A Current Events Response by National Council for the Social Studies Social studies education is a topic of debate for national and state legislatures and local school boards this year. This debate has resulted in a number of bills being introduced in state legislatures concerning what should or should not be taught in the PK-12 social studies classroom. We are pleased to see citizens engaging in discussions surrounding citizenship, race, gender, equity, and other social studies topics. Yet we have become aware of the need to address misconceptions that have arisen surrounding what others…

NCSS seeks to help educators effectively teach hard history, including the history of slavery, systemic racism, colonialism, and oppression in a way that humanizes and celebrates the survivors and their voices while promoting anti-oppressive social studies education. Sessions related to this sub-theme will provide educators with the content knowledge and/or best practices needed to effectively teach students to critically examine the past and present. You might attend a session related to this sub-theme to help students develop compelling questions about our past and present and how embracing…

Christianity’s overwhelming social power shapes America today, even when religious discrimination is mistaken for racism or obscured in debates over immigration or national identity. The United States’ most powerful myth is that it was created as a haven of religious freedom for all, and that the First Amendment makes people of all faiths, and of no faith, equal before the law. It is time for us to understand that Christian privilege is embedded in U.S. policy, politics, and society’s rules and assumptions about who belongs. At the same time, Christianity has also had a role in the…

Teaching About the U.S. Capitol Siege the Day After it HappenedSamantha Mandeville Teaching the Civil War in 2020–21Deirdre O’Connor Epidemics and Pandemics as Social Phenomena: Pivotal Moments in History that Altered SocietyEric B. Claravall

March 15, 2022 School districts, the most active battlefield in the American culture wars today, are facing an unprecedented number of calls to remove books from schools and libraries, false claims about “obscenity” invading classrooms, the elimination of teaching about evolution and climate change, challenges to the need for making sense of and critiquing our world in the mathematics classrooms, and legislation redlining teaching about racism in American history. These actions are putting excessive and undue pressure on teachers, who are caught in the crossfire of larger political conflict…

The books that appear in this annotated list were evaluated and selected by a Book Review Committee appointed by National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and assembled in cooperation with the Children’s Book Council (CBC). NCSS and CBC have cooperated on this annual bibliography since 1972. Books selected for this bibliography were published in 2011 and were written for children in grades K-12. The Book Review Committee looks for books that emphasize human relations, represent a diversity of groups and are sensitive to a broad range of cultural experiences, present an original theme or…

How can we apply the lessons of the film Schindler’s List toward standing up to hatred in our own communities? How do you engage students in conversations around racism, antisemitism and other forms of hatred? NCSS joins Facing History and Ourselves and AFT/Share My Lesson for a conversation with Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director of Schindler’s List. To commemorate the 25th anniversary and re-release of the film, Mr. Spielberg will discuss the legacy of Schindler’s List, its impact on Holocaust education, and the importance of responding to hatred in our communities today.  …

Dear Social Studies Educators,  We are at a critical juncture in history and we are on the frontlines of change. Adults, youth, and children are turning to history, geography, economics, and civics to cope with the complexities of our human experience and to seek answers to the questions that govern our daily lives. There is no time in our contemporary lives in which the study of social studies has been more critical and central to understanding and action.  COVID-19 forced us to chart new paths of delivering remote education while also revealing the cavernous socio-economic and racial…

The House of Delegates (HOD) provides a forum for the general membership of NCSS, as represented by state councils, communities, and associated groups, to bring ideas, principles, beliefs, and actions regarding social studies education to the attention of the NCSS Board of Directors. Resolutions are the framework through which the NCSS membership at-large makes recommendations to the Board. Any NCSS member may submit a resolution following the guidelines established in the House of Delegates Manual. Resolutions are debated and voted on during HOD meeting at the NCSS Annual Conference.…

The House of Delegates (HOD) provides a forum for the general membership of NCSS, as represented by state councils, communities, and associated groups, to bring ideas, principles, beliefs, and actions regarding social studies education to the attention of the NCSS Board of Directors. Resolutions are the framework through which the NCSS membership at-large makes recommendations to the Board. Any NCSS member may submit a resolution following the guidelines established in the House of Delegates Manual. Resolutions are debated and voted on during HOD meeting at the NCSS Annual Conference.…