School is typically out for the summer in early June, but not for the twenty-eight K-12 teachers that participated in the inaugural CIVICs 250 Scholars program. Made possible by a Department of Education grant to promote civics education, the teachers have been gathering virtually once a month throughout the spring to discuss how to use primary sources and civics documents in their classroom. The program culminated in a five-day long seminar held on BGSU’s campus, where the K-12 teachers had the opportunity to learn from faculty and each other about how to add to their civics instruction in their classrooms. Throughout the summer, the teachers will take what they’ve learned and create lesson plans to be taught in their classrooms next school year.

The teachers were joined by History and Political Science faculty throughout the week, who each brought their own expertise, research interests and thoughts about teaching using documents to front of mind for the K-12 teachers. Dr. Andy Schocket, joined by Dr. Andrea Freimuth, a recent PhD graduate of BGUS’s American Cultural Studies program, taught about the 1790 census. Dr. Schocket and Dr. Freimuth wove together some excellent new insights, and using primary source documents, gave the teachers a very enthusiastic and fresh understanding of how the first census was administered. Dr. Kara Barr introduced documents from America’s formative years leading up to the Civil War, and discussed the use of fictional documents written during this time period as lesson materials for the teachers.

Dr. Dave Jackson (Political Science) discussed a variety of civic documents from Reconstruction-WWII from the that he regularly uses in his teaching practices, and showed how important it is to refer to the thoughts of the authors to understand the changes of American political thought over the years. Dr. Michael Carver dialogued with the teachers about the challenges of teaching modern US history using documents, and he shared many other historical resources that will be used within the teacher’s classrooms. Dr. Savi Kunze rounded out the document discussion by comparing the Declaration of Independence to other declarations of rights over the years, and discussed key comparisons between the founding documents of the United States and other similar documents.

The teachers also made two stops at the Jerome Library while they were with us on campus. They first took a tour of BGSU’s Center for Archival Collections (CAC), and accessed local documents and many of their other collections that gave them the chance to have some hands-on interaction with documents and other interesting resources. The second place the teachers visited was BGSU’s Curriculum Resource Center (CRC), which houses books for students of all age ranges, curriculum guides and many other wonderful resources for educators.

This week-long seminar and teacher program could not have been possible without the coordination and leadership of the Project Team, Dr. Alexander Butler (School of Inclusive Education), Dr. Savi Kunze, and Kristin Schnerer (Outreach Coordinator, History). Their tireless work and enthusiasm for nerdy discussions will continue throughout the remainder of their time with the first of three teacher cohorts. Additionally, this program is supported entirely through the CIVICs 250 Grant, which has been the catalyst for such phenomenal learning, conversations and insights into the teaching of our founding documents to the next generation of students.

For more additional media coverage of the week, please read more at the following links: