The Mayor is a new sitcom on ABC featuring a young rapper who decides to run for mayor as a publicity stunt. He doesn’t just end up helping his music career – he ends up winning. The show turns out to be a good vehicle for discussing civics and government with your students. It’s worth […]
On Friday, November 10, I’ll be facilitating a professional development workshop on C-SPAN’s Classroom Deliberations at the NJEA Convention. But that won’t be the only presentation in Atlantic City that should appeal to civic educators. The Citizen’s Campaign is a non profit in New Jersey whose mission is to empower citizens to take a greater […]
This week’s civic educator spotlight is about Jayson, an early career educator in California who is redesigning his world history curriculum in a thematic way. Do you have a story to tell? We’d love to hear it – so head over to the submission guidelines and drop me a line. I have loved history ever […]
The Mayor is a sitcom on ABC featuring a young man who runs for mayor to promote his rap career and ends up winning. Then, he’s faced with the task of governing. The show is surprisingly good at illustrating key concepts in civics and government, and it’s worth watching some of it with your students […]
I know, I’m a couple weeks late. The Mayor, a new comedy on ABC, debuted two weeks ago on October 3. When I first started seeing ads for the show, I wondered, “Is this going to be good for teaching civics?” The premise is that a young, undiscovered rapper decides to run for Mayor as […]
A mock Congressional hearing is a form of experiential learning. It is a great summative activity for a social studies class that has learned about a controversial issue in public policy. This could be used in conjunction with current events, and it could also be used to assess student understanding of controversial issues in history. […]
Interested in learning more about using C-SPAN’s Classroom Deliberations in your class? Then you’re in luck. I’m presenting a session on C-SPAN and Classroom Deliberations at the NJEA Convention this year. This is the third time we’ve offered this PD workshop at the convention, and the participants always seem to enjoy it. What Are C-SPAN […]
Throughout the country, legislators are struggling to figure out how to improve civics education. Many people agree on the goal. They just don’t agree on the methods. In some cases, legislators have pursued misguided attempts to implement the citizenship test as a graduation requirement. This won’t do much, other than adding another barrier to graduation […]
Do you ever get tired of reading countless summaries of current events from your students? Chances are your students are tired of writing them, too. Maybe it’s time to rethink the traditional current event assignment and modernize it a little bit. Engaged citizens need to be aware of what’s going on around the world. This […]
If you want to teach a controversial issue, the hardest part is putting together balanced set of resources. That’s the great thing about C-SPAN’s Classroom Deliberations – they do the hard work for you. C-SPAN’s Classroom Deliberations are in depth lesson plans centered around current, controversial issues in public policy. They bring together resources from […]