History Education for All: A Proposal to Establish a Center for History Education at Teachers College at Columbia University

FAIN: CH-50926-12

Teachers College, Columbia University (New York, NY 10027-6605)
Anand R. Marri (Project Director: May 2011 to September 2012)
Thomas James (Project Director: September 2012 to December 2016)

Endowment for a Center for History Education that includes a graduate fellowship program, a digital history portal, and curricular innovations.

Teachers College proposes a major three-year campaign to endow a Center for History Education with the mission of improving the teaching and learning of American history in high-poverty schools with diverse populations, especially new immigrants and English Language Learners. The focus of these efforts will be to address the question: What does it mean to be an American? The Center’s mission will be to provide a national model of history education for the increasingly diverse student population nationwide through on-site and online professional development activities. The grant endowment will specifically support: establishment of a Center for History Education; development of teaching and learning materials in history to be field-tested with local teachers and put onto a web portal; two fully funded History Fellows (stipend and scholarship) who will develop high-quality teaching resources designed specifically for these student populations.

Media Coverage

"Bringing History to Life" (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Joe Levine
Publication: TC Today
Date: 6/1/2015
Abstract: Article notes partnerships formed and faculty support in launching the Center on History and Education and shaping its strategies to improve history education on the K-12 level. At the center of those strategies is the primary role that local (New York City) plays toward inspiring students' interest in historical study.
URL: http://http://www.tc.columbia.edu/newsroom/publications/tc-today/2015/volume-40-no-1/TCToday_Sp15_HighResGAFinal_lo_2.pdf

Associated Products

Teachers College: Pioneering Education, Celebrating 125 Years of Innovation in Learning (Exhibition)
Title: Teachers College: Pioneering Education, Celebrating 125 Years of Innovation in Learning
Curator: Judith M. Burton, Professor and Director of Art and Art Education, Columbia Teachers College
Abstract: In honor of its 125th anniversary, the continuing story of Teachers College at Columbia University—covering not only its work in teacher education but also its many ground-breaking contributions in health, psychology, nutrition and other fields—is the focus of a new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society. Teachers College: Pioneering Education, Celebrating 125 Years of Innovation in Learning is an exhibit of photographs, documents, and artifacts illustrating the history of the nation’s oldest and largest graduate school of education. Teachers College: Pioneering Education, Celebrating 125 Years of Innovation in Learning recaps the College’s humble beginnings as Grace Dodge’s Kitchen Garden Association, through which “lady volunteer” instructors taught cooking, sewing, and other fundamental domestic skills to immigrant women and their children. It traces the Association’s change in focus to educating teachers as the world faced new challenges, and looks at some of the innovations and luminaries that have come from both faculty and graduates. The exhibit concludes with a look at the College’s current-day efforts to shape a new “Century of the Learner” that harnesses new findings from cognitive and neuroscience about how people learn and how teaching can be tailored to meet individual strengths and weaknesses.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://: www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Primary URL Description: Home page of the website of Columbia Teachers College, Center on History and Education. The page notes the Center's projects, events, and activities.
Secondary URL: http://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/teachers-college-pioneering-education-celebrating-125-years-innovation-learning
Secondary URL Description: Exhibitions page of the website of the New York Historical Society (NY, NY) where the exhibit was organized and on view to the public.

Grand Simplification: Historical Illiteracy in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Grand Simplification: Historical Illiteracy in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Abstract: Author of THE CONDEMNATION OF BLACKNESS: RACE, CRIME, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN URBAN AMERICA (2010), Khalil Muhammad explores, in this public lecture, the link between race and crime that historically has shaped and limited opportunities for African Americans. Muhammad addresses how black criminality emerged with the publication of the 1890 census. Comparing white European immigrants to African Americans, he discusses how social scientists seized on statistical data to construct and affirm an enduring discourse of black crime.
Author: Kahlil Gibran Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL
Date: 04/24/2013
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/educatingharlem/lecture-series
Primary URL Description: Website of Educating Harlem: Histories of Learning and Schooling in an American Community. Organized in collaboration with the Institute for Urban and Minority Education, the Center on History and Education, and the Program in History and Education at Columbia Teachers College, Educating Harlem supports a scholarly community focused on investigating the history of education, broadly defined, in 20th century Harlem. The public lecture may be viewed here.
Secondary URL: /http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Website of the Teachers College Center on History and Education, which notes events in collaboration with Educating Harlem.

