This article details the work of third grade teacher, co-author Kim Heckart, as she engaged her students in making historical documentaries: a project that succeeded in reaching all of her third-grade students. For the last five years, Kim has required students to make historical documentaries. As her students produced these works, Kim conversed…

In this classroom simulation, students travel back in time to 1945, when racism was institutionalized in many states through segregation. Though students cannot literally travel back to the Jim Crow era, teachers can create a situation that brings home the point of injustice and the choices individuals are faced with in such situations. Suddenly,…

This issue's "Middle Level Learning" section presents two articles. The first is "Harriet Tubman: Emancipate Yourself!" (by Steven S. Lapham and Peter Hanes). "Argo," which won the 2012 Oscar for best picture, was about a daring escape of six U.S. diplomats from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. Now imagine the…

In this paper we share findings of a textbook analysis in which we explored the treatment of segregated education in eight, widely-used secondary United States history and government textbooks. We positioned our findings within the historiography related to the African American school experience which challenges the notion that the lack of…

The historical integration of the University of Mississippi (UM) brought both national and local attention when James Meredith was escorted by U.S. Marshals to enroll and attend classes on October 1, 1962 (Cohodas, 1997; Doyle, 2001; Eagles, 2009). Since the integration of UM, racial issues and efforts to promote racial reconciliation primarily…

Southern California is facing a demographic transformation that will become characteristic of the nation as a whole in coming decades. In this research, we present a historical review of the region's attempt to address school inequity, recent enrollment and segregation trends, and an investigation of whether segregation still matters. Our results…

About 50 miles east of Topeka, Kansas, in what is now the suburban town of Merriam sits South Park Elementary School. Built in 1947 for white children at a cost of $90,000, the school at that time showcased eight modern classrooms, a multi-purpose auditorium, a lunchroom, and playground. Today, the building serves as a monument to a struggle for…

In the 1990s, as Virginia Indians faced the 2007 quadracentennial of Jamestown's founding, they initiated plans to publicly correct inaccuracies and omissions embedded in the historical narrative. The Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Past and Present Teachers' Institute was one such initiative through the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities'…

Tracing the history of black schooling in North America, this book emphasizes factors in society at large--and sometimes within black communities--which led to black children being separate from the white majority. This separation was continued and reinforced as efforts by European immigrants to provide separate Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist…

The purpose of this study was to explore the learning experiences and teachers' behaviors valued by students who attended southern rural segregated schools during the 1940s-1960s, The qualitative data yielded four themes: (a) memories of caring teachers, (b) memories of teachers as professionally, (c) memories of teachers as participants of the…

Richard Wright's literary career begins with a lynching and ends with a serial murderer. "Big Boy Leaves Home," the 1936 story that leads off Wright's first book, "Uncle Tom's Children" (1938), renders the vicious mob-execution of a young black man falsely accused of rape. "A Father's Law," Wright's last novel, left unfinished at his unexpected…

Georgia, like many other states, is facing a budget shortfall of about $2.5 billion, according to the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute. To help cope with its money woes, the state's university system alone has to make at least $200 million in cuts, if not more. As the Georgia Senate chairman of the Higher Education Committee, Seth Harp…

The book is entitled History Wars in the Classroom: Global Perspectives and examines how ten separate countries have experienced debates and disputes over the contested nature of the subject, for example the "Black Armband" and "Whitewash" factions in Australia who adopt opposingly celebratory or denigratory views of Australian…

This article critically analyzes Obama's singular political victory. The author begins by laying out current racial, socio-economic, educational and political challenges that await President-elect Obama. He goes on to analyze Obama's political discourse and then questions whether or not Obama would be able to meet these challenges. The author…

"Choosing to Participate" focuses on civic choices--the decisions people make about themselves and others in their community, nation, and world. The choices people make, both large and small, may not seem important at the time, but little by little they shape them as individuals and responsible global citizens. "Choosing to…