Michigan Council for the Social Studies

It's been a whirlwind week for me. Last Saturday I was in Indianapolis having participated in a conference for the state's history education group the day before. I spoke about the film, Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good. A bunch of people asked for copies of the film which made the foundation that I do some consulting work for very happy. It's kind of nice, my job is to give out something for free. The story is also so powerful. We've set up a wiki about it here.

On Monday I turned around and went to Lansing, MI, the capitol of our great state, for several days. The Michigan Council for Social Studies held its annual state conference. I loved it. Last year when I went I hardly new a soul. But then I got onto the board and obviously met lots of folks. I made three presentations: one was a short speech in front of the entire convention, about 800, about the film I'm marketing. The next day I presented to about 60 on using current events in the classroom. While I can definitely do the keynote thing and have people laughing and learning at the same time, it's not really my favorite style. I much prefer engaging the audience in group work. For this particular workshop I distributed newspapers and had people develop lesson ideas. We then shared the ideas with the whole group. Since there were a lot of groups, not every group could present to the whole group. So I asked groups to join with other groups and share the ideas that they had developed. It's such an honor to have so many people come to my sessions.

I really love doing professional development. But to tell you the truth, I'm also really proud of my newsletter. It's hard to believe that my ideas are being used throughout the nation, albeit sporadically. I've got people who use it in their classrooms in New York, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, California, and Florida.

Yesterday I found myself in a conversation with a assistant superintendent in a large Pennsylvania school district. He asked me how he could be confident that the newsletter would promote quality discussion and not just too much attention on the "pop culture of our times." I told him that ultimately he had to hire good teachers who had the ability to manage quality discussion. My questions aren't going to do it alone. Then I also said that the way we think about educational textbooks is becoming obsolete. When information changes as fast as it does, it's going to become increasingly sillier to purchase expensive textbooks that you can completely preview before purchasing them. I suggested that when school districts spend money on information they are going to have to trust the source that will produce the information. However, that trust should be built on a track record of prior quality and consistency. In my case, I pointed the assistant sup. to my Living-Textbook as evidence of my work. Whether or not this individual purchases the newsletter I really enjoyed interacting with him. (I'm never sure if I should use names or not, so in this case I won't do so.)