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Reposted by Brendan Gillis

Whit @drwhit.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Good morning! Texas is revising its K-12 social studies standards (TEKS) for 5.5 million kids, & the State Board of Education (SBOE) is meeting today to discuss their progress today. I will be live-tweeting (posting?) about anything that concerns social studies. Follow this thread for updates!

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

The person who submitted the National Park Service permit application for the June 14 military parade in DC also helped organize rally on January 6, 2021. 6600 soldiers, tanks, and helicopters marching from the Pentagon toward the Capitol—what could possibly go wrong? 1/4

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Reposted by Brendan Gillis

History Shorts w/ Peter Zablocki @historyshortspod.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Ever wonder how American history is taught in our public schools? The @historians.org just published a report that answers your question. I discussed its findings with @bgillis.bsky.social, the Director of Teaching and Learning at the AHA. LISTEN: directory.libsyn.com/episode/inde...

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

The Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Mid-Atlantic/US Territories Region @historians.org welcomes applications for grants of up to $25,000 to organizations that plan to integrate the Library’s resources into education programs, teaching materials, and other related projects.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Ken Burns is in Virginia this week for previews of his forthcoming six-part documentary series "The American Revolution." I attended a special plenary roundtable about the film at the 2025 American Historical Association Annual Meeting and wrote up a brief review for Perspectives on History. 🧵↩️

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Exciting news: @historians.org (the AHA) is the new Mid-Atlantic/U.S. Territories regional partner for the Library of Congress TPS grant program. In this role, we will award subgrants of up to $25k to organizations across our region (DE, DC, MD, NC, VA, WV, AS, PR, NMI, GU, USVI).

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Meanwhile in Arkansas, new legislation would require public schools instruct students about “The natural deterioration of democracies into autocracies.”

Text of Arkansas House Bill 1060, which stresses the “natural deterioration of democracies into autocracies over history”

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

NCHE and EuroClio are hosting a discord hangout to mark International Day of Education (Jan. 25). Excited to hear from Jennifer Baniewicz (Amos Alonzo Stagg High School) and other educators from around the world as part of "Perspectives from Three Nations.”

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

In September, @historians.org published American Lesson Plan, a landmark study on the US history instruction in secondary schools nationwide. Join us at #AHA25 for a panel on What High School Teachers Teach About US History with David Blight, George Sanchez, Brenda Santos, and Whitney Barringer.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

The AHA @historians.org is proud to offer free conference registration for public school teachers in New York City. Instructional staff are eligible to register at no cost for the Annual Meeting of the AHA, Jan. 3-6, 2025, in NYC. #historysky #iteachsocialstudies #edusky #sschat

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Reposted by Brendan Gillis

Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for sharing this terrific postdoc @jcblibrary.bsky.social! I'm testing your generosity here but would love to also share that we have TWO additional senior research fellowships for BROWN2026. Details at apply.interfolio.com/159128 and see number 2 below for terms... 1/

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

What's next for history in higher education? Join us at 3:00 PM ET on Dec. 6 for a free online event. I'll discuss the legislative and policy landscape for history education, both nationally and in the states, with Jeremy Young (PEN America) and AHA colleagues. www.historians.org/event/whats-...

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

What object or artifact do you use to capture compelling aspects of the American Revolution and its global legacies? Submit a pitch to the American Historical Review for a special issue called '76 Objects, featuring short essays about material traces of revolution from the US and abroad.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Excited for a panel about American Lesson Plan at #NCSS2024 in Boston with Jim Grossman, Jennifer Morgan, and David Blight. We will discuss what we learned about how teachers teach, and steps the social studies community is taking to inform policymakers about what actually happens in the classroom.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Kate Brown and I will be sharing insights and strategies for teaching #America250 at #NCSS24 #NCSS2024 in Boston. Come join our conversation!

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

What does resilience look like in the history classroom? The Content Cohort for K–16 Educators offers a new way for teachers to experience the American Historical Association annual meeting Jan. 3-6, 2025, in New York City. www.historians.org/events/annua...