Whatever Happened to the Negro Question? Educational Discourse and the Lost Question of Race (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Whatever Happened to the Negro Question? Educational Discourse and the Lost Question of Race
Abstract: To what extent has thinking about education and the making of education policy substantially engaged issues of race and racism? From 1930s radicals debating whether the “class question” trumped the “Negro question,” to Brown v. Board of Education’s focus on segregation, but not unequal power and exploitation, Charles Payne argues that there has been an historic avoidance of thinking directly about race and education. Both an esteemed voice on American civil rights movements and a keen observer of contemporary school reform efforts, Payne discusses how historical accounts provoke key questions for educators today.
Author: Charles M. Payne, the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Social Service
Date: 10/05/2013
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: http://https://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/educatingharlem/lecture-series/
Primary URL Description: Website of Educating Harlem: Histories of Learning and Schooling in an American Community. Organized in collaboration with the Institute for Urban and Minority Education, the Center on History and Education, and the Program in History and Education at Columbia Teachers College, Educating Harlem supports a scholarly community focused on investigating the history of education, broadly defined, in 20th century Harlem. The public lecture may be viewed here.
Secondary URL: http://http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Website of the Teachers College Center on History and Education, which notes all events in collaboration with Educating Harlem.

"Viva Harlem U": Black and Puerto Rican Students and the Transformation of City College (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: "Viva Harlem U": Black and Puerto Rican Students and the Transformation of City College
Abstract: "Viva Harlem U”: Black and Puerto Rican Students and the Transformation of City College In the spring of 1969, students at every single division of the City University of New York rose up in protest. The two-week occupation of City College in Harlem precipitated a political crisis in the city and ushered in a major shift in public policy; as a result, it received extensive local and national media attention, but strikingly, it has garnered little attention from historians. The black student movement in New York City won reforms that transformed public higher education and paved the way for the expansion of the black middle class in the New York City region. While the students achieved a great deal, they inspired formidable opposition, which anticipated the political conservatism that would later gain ascendancy in urban, state and federal governments.
Author: Martha Biondi, Associate Professor of African American Studies and History, Northwestern University
Date: 03/27/2013
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: http://https://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/educatingharlem/lecture-series/
Primary URL Description: Website of Educating Harlem: Histories of Learning and Schooling in an American Community. Organized in collaboration with the Institute for Urban and Minority Education, the Center on History and Education, and the Program in History and Education at Columbia Teachers College, Educating Harlem supports a scholarly community focused on investigating the history of education, broadly defined, in 20th century Harlem. The public lecture may be viewed here.
Secondary URL: http://http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Website of the Center on History and Education, which notes events in collaboration with Educating Harlem.

Conference: Educating Harlem: Histories of Teaching and Learning in a 20th Century Community (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Conference: Educating Harlem: Histories of Teaching and Learning in a 20th Century Community
Author: Ansley Erickson, Assistant Professor, Program in History and Education, Columbia Teachers College
Author: Ernest Morrell, Professor of Education, Director IUME, Columbia Teachers College
Abstract: A public conference, presenting new research by scholars from across the country about the history of education and community in 20th century Harlem. The conference was organized by Ansley Erickson and Ernest Morrell, co-directors of Educating Harlem, in collaboration with the Institute of Minority and Urban Education, the Center on History and Education, and the Program in History and Education at Teachers College.
Date Range: 10/02/2014
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University.
Primary URL: http://https://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/educatingharlem/lecture-series/
Primary URL Description: Conference page of the website of Educating Harlem. The conference agenda may be viewed here.
Secondary URL: http://http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Website of the Teachers College Center on History and Education, which notes all events in collaboration with Educating Harlem.

