Year Three
"Foundations of History” addresses the crucial skills needed for learning history and provides an opportunity to examine the ways in which the discipline is taught. Rather than seeing history as just essential content, “Foundations” emphasizes teaching analytical skills, learning to discern patterns of causation, developing syntheses, establishing the significance of events and weighing the validity of evidence. Through sessions devoted to analyzing primary sources including text, art and material culture drawn from a variety of resources including Old Sturbridge Village and the Museum of Fine Arts, “Foundations” provides a course in the "habits of mind,” the basic process of questioning, that leads students to a deeper understanding of the historical process.
This course also provides background for the second TEC Teaching American History course, "Footsteps of Freedom: An In-depth Study of Revolutionary Boston," also being offered under the auspices of the Teaching Ameican History Grant.
"In the Footsteps of Freedom: An In-Depth of Revolutionary Boston" will provide teachers with the opportunity to visit the sites where significant revolutionary events occurred including the Boston Massacre, the Boston Team Party, the opening skirmishes of the Revolution and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Participants will examine primary sources that reveal fascinating details about both famous revolutionary figures, such as Paul Revere and John Adams, as well as figures often overlooked by standard history texts, such as poet Phillis Wheatley and free black soldier Salem Poor. Sessions will be complemented by lectures by some of the region's most lively and highly regarded historians.