Tip of the Week – Three social studies iPad apps I just fell in love with

I haven’t had a lot of time in the last few weeks to spend searching for great mobile apps. But with a hat tip to Jaime H. and through a conversation with a couple of great teachers in Illinois, I did run across three that I really like. I think you will too. The first [...]

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New Kansas State Social Studies Standards

I feel a bit like the Founding Fathers at the 1787 Constitutional Convention might have felt. They showed up in Philadelphia with the stated intent of tweaking the Articles of Confederation. Instead, they ditched the Articles and went straight to the Constitution. Today was the first meeting of the Kansas State History/Government Standards Revision Committee. [...]

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Tip of the Week – Constitution Day 2011 Resources

Yes. It’s true. Constitution Day 2011 is next week and you may be scrambling a bit to find a few useful resources. Constitution Day is an American federal holiday that recognizes the ratification of the United States Constitution and also recognizes all who have become citizens due to either coming of age or naturalization. It [...]

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How to get smart again

We’re not stupid, we’re ignorant. Current US history and civic knowledge among American citizens is not good. And worse, it seems as if the extremists are the only ones who care about that stuff. Moderates are choosing to “tune out” from the political process – making it more difficult for consensus to happen. So what? [...]

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We’re not stupid. We’re ignorant.

And there’s a difference, says Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker. The problem is ignorance, not stupidity. We suffer from a lack of information rather than a lack of ability. Recently, Newsweek asked 1000 US citizens to take America’s official citizenship test. You probably know where this is headed. Yeah . . . we didn’t do [...]

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