Below are the discussion guides for today.  Remember, each is separated by a solid line.

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Questions for today:

• What does it mean to teach with passion - especially as explained by Fried in The Passionate Teacher - and to be a good history teacher?
• What is good historical content?
• How does teaching thematically help you become a good history teacher?

Good history teachers..

1. Know history, are life long learners, and search for new research and resources to enliven their classroom discussions. Such continue to search for and incorporate new and diverse historical content and innovative teaching methods into their classrooms and revise their beliefs about history as they learn more content.
2. Are passionate about history, about teaching history, and about young people.  Such teachers demonstrate a genuine interest in and concern for students and an ability to convey a love of history in the classroom setting.
3. Create respectful classroom environments.  Such teachers hear their students and respect their voices, allow them to freely express their intellectual thoughts and personal opinions, encourage students to respect and listen to diverging viewpoints and attitudes, and continuously use new teaching methods that fit student needs.
4. Are storytellers who make connections between the past and the present.  Such teachers show students how the present is illuminated by the past.
5. Use the tools of historians, especially primary documents, historiography, and debate.  Such teachers teach students to examine primary documents for evidence to support the historical record and their viewpoints, encourage them to raise questions about history, and require them to analyze and compare historian’s competing and often controversial views in the classroom setting.
6. Celebrate diversity, model democracy, and teach for social justice.  Such teachers create a classroom in which students learn about the multicultural makeup of the American people, teach about democracy and model democratic values, and  help students understand that they do their best work when they strive to make society more just.
7. Collaborate with colleagues.  Such teachers engage in discussions with colleagues, ask for advice and mentoring, and talk with teachers at other school sites, educators at professional conferences, and with fellow subscribers to professional journals.
8. Are reflective.  Such teachers ask themselves what worked in their classrooms and what did not, listen to students' positive as well as negative critiques of their teaching, and then make necessary changes in both content and method.
9. Understand the importance of chronological understanding. Such teachers understand that chronological thinking is at the heart of historical reasoning. Without a clear sense of historical time-time past, present, and future-students are bound to see events as one great tangled mess. Without a strong sense of chronology - of when events occurred and in what temporal order - it is impossible for students to examine relationships among them or to explain historical causality. Chronology provides the mental scaffolding for organizing historical thought.
10. Use carefully crafted themes to convey historical content.  Such teachers develop a list of overall course themes that provide "bottom line" messages for their students, create lessons that illustrate the themes, and encourage students to demonstrate their knowledge of the themes, as well as critique and create new themes of their own.

1. History is storytelling in its finest form; it weaves together many related historical and contemporary events and ideas that are linked to a larger story.   History is not a recitation of unrelated facts that do not contribute to a larger story.
2. History is interpretive; it invites students to debate multiple perspectives, offer their opinions and educated interpretations, and challenge existing beliefs. History does not dummy down to students by teaching standardized facts that do not encourage open inquiry and honest interpretation.
3. History is revisionist in scope; it is an on-going conversation and a constant process of reexamination that is based upon continual new discoveries and evidence. History is not about an agreed upon set of facts, one indisputably true history, or a forever-fixed story that is never subjected to changes and updates.
4. History is integrative of many disciplines; it especially incorporates geography, literature, art, sociology, economics, and political science. History is not a simple historical chronology of famous dates, incidents, and people.
5. History is inclusive; it ensures that the experiences of all classes, regions, and ethno-racial groups, as well as both genders, are included. History is not restricted to stories written by and about the most well known leaders in American history.
6. History is relevant; it uses past experiences to explain what is important in our lives today.  History does not rely solely on the past with no examination of how the past has influenced the present or how it may influence the future.
7. History is experiential; it encourages people to actively experience history, question history, and think about history.  History is not static, passive, or reliant upon the mere recitation of facts and dates.
8. History is controversial; it presents all the facts, warts and all, examines both the negative and positive actions of Americans, encourages students to think about social justice and social change, and promotes real understanding of historical issues and events and critical analysis of our nation’s domestic and foreign policies. History is not about one absolute truth, one particular perspective, or one set of facts and figures.

1. The “facts” are seldom straightforward. There are some historical facts that are not in dispute - like Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492 and slaves resisted slavery. But the reality of these “facts” is complex and difficult to determine.  For instance, debate exists about how large the American population was prior to the arrival of Columbus and about whether his actions with the Taino people set genocide into motion; about how many slaves resisted slavery and how such resistance occurred.  Furthermore, historians have only spotty records at best to determine the facts and often disagree over definitions - like what is “genocide” and “resistance?”

2. The interpretation of the “facts” differs among historians.  These disagreements can be the result of the following:

4. They encourage us to wonder if there there is such a thing as “truth.”  Truth, some historians argue, does not exist; it is simply a series of interpretative narratives constructed by people who view life in very different and often highly personal ways.  Others argue that there are not only some very real truths in history and interpretations are useful without resting on a solid and truthful foundation.