Tenth Period Live! | BRI @NCSS19!

0:04 hello and welcome to another edition of Bill of Rights Institute’s 10th period webinar where this week we’re reporting live from NC SS 2019 and so we’re going to introduce some of our colleagues we’ll talk to some of our teachers and give you a little sense of what we do

0:24 here at the national but in case you’re just joining us for the first time my name is Kirk Higgins I’m the senior manager for education at the Bill of Rights Institute I’m Rachel Davis director in every other week we do these webinars where we try to bring on different guests and talk about different topics and see how we can help fit that content into the classroom but this week has been about us exploring

0:44 different opportunities for content in classrooms and so we’re going to talk with a few bar ntfs for you we hope you can join us here when we when we enter all the students that we enter when we come to NC SS but it’ll give you a little bit of a taste absolutely so our first guest I think is Jenny Westbrook

1:06 welcome Jenny so what has stood up to you this year and NCS s energy yeah there there’s so much interest in civic educate and so much interest in its I guess one of the most gratifying things is when people come by and say oh the

1:28 Bill of Rights Institute I’ll use your stuff all the time yeah yeah that’s a very that’s a very gratifying thing that’s great and you’ve had a couple opportunities to do some presentations while you’ve been here what what have you been talking about well I guess the thing I’ve talked about the most is our newest curriculum folks for women as we approach the centennial of the 19th

1:50 amendment ratification terrific and so it’s been really fun to share our classroom ready resources with people in a number of different venues yeah one of the questions you did was a poster session what’s the poster session like well the way we typically do it is to make a big poster this Disney yeah just

2:11 to get people’s attention and this is what we’re doing over here and then as people approach with curious looks on their faces we ask them are you familiar with the Bill of Rights Institute and have you heard about our newest thing and so then we we just talk about the resource so I hand them a copy of the curriculum and we walk through it step by step what would you think your favorite activity

2:32 and the votes were when you because you were also a big part of the writing and producing of that resource so what’s your favorite activity to kind of help teachers Boxborough well there there are a couple of things that run all the way through the curriculum and one of the pieces of that that I’m really fond of is the pathway for change because we

2:54 studied the processes that the women’s suffrage movements followed not because anybody gave them a hen’s book but just because they figured it out yeah as people who were civically engaged so we looked at some of the processes that they used in their movement and we thought that this would be a great model to help students understand how to make

3:16 change happen to make your institutions align with your principles and have those changes stick right so a century and a half but it’s stuck and women have legal equality now yeah absolutely a huge testament 248 well that’s really

3:39 exciting Jenny we’re glad you stopped by and we’ll we’ll let you get back to talking to some of our folks who are coming for the booth but that’s great I think that’s one of the fun things about NC SS is that you see also how a lot of these different organizations are tackling the same we for the first time

3:59 ever at this NC SS we have the civics renewal network village which is a group of about 20 organizations I think there’s 60 or so organizations and the network at the whole but the civics renewal network has it of just civics and history providers yeah who focused on civic education across the country these are national organizations that we have our friends

4:20 for my civics and Gilder Lehrman and Library of Congress and all of our friends from around from around the Civic space here with yeah absolutely and including some of the educators from our network so now we’re gonna be doing by Kyle who’s one of our guys so Kyle were you from so I’m originally from Miami but I teach in Houston Texas

4:40 terrific so not too far down the road now not too far about an hour and 45 minutes where do you teach I teach AP US history regularly as history but I’m also department chair so good I work with our government and eco teachers and tenth grade teams so what has stood up for you this year at NTSF well I mean the exhibit hall is first and foremost

5:01 phenomenal I mean all the different resources and stuff the things that I already knew but when reinforced or got to link up with people that I’ve met at other conferences but also the things I didn’t even know about or had never considered you know bringing into the classroom to bring it to the school or just being made aware of so for existence our campuses is really moving

5:21 towards a project-based focus and there are numerous different organizations that are focusing on how to incorporate project-based learning into the civics and you know a lot of times especially me when I first started teaching when I heard projects I thought poster board or science class but there are a lot of great organizations here that will actually come out to your classroom and

