r/historyteachers

Hello,

I recently landed my first Social Studies job; however, it's as a teacher in a private Psychiatric Hospital for children and I'm being expected to teach grades level 6-12 every single day. I have a lot of materials from my student teaching, other teachers, classroom observations and etc; however, theres 0 chance I can effectively craft and create lessons & materials for 6 different grade levels every single day.

If any other Social Studies teachers would be willing to tell me where they find their materials, tips or tricks on how to create materials, or even if you are willing to send me and share materials with me it would be much obliged.

I like to try and make everything myself and to make sure I am well versed in the content im teaching, but I just dont think I can effectively plan ahead without sacraficing other commitments to my wife, family, and friends.

Any help is much, much, much obliged!

RI standards for high school for modern world history are very intense. First time teaching it. Any materials, advice, links, videos etc you can share? Would be very grateful.

Hello everyone. First year teacher here. My school uses TCI as their curriculum of choice for social studies and it was heavily suggested to me that as a new teacher I should use it and I’ll be evaluated on how I use it. My question to those of you who are familiar with the curriculum is how do you implement it.

So for I have come up with
Monday- introduce a unit and give students the vocabulary
Tuesday- have the students read the sections.
Wednesday- work through the lesson activity
Thursday - continue working through the lesson activity
Friday- Take the Assessment.

I really have no idea if this is optimal or anything and really just curious if you just use the curriculum as is or if you adapt it. Any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.

I have my Senior Civics and Econ class first period this year. I’m looking for 5-10 min news feeds to start the day that are apolitical and summarize events quickly. Or alternatively, I could show news from different sources each day to illustrate how different sources say different things. Still 5-10 mins of headlines.

I’d love suggestions of good feeds / channels or how you engage current events each day with your seniors. I had to take a news break for reasons personally so I’m out the game.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed looking through the NYS standards, economics has always been a weak subject for me. Haven’t touched it since my undergrad!

What are some lessons and projects that were successful in your classrooms?

I'll be teaching History 201 to a dual-enrollment class and feel like the best way to ease my imposter syndrome is to be overly prepared. I've got my lectures and slides ready for the next few weeks, but I'm nervous about looking like a total newbie if I'm reading from my lecture notes. With so little time to prepare, there's not much of a chance I'll have memorized much of it. My question is this: do you read straight from lecture notes, and if so, does that read as inexperienced?

I need help planning out my IB History course.

Some context:
- never taught IB
- school has yet to send me to training. classes start tomorrow
- i have Upper 6 and Lower 6, meaning I need to operate under the new and old curriculum
-i have 2 other non-IB courses I need to plan, so my hope is to have Upper and Lower overlap to minimize stress for myself.
- Upper 6 has already been decided by the last teacher to finish on Paper 1: Rights & Protest

Paper 1: Protest and Change - US Feminism + Tunisian Revolution

Paper 2: Popular Movements - Examples: US Civil Rights & Apartheid South Africa (aforementioned overlap with Upper 6 Rights and Protest)

Paper 3: Americas - Political Developments in Latin America (out of my control) & Social Movements in the Americas

My main concerns are (1) the popular movement examples and (2) the social movements for paper 3. The IB Guide uses US civil rights as an example for the social movements, but am i allowed to do this if I am using it already for Popular Movements?

Any (and i mean ANY) and all advice, suggestions and guidance is appreciated.

Kinda catchy title I know.

So I’m a college student starting my last 2 years at a university, I spent my first 2 years at a community college majoring in history. Passed and it was great. So I’m going into uni and wanted to know more information about getting teaching credential.

It was here I learned either my uni doesn’t offer it or it isn’t offer not totally sure, but a history degree can’t make you a history teacher. You need to be in social science.

I did my own research and learned there are ways to ge through it, by showing you have competence in your field. By taking a test, by getting your transcripts looked over, or just taking the classes in social science.

I’m not sure what to do, do I just change majors? I thought to ask this subreddit since maybe someone has went through the same thing or has some advice. At the moment I have an associates in history and now wondering if that’ll even be useful at all.

No one, not in high-school when I told this plan to counselors, or in community college, or even at the uni im going too, told me this information.

I do still want to be a history teacher just at the moment I feel like I’m starting from square one all over again, since im not even sure the classes I picked out even work now.

Hey all, I’m a brand new history teacher just out of student teaching and I’m starting a new job this year at a therapeutic, smaller school for students with needs. I’ll be teaching US 1, US 2, to all HS grades, and a News Literacy elective to 6 seniors. Although I haven’t met them yet, I was told my students would be pretty reluctant and avoidant so I need to find creative ways to make learning fun. I want to implement an incentive system (maybe tickets, points,idk) for all my classes but I’m not sure how to make it equitable, sustainable, and cost effective. I’m curious what you all have done or if anyone has any suggestions.