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 25/09/2024

“Critics of public schools have accused them of teaching students to hate America…. But a new study from the American Historical Association suggests that such criticisms are overblown, even unwarranted.” @ahahistorians.bsky.social American Lesson Plan in Forbes: www.forbes.com/sites/peterg...

forbes.com

What Are History Teachers Really Teaching Students

American high school history classrooms, it turns out, are not run by Marxist radicals intent on indoctrination, but by professionals who are serious about both teaching and history.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 14/03/2024

“Politically motivated activists may be waging a history war, but teachers are not its warriors.” Check out this fabulous op ed from the Mapping the Landscape of Secondary US Education research team and Jim Grossman. @ahahistorians.bsky.social time.com/6917632/hist...

time.com

What History Warriors Get Wrong

A new survey shows that culture warriors on both sides have the wrong idea about what's happening in American classrooms

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 05/01/2024

Full house listening to Bob Bain at the Teaching Writing Workshop: Writing in the Age of AI. #AHA24

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 05/01/2024

Kicking off day two of #AHA24 with a great panel on Introductory Graduate Courses in the Age of Career Diversity with @kmhilliard.bsky.social, @benjaminepark.bsky.social, Joan Bristol and Caitlin Rosenthal.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 21/12/2023

The California History-Social Science Project walks through some of the nearly 90 teaching & learning sessions at #AHA24 in San Francisco that are likely to appeal to K-12 history, civics, and social studies teachers. What panels are you looking forward to? chssp.ucdavis.edu/news/califor...

chssp.ucdavis.edu

California Educators - Attend the American Historical Association Conference in San Francisco Januar...

San Francisco, CA, January 4-7, 2024

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 14/12/2023

The American Historical Association Annual Meeting is for teachers! My friend, colleague, and brilliant teacher Katharina Matro for sharing some highlights from the nearly 90 sessions on teaching and learning at #AHA24 in San Francisco. We hope you can join us! www.historians.org/research-and...

historians.org

The Annual Meeting Is for Teachers: Highlights for K–12 Attendees at AHA24

With almost 90 sessions devoted to teaching and learning history, AHA24 is a great conference for teachers.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 13/12/2023

"Ohio’s teachers must now assign the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail' but remain silent as to its substance." Jim Grossman and I wrote an op ed for The Plain Dealer outlining our opposition to Ohio SB 83. www.cleveland.com/opinion/2023...

cleveland.com

SB 83 would require college students to read documents their teachers wouldn’t be allowed to discu...

A college campus replete with political appointees censoring syllabi would not represent “intellectual diversity.” Rather, it would replace standards of scholarship with the winds of politics. SB ...

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 07/12/2023

Take a peek under the hood at the complicated logistics behind #AHA24: “in San Francisco, where median hotel rates are often north of $250 per night, ours will be $179 per night…. Hotels offer us meeting space, services, and discounted rates in return for filling a certain number of hotel rooms.”

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Reposted by Brendan Gillis

Christopher McKnight Nichols @cmcknichols.bsky.social · 06/12/2023

Just last week this happened. This year more than 700 Ohioans submitted written + oral testimony in opposition to this terrible bill overreaching into Ohio higher education, according to many this is a record for opposition in the state YET zombie bill SB83 (now in 11th draft) is being pushed again

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 04/12/2023

Check out this article Chris Jones, Beau Dickenson, and I wrote in Social Education. The VA standards aren't perfect, "but the advocacy of educators and their allies resulted in clear and measurable improvements that will benefit the state’s public school students." Open access: bit.ly/3GN9CJv

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 01/12/2023

The AHA has two panels this afternoon at NCSS 2023. Join faculty from History Gateways for a conversation about helping our students prepare for college, and don’t miss a preliminary report of the findings from our Mapping the Landscape of Secondary US History Project @ahahistorians.bsky.social

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 01/12/2023

Kathy Swan: we were worried in 2010, with the emergence of common core, that social studies would be marginalized as an adjunct to literacy and language arts. Enjoying the opening roundtable about the first decade of the C3 Framework at NCSS 2023.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 30/11/2023