5:42 work with your students or train your teachers on how to incorporate more civic mindedness serve their students in the classroom here I thinks about quite a bit a couple of projects that are thinking about what is what does it mean to be civically engaged kind of broadly speaking right so often so civic projects will be very government focus yeah and so we like to think about what about the preneur shift

6:04 in citizenship what is charity in citizenship and so it’s really great to hear that a lot of the districts around the country are starting to orient themselves as active kind of way of engaging as the citizen even before you have voting yeah exactly and and you know working primarily with juniors a lot of my students can’t vote yet but you know when we work on the election cycle and stuff like that they get

6:25 really excited and and they’re able to take the content that we’re learning in class and apply it and that follows them into their government and eco classes and as seniors yeah well that’s really exciting and we appreciate your sub icon thanks for being back for another session later on this afternoon I will

6:47 about the Socratic workshop that you attended okay yeah so so a while ago I went to the Socratic workshop and we worked on reading and analyzing primary sources and there are a billion different ways to do Socratic seminars but I’ve tried and failed in the past one thing that I got from the Bri was

7:07 how to scaffold it so that it works in any setting and so I can give my AP students a primary source or even a secondary scholarly source and have them discuss it and sometimes it flops sometimes it doesn’t but I could never do it with my regular US history students and then with the training what we did was we focused on how to analyze the text how to break it down ask

7:28 questions and give us enough information so that when I brought the students together to have our district R attic discussion it was number one a discussion and not an argument yeah they were able to pull from primary knowledge as well as build knowledge from each other and it just completely changed the culture the classroom both in my AP because I felt I had a better grasp on it as well as my on level-1 so it’s really changed

7:50 the way that I’m kind of teaching both levels and and in fact I had the opportunity to bring that back to my campus and so now my 10th grade team is starting to work on Socratic seminars as well and and incorporating more world history documents and stuff into it yeah so yeah it’s it’s it’s it’s having an effect on my campus and talk to my coordinator hopefully my district and

8:11 yeah you guys are doing great things thank you we were so glad that you were able to so thankful for you guys and all the lutely well thank you for all you do and you know we really appreciate you coming by yeah I think the Socratic seminars that we do a really interesting because it gives you just another tool for your tool chest right it wasn’t part

8:35 of their own kind of pedagogical experience right student yeah and so I think what’s powerful about what the weekend Liberty from programs that you’ve run for yes and some of the workshops that we’ve been Co designing yeah it’s better give them not only now this opportunity to practice the pedagogy but also some real clear tools of scaffolding the resources so that may can introduce yeah absolutely and just

8:56 an opportunity to get more familiar with something that you may have done maybe a long time ago in your looking for new tips or maybe it’s something that you’ve done recently but you’re looking to shake it up a little bit and I think that’s really a really neat opportunity that we’re able to do one of my favorite people chali are pretty special a little bit

9:20 about well I’m a teacher in Florida yeah I work in Melbourne Florida and they teach at Bombay magnet high school and it’s I teach government and I teach AP government I I just have a wonderful you know group of students I teach at a title one school so it’s diverse great I love Bill

9:45 of Rights Institute you guys at offer fantastic programs I’m looking forward to the new the new rollout yeah yeah and I’ve also attended some of your colloquia so I’m very proud to be part of that and the last one are women’s suffrage and also just you know the

10:06 women’s history is fantastic I’m also looking forward to your new lessons that you yeah absolutely well what I so admire about you and introduce that really is about it’s about continuing education right and you’re someone who in my observation of you as an educator might take that role very seriously yes that you are you are

10:27 a lifelong learner yes how important that to your practice you are sure I mean I think to be an effective teacher you need to model that learning and teaching go hand in hand right and so I I present to my colleagues what I have learned at different Institute’s or conferences I think that’s importantly to to

10:48 demonstrate and share but also my students are piqued by the by the fact that I’m a learner and they’re like what you’re going to accomplish all Tara Lee yeah because I get to network with all these wonderful people yeah and you know