Educating Harlem: Histories of Teaching and Learning in an American Community (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Educating Harlem: Histories of Teaching and Learning in an American Community
Author: Ernest Morrell, Professor of Education, English Education, Director of IUME, Teachers College
Author: Ansley Erickson, Assistant Professor of Education, History and Education, Columbia Teachers College
Abstract: A conference for scholars from across the country engaged in works-in-progress about the history of education and community in 20th Century Harlem. Educating Harlem is a project organized in collaboration with the Institute for Urban and Minority Education, the Center on History and Education, and the Program in History and Education at Columbia Teachers College, to investigate the history of education, broadly defined, in that community.
Date Range: October 10-11, 2013
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: http://https://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/educatingharlem/conference/conference2013/
Primary URL Description: Conference page of the website of Educating Harlem: Histories of Learning and Schooling in an American Community. A description of the conference and call for papers may be viewed here.
Secondary URL: http://events in collaboration with Educating Harlem. http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Website of the Teachers College Center on History and Education, which notes all events in collaboration with Educating Harlem.

Challenge American Inequality: Historical Literacy Matters (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Challenge American Inequality: Historical Literacy Matters
Abstract: A roundtable discussion exploring how historical literacy matters to the challenge of inequality and the well-being of American democracy. Co-sponsored by the TC Center on History and Education and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the roundtable included the Director of Education of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and faculty from the History Department at Columbia University, the Program in History and Education at Teachers College, and Bronx Community College, The City University of New York.
Author: Teachers College, Center on History and Education
Author: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
Date: 03/24/2016
Location: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harlem, New York
Primary URL: http://http://livestream.com/schomburgcenter/events/3911710/videos/81691336
Primary URL Description: Rebroadcast of the roundtable may be seen on the events page of the website of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Secondary URL: http:www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Homepage of the website of the Center on History and Education with a link to the rebroadcast of the roundtable.

Roundtable: Youth, Identity and the Power of History: Insights Gained from the Out-of-School Space (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Roundtable: Youth, Identity and the Power of History: Insights Gained from the Out-of-School Space
Abstract: Sponsored by the Center on History and Education and the Program in Social Studies Education in the Department of Arts and Humanities at Teachers College, the roundtable considered the work of two locally based out-of-school programs, Youth Historians in Harlem, directed by Barry Goldenberg, and the Schomburg Junior Scholars Program, directed by Deirdre Hollman. Presentations by Goldenberg and Hollman focused on the ways in which history taught as a dynamic, interpretive process encourages the formation of positive cultural identities in youth and thereby builds a foundation for engagement in civic and political affairs. A discussion followed with comments by Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Associate Professor of English Education, Columbia Teachers College, and Cynthia R. Copeland, Public Historian and Educator, about how the programs encourage students to appreciate the relevance of history to their present lives, and how they might serve as models to enrich the teaching of history in the public school classroom. The roundtable launched the History Education in Practice Series, co-sponsored by the Center on History and Education and the Program in Social Studies Education.
Author: Deirdre Hollman, Director of Education, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL
Date: 02/03/2015
Location: Teachers College, Columbia Unversity
Primary URL: http://http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Primary URL Description: Home page of the website of the Center on History and Education. An article and video recording of the roundtable is available here.
Secondary URL: http://artsandhumanities.pressible.org/ahofc/history-education-in-practice-series-opens
Secondary URL Description: Blog of the Teachers College, Department of Arts and Humanities, where the article about the roundtable is posted.

Think Tank on Historical Illiteracy (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Think Tank on Historical Illiteracy
Author: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
Author: Teachers College Center on History and Education
Abstract: The Teachers College Center on History and Education and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture convened a group of historians and educators to address the issue of growing historical illiteracy among K-12 learners. Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, gave opening remarks. The discussion that followed, which was video recorded, elaborated on the role historical literacy plays in challenging American social and economic inequality. Participants identified the local level as the entry point for engaging young learners in the study of history as it matters to the quality of their lives and communities.
Date Range: February 2, 2014
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: http://www.tc.columbia./che/
Primary URL Description: Teachers College Center on History and Education website. Video recording of the think tank is available on the site.

