How TAH Grants Educate Professors: A Report from the Third Annual TAH Symposium

Kelly Woestman

During the last three years, nearly three hundred teachers, historians, project directors, history educators, curriculum specialists, evaluators, and other stakeholders in the Teaching American History Grant program have participated in the OAH/H-NET Teaching American History Grant Symposia. Participants have analyzed the short-term and long-term impacts of the more than $800 million federal dollars earmarked for history education.  

The goal of the OAH/H-NET TAH Symposia is to examine the larger impact of TAH grants on the historical profession. A continuing issue for everyone involved in TAH grants is extending their impact on history and history education long after funding ends.

Expanding on the theme of previous symposia examining the impact of Teaching American History grants on the historical profession,  Professor Carol Berkin gave the keynote address, “’Things Your Teachers Taught Me:’ How TAH Grants Educate Professors,” at the Third Annual OAH/H-Net TAH Grant Symposium held in conjunction with the OAH meeting on March 30, 2008, in New York City. In addition to being a prolific author and frequent contributor to television documentaries, as well as being an OAH Distinguished Lecturer, Berkin has participated in more than thirty TAH grant institutes. As the Presidential Professor of History at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, she pursues not only the traditional responsibilities of an active historian but has expanded her reach to various constituencies in the public sector beyond the academic realm. In her keynote, Berkin emphasized that, as a result of her interaction with teachers in TAH grants throughout the nation, she pulled aside the curtain that often separates academic historians from their audiences and began to think more about the specific needs of her various audiences, especially teachers inundated with state standards and prescribed curricula—issues often unfamiliar to college teachers.

Contrasting the needs of teachers with the traditional presentation styles of most academic historians, Berkin pointed out that many historians were missing out on the potential for enhanced understanding, not only of history, but of how people learn history. Additionally, Berkin asserted that by clearly stating the goals of a presentation up front and clarifying key terms, a historian could lay the foundation for working with teachers to ensure enduring understandings of the human experience that also increase the analytical skills as well as the sustained curiosity of everyone in the study of American history.

Audience-centered discussion panels comprised the rest of the day as more than one hundred participants more closely examined the impact of the more than $800 million of TAH grant funding for the historical profession. I chaired the day’s first panel that examined the history expertise available from K-12 and public history institutions where they are included as equal partners in grant planning and implementation. Adrienne Kupper pointed out that she was unaware of the numerous history education resources available from the New-York Historical Society until she went to work for the organization. Will Mallet, a secondary history teacher who has also served as a Teacher Leadership Team member for five grants in Kansas, explained how TAH funding allowed him to research in archives across the country, which added to his understanding and teaching of American history. Furthermore, he pointed out the collaboration opportunities that the grants provide for teachers who often have few other opportunities to discuss their common interests and challenges. Finally, Charles Calhoun pointed out that humanities organizations have strong organizational and networking skills that could help sustain the long-term impact of TAH grants on the larger historical community.

Forging sustainable partnerships was the focus of the first afternoon panel led by H-TAH coeditor Thomas Thurston. Gary Nash discussed his extensive experience working with teachers while Margaret Smith-Crocco pointed out that successful TAH grants should include faculty from departments of education and include a focus on how children learn history. Kimberly Ibach, an OAH Executive Board member, asserted that teachers should play a key role in determining the specific history topics studied through TAH grants. The OAH Committee on Teaching chair, Steve Mintz, called on participants to think of TAH grants as “one would a marriage.” Each partner would expect to think in new ways throughout the life of a TAH project and work together to create a “lasting legacy” as well as “engage in genuine give and take” in which partners listen to one another for the good of all.

The third audience-centered panel focused on the continuing challenges of effective evaluation. Alex Stein, the U.S. Department of Education TAH Program Team Leader, discussed the ongoing regression discontinuity study to evaluate the effectiveness of TAH grants. He pointed out that, because only fifteen or so states require testing of student knowledge of American history, an effective national impact measure is one of the biggest challenges facing TAH grants. Elise Fillpot then shared the diverse means that her programs used to evaluate the teachers’ increased knowledge of American history and their confidence in teaching history. Another experienced TAH participant, David Gerwin, argued that “there’s not a quantitative measure that tells you what you really want to know that doesn’t have a qualitative factor going into it.”  H-TAH coeditor Rachel Ragland chaired this panel.

Symposium participants also had the opportunity to participate in onsite visits arranged by panelist David Gerwin in New York City area schools on Monday morning and several participated in the optional Sunday night dine-around at area restaurants. Planning is now underway for the Fourth Annual TAH Symposium in Seattle to be held in conjunction with the March 2009 OAH Annual Meeting. We would like to thank The History Channel and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History for their generous support of the symposium.