11:09 only once a year I get to see some of these people right and and but it’s because right it’s a networking of learning and sharing what you know the craft is it’s just a continual it’s a continual lifelong you know learning of how to teach something better yeah so

11:30 here we an estimate okay so since 1993 okay so that was my first year teaching was 1993 2020 census like 27 duper teachers who are new to their waxen yeah what’s the recommendations do you have to kind of cultivate these relationships and these learnings is your your report

11:51 I’m gonna list some things that I just I know you’re at Madison’s oh yeah yeah are you in the iCivics Network as well yes and you’re in the Bill of Rights and students yes I putting me on the spot I’m also a national board certified some sheriffing yeah so I mean and there’s so

12:14 many other wonderful groups that I support you know there’s the cultivation of lifelong learning in their teaching I think surrounding yourself with as many different opportunities to go to conferences and day workshops or even

12:35 attending like webinars at night because even like through Twitter you know the hashtag SS chat you know dad it’s a great resource of finding out about different opportunities so I I know that’s what I think with one way to just start cheaply you know because I think it’s overwhelming for a first-year second-year teachers is they’re they’re

12:56 just trying to just you know work on classroom management so surround yourself with those master teachers those that are positive about teaching and learning I think that’s the best advice that I can give any new teacher right and as far as resources you know Bill of Rights Institute of course you know it’s a great way to start with I

13:17 mean you’ve always had excellent materials and well thank you Jennifer we appreciate it we appreciate you stopping by and thank you for all you do so of course now we’ve had two references to our new life liberty and pursuit of happiness resource which will be more information we coming out this spring about that

13:38 resource but it’s going to be a full digital online US history resource that should be customizable onto your classrooms but also will fit the rigor of an AP class room as well aligned with

13:59 the AP framework and it’s one of her it’s kind of one of our initiatives that really puts us at the leading edge of curriculum absolutely and speaking of getting the word out about new things Christensen who is our head of marketing for us of the Institute and what stood out so far for you at the NC SS two sugars gosh I think just the sheer

14:21 number of people here and the variety of different organizations and you know other exhibitors it’s really great the work that’s being done in that have you been able to find the unum here okay if you’re wondering what we did a four-hour

14:42 live webinar on Constitution Day and Chris as part of that when all over Washington DC in search for the enemy recommend you take a look at that webinar it was a lot of fun it was a lot of fun for Constitution they still work what would you say you see that as the big themes this year done together because we’ve been then see us a couple of times in a row we’ve last year in Chicago San Francisco and we were in DC

15:04 together did you and I started the Institute about the same time how did you say the themes are this year gosh that’s hard to answer I think that I think that the general topic of civics is so hot right now and I it may be because we’re approaching an election year and because you know there’s still so much political division in the country and I think people are hungry

15:25 across the country for more knowledge about the way our system works and about our history and sort of reassurance to from history then then everything’s going to turn out alright and then we can you know we can return to those civic values right to renew ourselves yeah absolutely that’s one of the things we’ve been talking about this year’s our constitutional principles and we’ve been

15:45 trying to yes mix up a little bit of how it is that were incorporating those into our curricular resources and I think for exactly that reason right it gives teachers something that they can appeal back to that is neutral particularly at a time when things are you know very tense and there’s a lot of conversations that are happening that have a lot of emotion bound up into them which is normal and has happened throughout history but it but as a sentient especially sharp right now we can turn

16:11 to and I think that yes I mean we’ve been saying this all year exhibits is high there are a lot of organs in our space now there’s a lot of energy there’s a lot of newspaper articles I mean we our civic action that has taken on a whole new context in the past couple of years and so I think that teachers struggle a little bit with how to how to manage all of that in flow for

16:32 their students and I think you’re absolutely seeing the energy around the impeachment and the upcoming election it was just gonna say impeachment yes something yeah our most traffic lesson recently has been our surprises no surprise yeah and it’s good to facilitate discourse on it right it’s something that’s it’s hard wherever wherever wherever it is you fall on the

16:52 question of impeachment it’s a process that takes place within our Constitution or something that’s interesting you can dive into that can highlight other parts of the government as well made our ability to be at NCS s possible with the work you’ve done so thank you so much for everything you do for the Institute

