Dear colleagues,

I'd like to call your attention to a new professional development opportunity for K-12 teachers of world history (including dual-enrollment). To commemorate the 10th anniversary of its involvement in the creation of the C3 Framework, the American Historical Association will convene a teacher institute via Zoom from July 31-August 4 with generous sponsorship from OER Project.

2023 Teacher Institute: Is Democracy in Crisis?

The five sessions in this week-long program will explore how teachers can channel one of the most pressing questions in global current events to engage students in the world history classroom. Historian Kenneth Pomeranz will lead participants through analysis of the efforts of leading historians to contextualize the political, social, and economic forces driving a resurgence of authoritarianism around the globe. Understanding today’s international news requires careful consideration of many of the issues around which teachers organize surveys of world history: competing models of sovereign authority; the expansion of global capitalism; the Cold War and its legacies; the enduring power of ethnonationalism; and the ongoing reverberations of imperialism, decolonization, and racial discrimination. The institute will focus on providing participants with content knowledge, primary sources, and lessons that can be applied directly topics covered in many state standards for world history from the Neolithic to the present.

Applications are now open. For more information, see our website.

Several sessions will focus on primary sources - both texts and artifacts - that can help illuminate broad developments that feature in many state standards. We've asked Dr. Pomeranz and other scholars and teachers who will be part of the program to discuss primary sources they love to use in the classroom. What kinds of questions would you like to ask of historians who are pushing the boundaries of scholarship and framing the narratives that appear in world history textbooks?