History Education in Our Centennial Year

Siobhan Carter-David

Carter-David

As we begin our year-long centennial celebration, I’d like to take this opportunity to update OAH members on the history educator programs currently in place and which we hope to strengthen in coming months.

The OAH Magazine of History is probably the most salient means by which we continue to meet the needs of precollegiate educators. In this respect, our mission is two-fold. First, it is to provide articles and teaching strategies that focus on traditional subjects and themes in United States history, such as those that can be found in our 2005 issues on the American West and the Market Revolution. Second, we work to keep history educators abreast of new developments in the scholarship of United States history, as evidenced through our issues on the history of sexuality, American identity, and our upcoming issue on the history of disability. Blending both the novel and traditional, we have devoted three issues to celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln: one dealing with the Constitution, another focusing on race during his presidency, and the last exploring Lincoln’s legacy.

Another way we demonstrate our pledge to support secondary educators is through our work with the Teaching American History (TAH) grant program. In partnership with TAH administrators and program directors, we currently offer a myriad of support services including reduced rate history educator memberships, sponsorship of joint seminars at the annual meeting, providing speakers from the OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program, and consultation regarding content and materials for TAH program workshops. In the future, we hope to expand our assistance to include help with grant proposal preparation for school systems and technical support for web-based manifestations of TAH projects.

Additionally, our partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History has enabled us to provided fifty precollegiate educators with travel grants to attend the annual meeting each year since 2004. This program has enjoyed much success, drawing dozens of applications from teachers across the country seeking professional development opportunities in keeping up with the latest scholarship and teaching methods in American history. Through the use of GLI travel grants, we have been able to offer over one hundred teachers from rural and urban districts the chance to expand their knowledge base and fellowship with peers when their school systems were often unable to provide funding for such opportunities.

Finally, the OAH has confirmed its dedication to providing support for community college instructors through the organization of several community college workshops, the first of which will take place in June 2007 at El Camino College in Torrance, California.

The OAH continues to explore new and exciting ways to broaden and extend its support for the teaching of American history. With the commemoration of one hundred years of service this year, we hope that you will also join us in celebrating our renewed commitment to exploring and enriching the craft of teaching American history.