Just arrived in Nashville for NCSS 2023. Looking forward to helping lead a workshop on strategies for advocacy to defend the integrity of history and social studies education across the country. If you’re here, come say hi or stop by the AHA booth (#540) in the exhibit hall.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 11/11/2023

I’ve been having a great #NACBS2023, learning about great new research, meeting colleagues from across the world, and talking about how British Studies scholars can advocate for history education. Not a bad view to kick off day two.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

Great news out of Henrico County!Schuyler VanValkenburg is projected to win in VA’s 16th district. It’ll be fantastic to have a history and government teacher in the Virginia Senate. #Election2023

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 06/11/2023

The Teaching & Learning guide for the 2024 AHA annual meeting in San Francisco includes __70__ sessions and a slew of networking opportunities. So much to see, learn, and do for those of us invested in history education. What panels are you most interested in? www.historians.org/annual-meeti...

historians.org

Teaching and Learning at AHA24

Use this guide to navigate the full spread of teaching and learning events taking place at AHA24.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

Does the C3 framework, with its emphasis on inquiry, shape the way you teach? Are you interested in what's next in social studies education? Join us Weds., Nov. 15, at 3 p.m. ET for an AHA Learn webinar on Ten Years of C3: The Past, Present, and Future of State Standards with lead author Kathy Swan

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

Are you still interested in being on the program for the 2024 AHA annual meeting in San Francisco? Sign up for one of two teaching workshops by November 15, 2023, and the @ahahistorians.bsky.social can list your name as a session participant in the online conference program

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

Lendol Calder reports that generative AI can help understand what a good annotated bibliography should look like during a lively conversation about Writing Assignments in the Age of AI at the 2023 AHA Texas Conference on intro courses in Waco.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

How do you teach histories of gender and sexuality in introductory courses? Great roundtable with Nancy Baker, Raul Ramos, Suraya Khan, Fay Yarbrough, and Rebecca Sharpless at the 2023 @ahahistorians.bsky.social Texas Conference on Introductory History Courses at Baylor University

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 11/10/2023

In today's AHA Learn session, Aya Marczyk shared an overview of her work (in collaboration with Abby Reisman and Brenda Santos) to use differences in how historians have approached Holocaust testimony to help secondary school students grapple with historiography and historical interpretation.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 11/10/2023

In his #AHRSyllabus piece, due out in December, Tore Olsson emphasizes how video games can push students to explore new topics. Here, Red Dead Redemption 2 frames a lesson on the intersection of race and gender in the campaign for women's suffrage in the US South in the 1890s.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 11/10/2023

The first installment of our new series AHA Learn provided a sneak peak of some fantastic #AHRSyllabus modules slated to be published in coming months. Many thanks to Mark Bradley, Julia Brookins, and Kathy Hilliard for introducing this important new initiative. @ahahistorians.bsky.social

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 07/10/2023

Academics and educators can share in the responsibility to help the public better understand what historians do and why our work matters. Kathy Hilliard interviews Katharina Matro at the @ahahistorians.bsky.social Utah Conference on Introductory History Courses.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Teachers from West High School in Salt Lake City are offering insight into What College Faculty Should Know About Their Entering Students. The verdict: students are enthusiastic, sharp, and energetic, but they benefit from reassurance that they belong and guidance about resources on campus.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Excited to be taking part in the 2023 @ahahistorians.bsky.social Utah Conference on Introductory History Courses at Salt Lake Community College. This brings educators across k-16 who teach intro classes at a range of types of institutions.

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 04/10/2023

The #AHRSyllabus project debuted in the September issue of the American Historical Review, creating the first dedicated space for teaching and learning in the pages of our discipline's flagship journal. This is a big deal. academic.oup.com/ahr/article/...

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Brendan Gillis @bgillis.bsky.social · 29/09/2023

History teachers ask questions. How we frame these inquiries shapes what our students learn. Check out this fantastic essay from my AHA colleagues, who "stress that historical inquiry doesn’t need to be politically urgent or philosophically deep to be compelling." www.historians.org/research-and...

historians.org

No Such Thing as a Bad Question? Inquiry-Based Learning in the History Classroom

Historians love questions, but not every question promotes historical thinking.

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