Last week a friend sent me the link to the YouTube channel of the History Teachers, two high school teachers in Hawaii who create music videos using well known pop songs, stripping out the vocal tracks, and adding their own lyrics. Those original lyrics are history lessons. So, for instance, one can watch/listen to “Tainted…
After Standards and the Future of History (Day 2)
During the second day of the After Standards conference here in Sydney, an issue that really animated discussions among the delegates was whether the AHA (Australian Historical Association) was the right body to represent all historians in Australia during a time of significant transition in the profession? Unlike the American AHA, the Australian AHA has…
After Standards and the Future of History (Day 1)
The conference I’m attending/taking part in–After Standards: The Future of History–at the University of New South Wales (Australia) almost got off to a rocky start. The Australian Teaching and Learning Council (ALTC) that funded the project has already been defunded by parliament and just last week, the government body charged with picking up the implementation…
After Standards and the Future of History
This week I’m at the University of New South Wales (Sydney) for a conference called “After Standards: The Future of History.” The Australians have managed to do what the Americans failed to do in the 1990s; agree on national standards for history education. Many American history educators will remember what a traumatic disaster it was…