Hello friends! If you teach in Florida, you know that the state is pushing hard to improve Holocaust education in every district. As such, getting some quality professional development on this necessary and important topic might be something to consider. If you are in north Florida (or all over the state really), the Panhandle Area Education Consortium will be offering an excellent workshop this coming June 11th.

WHAT: Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust and Introduction to IWitness

WHEN: Thursday, June 11, 2020

TIME: 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM Central

WHERE: PAEC, Chipley

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 15, 2020

STIPEND: $100

 A stipend of $100 is available for participation; however, participants will be required to submit Washington District Schools vendor paperwork by Friday, May 22, 2020. This will allow us time to process the paperwork and get purchase orders for stipends into place in a timely manner.

The workshop, presented by Kelsey Jagneaux, Museum Outreach Educator for The Florida Holocaust Museum, will be divided into two segments. Both segments are to ensure teachers have content knowledge and high-quality resources to effectively meet the Florida Holocaust Education Mandate in their classrooms.

Segment One – Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust and Using the FHMs Teaching Trunks in the Classroom for Middle and High School
An introductory session on best practices for teaching about the Holocaust at a middle and high school level followed by an in depth look at a few of The FHMs Teaching Trunks to supplement middle and high school Holocaust curriculum. In the session we will cover guidelines for teaching about the Holocaust, key events and themes that are necessary to establish historical context for continues study, and resources for teachers and students to aid in lesson building and research.

Segment Two – Introduction to IWitness: Teaching through Audiovisual Testimony of Local Holocaust Survivors
Workshop participants will learn how to use the IWitness educational platform in order to incorporate video testimony into their curriculum and help students enhance their listening, writing, speaking, and reading skills.

IMPORTANT:
Please bring a laptop or other device. Participants will receive a $100 stipend for successful participation. Participants outside Washington County will be required to complete Washington County Schools vendor information (W-9 and Vendor Application) and submit it to Brenda Crouch no later than May 22, 2020. This is important, because a purchase order must be submitted for each teacher who will receive a stipend.

Register at – http://my.paec.org/epdc

Are you a K-12 social studies educator looking for some quality professional development this summer? Consider attending the 3rd Annual Teaching Black History Conference, held in Kansas City, Missouri this July 24th and 25th. This year’s conference will be held at Lincoln Middle School which is located at 2012 East 23^rd Street, Kansas City, MO 64108 and will run from 8 am to 5 pm each day. From the Center’s director, the excellent Dr. LaGarrett King: 

This year’s conference theme is “Teaching Black Herstories” which seeks to engage and prepare teachers, at all levels, to teach about the contributions of Black women throughout World history. Black Herstories explores the distinct lived experiences and frameworks that deepen our understanding of the entanglements of race, class and gender and enrich our analysis of what it means to be human. Workshop presentations are informative and interactive, providing participants with teaching culturally relevant and sustaining strategies and resources to incorporate Black Herstories throughout the school year and across curriculum disciplines.

 This multi-day conference aims to bring together educators who seek transformative and engaging ways to teach Pk-12 Black history, not only through history classes but also through other humanities courses. The conference is teacher centered/friendly. This means that workshops are not too theoretical and teachers will leave the workshops with tangible strategies to incorporate in their classrooms that will (1) focus on content and pedagogy, (2) incorporate active learning, (3) support collaboration, (4) model instructional approaches, (5) provide teachers with materials/notes, and (6) leave space for reflection.

 This year, Dr. Kali Gross and Dr. Daina Berry will serve as our featured presenters. They are the authors of the new book, “A Black Women’s History of the United States.” We will have national organizations such as the African Diaspora Consortium presenting on the new African Diaspora Advance Placement Course as well as workshops from Teaching Tolerance, Zinn Education Group, Rethinking Schools, and Teaching for Change.

The cost to attend is $75. The Registration links is here.

This is an excellent opportunity to learn content and pedagogy that can only improve your skills and understanding as a teacher!

Friends in Polk County, we wanted to take a moment and share with you something that comes to us from our friends and colleagues at the American Center for Political Leadership. The Center’s executive director, former Congressman Dennis Ross, is launching an essay contest open to students in grades 9-12 (and this may expand into other grades next year!). High school students can win up to $1,500 in scholarship prize money with a winning essay.

“The first step to advancing civic engagement is to invite opportunities to get involved,” said ACPL executive director Dennis Ross. “This essay contest allows the next generation of leaders to express their reasoned opinions on the importance being involved in the political process and the need for civil discourse. This generation has the talent and the drive to make this nation better. This essay contest gives them the opportunity to get started.”

Open to high school students who reside in Polk County, the essay contest revolves around promoting civil discourse, civic engagement and civic renewal. Students may enter one essay by March 30, 2020, that answers the prompt, “Why is civic engagement and the need for civil discourse important in our current political climate?”

Ten finalists will be selected to advance to the second round of judging and present their essay to a panel of five judges. On April 30, 2020, three winners will be selected. The scholarship award for first place is $1,500, second place is $1,000 and third place is $500.

The contest will be judged by college professors and community leaders.

For more information and a full list of rules, visit the ACPL website. 

This is really a cool opportunity, and allows students to really share why civic engagement matters…and why we need to learn how to TALK with each other.

Good afternoon, friends in civics! Florida’s K-12 Chancellor, Jacob Oliva, has released more information on the new 5 million dollar grant for launching a new speech and debate program around civics. This is an exciting time in Florida for civic education as the state looks to provide opportunities for students to really engage deeply in their civic thinking and learning. Some highlights from the memo:

• Beth Eskin, formerly of Orange County Public Schools, will be leading the initiative. She is a national recognized debate coach, and a good choice to lead the way on this effort. You can learn more about her here! 