17:15 my pleasure it’s a lot of fun they have a great time at this every year yeah thanks so much thank you hi guys hey Chris no absolutely like this year we had the largest number of staff but we print all the new collateral we had a happy hour for our teachers because it’s really this is the place where our community gathers and we want to be a

17:36 part of that community and really honor the educator under the educator and help them to make new connections to find out about new information to find out about our new materials but also to meet each other so that they can discuss strategies and whatever else that they need for their classroom right speaking of our teachers my very dear colleague Laura Ville welcome Laura welcome so

18:01 laura has been at the Institute no longer no longer than Jenny okay second-longest yes is my first NTSF and i am thrilled to be here it’s been really fun to see a whole exhibit hall I’ve never not to see that ya know I love walking up and down our friends and colleagues I have loved

18:23 seeing teachers what I’ve known for so long on the internet and through email but so what’s really stood out to you just the number of people that have been coming through so wonderful feel to share resources with teachers and principals and administrators district

18:44 folks really fun I love that I can now open up that resources brochure and say this is everything that Bill Murray’s Institute has and people’s eyes just it’s been so fun to see over ten years how much we’ve grown a century thanks to your hard work and your team and to

19:10 being teacher services what is coming to event like this mean for you yes so we did our very first in CSS happy hour last night where we gathered about 50 teachers at a nearby venue and that was just like a one-day event to be able to bring together people who have never met but they’ve been to programming blocks

19:30 for a long time they were able to just meet new colleagues and get to know old friends in a different way so I loved being able to sit with our teachers for three hours and just enjoy enjoy it’s also what do you see for the future of FCFS for beyond our backyard right next

19:53 year twenty everyone should plan for that I we’re gonna do another event may be multiple yeah honor teacher Network people are gonna be there so that that will be coming up but just as we continue to grow our programs so that sort of alumni event type thing is going to become more in there what we can do to connect teachers because we know that

20:14 so many of them feel isolated and their tools are in their districts especially to be able to connect them with people in different states or even in different parts of their home state that are doing that they work they’re doing we’re so

20:37 excited to see how the community grows here at mgss and thank you again for last night you did an amazing job kind of all of our teacher engagement prophecies from Laura so she’s really exciting seeing our teacher Network grow

20:57 because I think you’re finding new ways of not only with educators being able to engage with our resources but also become a part of a community where they can interact with one another and find the support that they need in a peer network which i think is really talk to the teachers and ways that we write there’s no other place where 5,000 history and civics teachers courage where we have that kind of access to the

21:20 community that we already have and them to grow our community yeah a big part of the growth strategy of our community is our in-person programs so we’re gonna welcome Aaron progress our move from our programs keen so welcome to NC SS Aaron to you there’s time Aaron is one of our newest team members it’s only been a Grimaud and this is also Aaron’s first

21:41 census for seven years but you had never been to a conference no I just feel like we did a lot of smaller in person CDs but not big conferences like this maybe summit there are we estimated about

22:07 200,000 history and civics teachers in the u.s. a lot of people don’t they don’t hear about it or they don’t have the money they can’t do the same offices teachers are super super busy even though they have summers does really cow so what would you say are the most important things that you’ve noticed or

22:28 learn about this kind of what really stood out to you some of the things that have really stood out to me all first just being in programs it’s been really nice to be on the other side of it and meet all the teachers that we have kind of developed these programs or and who attend them and I don’t always see them until I go to programs or that I’m here at NTSF right and it’s been really nice

22:49 to hear their experience with the Bill of Rights Institute and just like their experience here at MTFs I just feel like this overall excitement and even people are just so passionate I think sometimes to be here about how teachers are have been getting different or they’re just there because they have such low pay but everyone here is so passionate yeah

23:10 about what they do and to have 5,000 really excited just social studies teachers it makes me excited right just full of adrenaline from the people that are coming up to our booth what stood out to you has there been any like general comment that have been similar or what is it that that folks are