I’m the History Department head at my school and with the year soon to start, I’m just wondering what teachers expect from their students in terms of citation?

I am not debating whether students should cite their sources but rather how? At what to expect at each grade level?

For example, students learn MLA formatting for their ELA classes - do teaches allow student allow students to use this type of citation? Or do teachers make their students do Chicago Style?

Part of my hesitation with teaching it is how long it takes to do so. I know students can use websites to generate Reference Lists but they are often incorrectly cited. Plus, I think the in-text citation is more important and that doesn’t help them with that.

To speed up the citation process, in lower grade levels I will use a letter coding system. If the students are using the same set of sources, I will label them A, B, C, etc. Then when they cite them within the text, I just have them put the letter of the source in brackets (B). Obviously, it’s the not the correct format, but I’m more interested in the thinking behind it (learning how to cite a source within writing). Then in later grades, the students can learn the correct formatting.

Once again, I’m just wondering what different teachers do with this.

We always kick off Early humans at the beginning of the year. Throughout the entire year we cover early humans, ancient Egypt, Hebrews/Romans, Ancient Chin, and finally Ancient Egypt. For every unit I have a movie to show to pair as an added resource. The only one I struggle with is Early Humans. I don’t want to do the Croods as I feel like doesn’t show what I’m looking for. Any suggestions on a movie to show with the Early Humans unit to 6th graders? I used to show the first 20 minutes of clan of the cave bear, but I’d like to find something different. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

I’m a teacher in a school without an art program, and I want to make up for it a little bit with my 9th grade Global Studies class. I’m in a school where I can fully create my own curriculum, which is amazing. Does anyone have cool ideas for integrating art into a social studies classroom? So far I’ve done political posters, but I’m looking for more. My curriculum includes human rights history and criminal justice history. My school is supportive of crazy ideas, so if you have “shoot for the moon” thoughts, lay them on me!!

EDIT: I reposted this to r/ArtEd as well because I think they might have great perspectives. I’m essentially the de facto art teacher at my school, providing supplies and guidance over lunch and after school, but I don’t have any art ed training! So if you’re here from r/ArtEd, please help!

I'm still in highschool but it was my goal to become a history major and later a historian ever since primary school. However, just like with every job, I heard many people saying the job of historians will be taken by ai in a decade (or just in a relatively short time period).

So I wanted to ask if my fear is rational or not?

Sorry for potential grammatical issues, english is not my primary language.

I did it y’all. After being stuck teaching English for the past 3 years, I am finally putting my college major to work and am teaching world history for 9th graders this year. I am STOKED.

I am doing an interactive notebook this year, and I have it in my head to do a “Unit 0” where I teach students how to use the notebook, things about the class/rules/procedures, and review important info they need to do well in a history class.

For seasoned history teachers, do you have a review unit where you go back over important info? (i.e. how to read a map/table/graph, five themes of geography, primary/secondary sources, how to take notes, etc.?) These are high schoolers, but the last time I taught world history I noticed that my students struggled with the fundamentals. Granted, I was student teaching then, but I want my students to be able to engage in the content and be sure of it FIRST before we start the first unit.

Or what would you recommend I really focus on to set up the class for success? And if anyone had a folder or drive they would share, I’d be very thankful for resources!

I build EraPin — the daily where-and-when deduction game some of you have tried with your classes.

Something I keep seeing in our logs: teachers signing up after midnight. 12:01am. 1:36am. 1:45am.

So here’s what we built instead so you don’t have to stay awake ti prepare for tomorrow’s morning starter: queue the packs for your unit once, pick your class days, and EraPin publishes each morning’s rounds to your room by itself. You get an email showing exactly what your students are about to play — before they play it, so nothing lands in your classroom unreviewed.

The room is ready when you arrive. The debrief is waiting after — each round unpacked for the projector, plus which round your class found hardest, straight from their scores. No Chromebooks that day? There are printable cards.

Yesterday morning this published rounds to five classrooms in Kansas while their teacher slept. That’s the whole idea.

Set it up once, in daylight. Then sleep.
The game, 100+ packs (US History, APUSH, AP World, Regents Global, WWII, Cold War…), room codes, leaderboards, and the debrief are free — no student accounts, kids join with a room code.

Auto-publish, the cards, and per-student reports are the Pro tier, and every new account gets full Pro free until at least October 1, no card, so you can run it through September and decide.

If your unit isn’t covered, comment and I’ll build the pack. teach.erapin.com — about two minutes, even at midnight.

I love the idea of teaching history. I’m a huge history buff and I’ve done some instructing during my time and service. What are some turning points in a normal teachers career that you’ve ran into?