News Release

Subject:   Connecting to the Promises of Democracy: Citizenship, Conflict, and Opportunity

Teaching American History Grant 2007 - MCPS/Virginia Tech/Virginia Historical Society

Montgomery County Public Schools, the Virginia Historical Society, the Virginia Tech Department of History, and the Virginia Tech School of Education are working together to enrich teacher content knowledge of United States history while supporting engaging, challenging inquiry-based history instruction for all K-12 teachers.  A Teaching American History grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement will provide professional development for MCPS teachers over the next three years. 

The kickoff event will be held on Tuesday, November 6, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Christiansburg Middle School and will feature historians from Virginia Tech and Radford University.  Dr. Keith Barton from the University of Cincinnati and co-author of Teaching History for the Common Good and Doing History: Investigating with Children in Elementary and Middle Schools will present on “Teaching History for Democratic Citizenship”. 

Other presentation topics include: 

·         Race in Virginia, Race in America:  How has it historically worked? 

·         Beyond Nat Turner: How did slaves resist?

·         At what point did women become citizens under the law and what strategies did suffragists use to win the vote?

·         What were the goals of the United States occupation of Japan?

·         Can English radicalism help us to understand the coming of the American Revolution? 

·         How did American workers respond to industrialization?

·         Did the United States go to War to Promote Democracy? 

·         Abraham Lincoln:  Humanitarian/Statesman or Practical Politician?