23:32 looking for that that they’re finding here at NC says I think they’re looking for things that they can one adapt to a lot of current learners and levels and things that our young students can learn say like history is a living change right social studies is a living thing or if I’m not involved in the government it

23:52 still affects me so I can still affect it yep and so when we talk about our curriculums you want them to see that what we’re doing is not just in the past or a woman’s separation yep you too can be part of a movement and here’s how you can go about it yeah well that’s really exciting and Aaron we’re glad that you got your first NSS s

24:13 [Music] if you’re coming to one of our teacher programs you know probably and here taking the Aaron she’s new to the team but she’s awesome and so we’re so excited yeah great well thank you very really appreciate it no I think that’s I

24:34 think that’s really exciting that you know seeing educators coming here looking for solutions and having a whole room of groups that they can go and talk to interact with I mean every teacher is doing amazing work in the classroom but you really have the opportunity to get new practices because yeah the people

24:55 putting in for the conference sessions are the ones that think they have something innovative to share yeah and I think one of the things that’s been exciting for me too is being able to sort of brainstorm with teachers when they come up right like they can see our whole list of resources they can see all of our different programs that we can run and then be able to just talk with them saying hey what do you teach in getting a whole range of teachers in finding ways to fit things into their classroom I think it’s really a lot of fun a huge we sure did and last but very

25:19 much not least it’s our colleague I brought you stickers I was at ISS last

25:42 year in Chicago a little weather slightly different little chillier not ah it’s been lovely for those not here is around 70 degrees here which is lovely yes it’s been delightful to put a nice break for us from Virginia right exactly we mention it’s in Austin so the food here is amazing all the guests here are just raving about this

26:02 so what stood out to you about your experience at NCS s overall well every NCS s is pretty amazing in terms of bringing so many different people together who all have a passion for the same thing even if it’s some people are teaching geography and some people teaching physics and physics physics civics geography might include

26:28 photography there anyway so the coming together and just sharing the passion for teaching but also for learning right so I think that’s what’s super cool is all the teachers who are just having a great time learning these sessions I know that’s a general theme and CSS maybe because I’m biased I’m really into social so it gets an energizing thing and like a collaboration like working

26:50 together you know some people say okay I’d love to build off these ideas and it just keeps yes right and yes and a number of sessions that have multiple presenters from different organizations right so you were in was that was all about the 19th amendment and it was with

27:10 our friends from the Pacific granola Network village and so we each were in different stations and teachers where you both had to filter through right and we were talking about what are the pain points in teaching in teaching 19 amendments the biggest one we heard is time that you only have sometimes not

27:34 even that I don’t know that doesn’t make sense strangely though those pain points form a community right because no matter who’s we’re meeting from Maine to California that common experience is something to build on

27:54 that’s what my biggest thing is that like there is so much problem-solving yeah yes exactly yeah there’s come to our booth and they say I like I got a new course we’re developing course it doesn’t exist yeah that for me is part of building on our

28:14 network which we do at our programs but also here at NC SS is continuing that conversation right building out that support group so when you go home from NC SS with all these new ideas you have people that you can relate with you can send us questions and write all of us can keep pulling in the same direction together yeah there’s that momentum right that that invigorating momentum that you’re so inspired in November at the middle of the year so now you have

28:35 the rest of the year to get excited already think about next year that’s right so that’s really cool always right around Thanksgiving right now open around an election cycle that’s true it’s not until December because the election is right right final day in DC and 100th anniversary right up next year

28:56 you all should try and come to NC FS impossible it is the first anniversary of the National Council for social studies yeah it’s happening in Washington DC and we have perfected a lot of our process views so we will be there and in the meantime keep stay

29:16 tuned for other webinars every other week throughout the school year ten Furion webinar we’re starting a podcast right that’s right we have our eight lessons that come from Kirk every other the trainer week we have our homework health series that will start back up in the spring there are lots of really exciting fun things happening at the Bill of Rights Institute that we want you to be a part of yeah so to keep this conversation going even though it’s even

29:37 though NC SS is ending the conversation doesn’t absolutely so stay tuned and thanks for joining us here at NC SS 2019 take care bye bye