans and Jamestown and all of that. Recently, I heard someone in my district say they skip all of that and start with the French & Indian War.

That seems really absurd to me because the reasoning is “they learned it in 5th grade” but realistically we don’t know that as fact. Also, to jump right into conflict without context just seems so antithetical to being a history teacher/historian lol. I just don’t see how you can start without covering basic things like geography, 13 colonies, and the Middle Passage. I wonder if the person was exaggerating though and maybe they do a day or two of review before jumping in.

Hi all — long-time lurker, first post here.

I teach history, social studies (samhällskunskap), and International
Relations at a Swedish gymnasium (high school equivalent). I've been
working on a conflict-analysis framework with my students for about
8 years now, and I wanted to share it here in case it's useful — and
to get pushback from teachers in other systems.

It's called AIODP:

- Actors — who is involved (state, sub-state, non-state)
- Interests — what does each actor want
- Origins — what long-term structural conditions enabled this
- Dynamics — what short-term moves are escalating
- Perspectives — how would different observers explain this

The thing I've found useful: it scales. I introduce one letter at a
time in lower grades, layer up across units, and by the time my
students reach the equivalent of AP World / IB History HL they can
apply all five letters to any conflict — historical, current, or
counterfactual.

The principle I lean on hardest: "Explanation is not justification."
Students learn to explain why things happen without endorsing them.
I've found this is the single hardest thing to teach in topics like
Rwanda 1994, Hiroshima 1945, or contemporary intervention debates,
but also the most transferable.

I've used this framework across imperialism, the world wars, the
Cold War, and current cases (Ukraine, Hormuz, Taiwan).

Two questions for this sub:

1. For those of you teaching AP/IB at US or international schools —
   does AIODP map to your rubrics? I designed it for the Swedish
   curriculum but I'm increasingly using it with English-speaking
   students, and I want to know if it survives translation to
   AP LEQ / IB Paper 2 grading.

2. What's your equivalent? I'd genuinely like to see how other
   teachers structure causation analysis. SPICE, PERSIA, the AP
   themes — I've read about them but haven't seen them in action.

Happy to share the one-page worksheet I use with students (Sweden's
NATO accession as a case study) if anyone's interested — just say
the word in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

Fellow history teachers, I’m 40. Been teaching 8th grade US History for 15 years. Primarily 1600-1900.

This last decade has been driven by inquiry-based learning, 1:1 tech, accommodating and trying different “learning styles,” and efforts to reach small attention spans with snippets of engagement and “interactivity.”

Ten years ago? I loved it. I thought this was the way. Sure, you could still have your moments to lecture with kids taking notes, but this made up 10-20% of my class lessons.

The last several years I’ve felt the burnout. It takes so much more effort and energy to control behaviors and structure a week of lessons that will keep them engaged fully. The tech is better than ever, but it’s killing so much of what our kids actually need in school — focus, attention, and just general awe in having a good teacher deliver information while they listen, take notes, and test to show their knowledge like “the good ole days.”

Next year I’ve considered upping my “lecture and notes” to 80% instead of 10-20%. My teaching style is energetic with the rizz. The kids enjoy me. I enjoy them.

I’d certainly still follow the standards. I have a great admin team who would be cool with it as well.

Basically I want reading, notes, lecture, quizzes, energy, and engagement.

So I have two questions.

First, what are your thoughts about teaching history going back to more of this style?

Second, with AI still being useful yet flawed, have any of you found an efficient way to build lectured slides that can also transfer well to notes and future quizzes/tests?

I've been tasked with teaching Pre-AP World History and Geography (Pathway 1). I need to find a textbook. I have a very small class; international school; with English language learner students. Therefore, I'm looking for something a bit more readable. I've seen World History: Patterns of Interaction recommended, but it's a bit out of a date. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hello all,

I teach high school in Quebec (which in our case range from Grade 7 to Grade 11....no Grade 12...and apologies in advance for my poor English, but I will try my best).

Anyhow, my Grade 8 group is starting a section on WWII this week. It is obviously not a real deep dive into it at this point, but I am wondering what sort of lessons or activities you like to use when teaching this topic. They seem to particularly enjoy interactive lessons and so on, but I realize that is not always possible.

Have a great long weekend.

hi! i have a 20 minute demo lesson plan for an interview next week in an APUSH class. they said it is my choice because they already did their exam, so super open ended.

what would you guys do? i already taught apush so i have some ideas but id like to hear from some others too :)

Quick question...I'm assuming most of these topics will fall under the threshold of AP Euro, but has anyone ever taught about James/Stuarts & Henry/Tudors as part of their AP World pacing, or is there simply not time to include them in their full "story-version?" I enjoy teaching about these historical figures and find that my non-AP world students tend to enjoy learning about them. I'm just wondering if this is something I could include, or if it would jack up my pacing.

like the title says, I am recent MAT grad who has just finished submitting applications to seven school districts in my state. Right now, i’m in the screening-interview phase for most school districts. My state also has a large urban school district that is consistently ranked as being one of the worst in the country.

Last night at around 6pm I received a call from the vice principal of a high school in this district asking if I could interview the next morning at 8:30am. I accepted the interview invite and did some research on the school. I found out it is considered to be one of the roughest schools in this already rough district.

I was obviously very hesitant, but figured that at the very least this would be good interview practice. I attend the interview this morning and I ended up getting a job offer this evening. I call it a job offer, but the AP really called and said “you will be our social studies teacher going forward. Welcome to the family”. the whole process took less than 24 hours and it felt very rushed and sort of high-pressure.

I’m under no illusions about how difficult social studies jobs are to come, by but I feel like accepting this job offer may be hasty considering I just started the application process for six other fairly large school districts.

I’m new at this, and i want to make a logically sound decision. Any insight from experienced educators would be very much appreciated. Thanks.