The Educating Harlem Digital Collection (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: The Educating Harlem Digital Collection
Author: Ernest Morrell
Abstract: Digital collection of sources on Harlem's educational history. In-development, the site is a part of the project Educating Harlem: Histories of Learning and Schooling in an American community. It offers published and unpublished archival documents and oral histories, alongside interpretive exhibits. The first phase of the collection includes a group of digitized material that emphasizes the experiences and work of students in Harlem schools in the 1960s and 1970s. Later additions will expand on this theme, and explore materials from and about Harlem teachers and community members as well as students.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://educatingharlem.cdrs.columbia.edu/omeka/
Primary URL Description: Website of Educating Harlem: Histories of Learning and Schooling in an American Community. Organized in collaboration with the Institute for Urban and Minority Education, the Center on History and Education, and the Program in History and Education at Columbia Teachers College, Educating Harlem supports a scholarly community focused on investigating the history of education, broadly defined, in 20th century Harlem.
Secondary URL: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Website of the Teachers College Center on History and Education, which notes the project and provides a link to the Educating Harlem website.
Access Model: open access

The Promise of the Historically Black College and University: Educating Citizens, 1865-1920 (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Promise of the Historically Black College and University: Educating Citizens, 1865-1920
Abstract: Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have played an important role in the development of democracy and citizenship for black Americans that remains unrecognized. The development and challenges of these institutions reflect but also cast new light on the experience of majority institutions that have long told the story of the history of higher education. The issues explored here are highly pertinent to the goals of the Center on History and Education as they concern the development of engaged citizenship in learners and the ways in which historians shape the dominant American narrative.
Author: Cally L. Waite, Associate Professor, Program in History and Education, Teachers College, CU
Date: 12/02/2016
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: http://http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Primary URL Description: Website of the Center on History and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Secondary URL: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/arts-and-humanities/history/
Secondary URL Description: The lecture, which is a part of a larger research project, is noted on the website of the Program in History and Education, Department of Arts and Humanities, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Historical Literacy Matters: Developing Civic Capacity in Learners (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Historical Literacy Matters: Developing Civic Capacity in Learners
Author: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library
Author: Teachers College Center on History and Education
Author: New York City Department of Education, Department of Social Studies
Abstract: Cosponsored professional development day for New York City public high school teachers. The daylong event explored the meaning of historical literacy and examined inquiry-based teaching models for the high school classroom. Presentations by scholars, open dialogue with event participants, and breakout sessions addressed the construction of the American historical narrative, archival research and the politics of the historical record, and how historical literacy matters as a foundation for the development of engaged civic participation in learners.
Date Range: February 1, 2016
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University.
Primary URL: http://tc.columbia/che/
Primary URL Description: Website of the Center on History and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Secondary URL: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/historical-literacy-matters-developing-civic-capacity-in-learners-registration-1996704898
Secondary URL Description: Secondary URL is for Eventbrite. The announcement of and registration for the event was organized by the NYC Department of Education, Social Studies Department and posted on Eventbrite.

Reading Buildings/Reading History: Integrating Literacy Skills through Historical Building Analysis (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Reading Buildings/Reading History: Integrating Literacy Skills through Historical Building Analysis
Author: Christina Dobbs, Clinical Assistant Professor, English Education, Boston University
Author: Christine Baron, Assistant Professor,Program in Social Studies Education, Teachers College, CU
Abstract: While many social studies and language arts teachers use close reading strategies with documents to develop historical thinking, traditional texts often serve as a barrier for students who struggle with reading, particularly non-native English speakers or students with language-based learning disabilities. In this workshop, practicing classroom teachers learned how to develop historical thinking skills through the analysis of historical buildings. Drawing on literacy theory and practice, the workshop demonstrated how the process of historical building analysis supports students' development of higher order thinking skills and meets Common Core State Standards.
Date Range: October 17 and 23, 2015
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: http://tc. columbia.edu/che/
Primary URL Description: Website for Center on History and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Secondary URL: http://http://www.tc.columbia.edu/continuing-professional-studies/conferences-programs-workshops/all-offerings/reading-buildings/
Secondary URL Description: Website for Office of Continuing Professional Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University. The office handled the promotion of and registration for the workshop.

Rubble Kings (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Rubble Kings
Abstract: Rubble Kings is a documentary film by Shan Nicholson about the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx in the 1970s. The screening of the film at Teachers College was cosponsored by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Office of Diversity and Community Affairs and the Racial Literacy Roundtable at Teachers College. Screened to a large audience as part of the Center's History in Education Practice Series, the film supports goals central to the Center's commitment to better understand the history of education and neighborhood life in New York and in other cities nationwide. The screening was followed by a Q&A with the film director and Dr. Christopher Emdin, Associate Professor of Science Education at Teachers College and author of Urban Science for the Hip-Hop Generation. The film was always shown on Saturday, November 14, 2015 to 120 youths enrolled in the Junior Scholars Program at the Schomburg Center.
Author: Shan Nicholson
Date: 11/12/2015
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University and the Schomburg Center for Research
Primary URL: N/A
Primary URL Description: N/A
Secondary URL: N/A
Secondary URL Description: N/A

Teaching in the Archives: The Fundamentals of Historical Literacy (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Teaching in the Archives: The Fundamentals of Historical Literacy
Writer: N/A
Director: N/A
Producer: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning
Abstract: What is historical literacy? How does teaching with archival collections best capture for students on the elementary and secondary levels the interpretive properties of history? Central to the work of the Center on History and Education, these questions were explored by pre-service teachers in a course about the history of education in New York City. Teaching in the Archives documents students' experiences doing archival research and captures their thoughts about incorporating the archives as both a concept and practice into the teaching of history in public school classrooms.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMuUA_8je2A
Primary URL Description: The youtube channel for Columbia University (Columbia Learn) for sharing videos about teaching and learning within the university and around the world. The channel is curated by the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning.
Secondary URL: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/center-news/living-and-learning
Secondary URL Description: Link to the video on the website of the Center on History and Education.
Access Model: open access
Format: Video

Continuing Problems and Forgotten Solutions: Resurrecting the Historical Resistance of Southern African American School Leaders (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Continuing Problems and Forgotten Solutions: Resurrecting the Historical Resistance of Southern African American School Leaders
Abstract: Did black educators in de jure segregation simply accept the oppressive schooling conditions created by policies in southern states, or did they use the power available through pedagogy, curriculum, and school climates to seek equality? In this lecture, Vanessa Siddle Walker explores seven ways black educators worked intentionally against unjust schooling opportunities. While the strategies do not condone the oppressive climate in which they worked, the ideas from their era may provide a forgotten map of educational resistance.
Author: Vanessa Siddle Walker, Professor of History of American Education, Emory University
Date: 10/02/2014
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: https://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/educatingharlem/lecture-series/
Primary URL Description: Lecture may be viewed on website for Educating Harlem.
Secondary URL: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Website for Center on History and Education. Activities and events associated with Educating Harlem may be accessed through the Center site.

Liberated Territories and the Politics of Radical Black Education (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Liberated Territories and the Politics of Radical Black Education
Abstract: Rickford presents from his new book, WE ARE AN AFRICAN PEOPLE, to explore the local and global ideas that motivated Black Power educators in creating independent schools in the 1970s.
Author: Russell Rickford, Associate Professor of History, Cornell University
Date: 10/17/2016
Location: Teachers College, Columbia University
Primary URL: http://://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/educatingharlem/
Primary URL Description: Educating Harlem website. Lecture may be viewed from the site.
Secondary URL: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/che/
Secondary URL Description: Center on History and Education website. Activities and events associated with Educating Harlem may be accessed through the site.

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