• The initial goal is to establish new programs in 60 middle or high schools across 30 districts. The ultimate goal is to have a program in every district, middle school, and high school in the state.
• This will be an extracurricular program, though the state encourages participating schools to also establish courses in speech and debate.
• Participating schools will automatically become members of the National Speech and Debate Association, with access to all that that membership provides.
• Funding and resources will be provided to participating schools to cover the cost of travel and competition.
• Professional development will be provided to each school’s selected coach to support strong implementation.
• Participating districts and schools will be selected by:
  • Civics and US History EOCA scores
  • socioeconomic and population demographics
  • willingness to provide support to grow new programs in this area

If your district is interested in participating, here are the next steps:
1. Identify one middle and one high school in your district that may wish to participate.
2. Share this information with those schools’ principals.
3. Identify 1-2 teachers in those schools who are interested in learning how to coach a
speech and debate team. No prior debate experience is necessary.
4. Provide contact information by March 31, 2020, using this Google form:
https://forms.gle/YNDKzouNnwc86EjC7.

You can read the whole memo from the chancellor here.Speech and debate programs are long term proven factors in student civic success. We here at FJCC/Lou Frey Institute are eager to see this succeed!

As Florida educators may be aware, the state is now requiring high school students to take a civic literacy assessment prior to graduation. This will be piloted this semester and implemented in full for the 2020-2021 school year (and is not specifically tied to any one course).

The Florida Department of Education has now released a new webpage that lists a variety of resources that can be used to help prepare students for the assessment, available here. 

Many of these resources are ones civics educators are likely familiar with, such as:

• The American Presidency Project
• Avalon Project: The Federalist Papers
• Bill of Rights Institute: Founding Documents and Resources
• Civics Flash Cards for the Naturalization Test
• Citizenship Resource Center: Study for the Test
• Constitutional Sources Project
• The Florida Constitution
• The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
• Government Publishing Office: Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government
• iCivics
• Khan Academy: U.S. Government and Civics
• Library of Congress: Primary Documents in American History
• Lou Frey Institute: Civics360
• National Archives: America’s Founding Documents
• National Archives: Founders Online
• The Living Room Candidate
• United States Courts

You might notice that Civics360 is on the list! We are working on creating a standalone module that will help prepare students to succeed on the Civics Literacy Assessment and will have that up and available for the 2020-2021 school year. Sadly, we will be unable to have it ready for the pilot later this semester. However, questions about how you might prepare your kids for the Civics Literacy Assessment can be directed here! 

Questions about Civic Literacy Assessment itself should be directed to Mike DiPierro and the Florida Department of Education. 

Today, the state of Florida Department of Education released guidance on the High School Civic Literacy Exam to be piloted this year across the state. Some key details of this exam and the pilot administration:

• It will be piloted in Spring of 2020 and is open to students in grades 9-12.
• This year, it will not be tied to school accountability or student graduation.
• IT IS THE SAME EXAM THAT WAS DEVELOPED FOR THE COLLEGE LEVEL. The good news here is that the State Board of Education is developing a rule that requires higher education institutions to accept passing scores achieved in high school as meeting the college requirement. This rule will be retroactive to include students that take it during this pilot year.
• 100 questions, multiple choice, 60% to pass
• The state encourages students enrolled in US Government and Economics courses (AP, Honors, and Regular) to take the assessment, but it is not tied to any course and is open to students 9-12.
• The department will provide districts with the 100-question exam and an answer key via ShareFile.
• Districts will administer the test in a process similar to other local assessments and may choose to deliver the test to students on paper, electronically, or a mix of methods.
• The test duration is 100 minutes. Districts may choose to administer the test in two sessions; however, all students should be tested on the same number of items at the same time to help mitigate test security concerns.
• The test may be scheduled at any time before the end of the school year and does not need to coincide with other statewide testing this spring.
• Additional details will be communicated to district assessment coordinators in the near future.

Questions about the exam should be directed to Mike DiPierro at FDOE. They will be releasing a resource page soon, but you may also visit the various university pages for a collection of resources as well (such as UF or UCF, for example). The Florida Joint Center for Citizenship will be adding a module to Civics360 to help address this assessment for the 2020-2021 school year.

One of the most important components of a quality civic education involves allowing students to engage in simulations of democratic practices. So on that note, please consider having your students take part in the upcoming mock primary election, sponsored by the Lou Frey Institute and the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections!

This mock election is 100%, and open to all K-12 schools in Florida. The platform is provided by DoubleClick Democracy, and is simple and easy to use. 

If you are interested in using this platform with your district, school, or class, contact the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship’s Action Civics Coordinator, Chris Spinale, and he will get you set up!

Let’s get these kids practicing those skills necessary to thrive in a democratic republic!

Some civically interesting and exciting news out of Virginia yesterday. Virginia’s legislature voted to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, becoming the 38th state to do so and thus giving the amendment the number of states it needs to be added to the Constitution!

So what does this amendment say? Well, let’s take a look:

The Equal Rights Amendment

Section 1. Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Essentially, this amendment would ban through constitutional prerogative, discrimination against anyone based on sex. While this is certainly covered through various civil rights acts, supporters argue that this would enshrine in the Constitution the importance of equality between the sexes , as a law is a great deal easier to repeal than an amendment to the Constitution.

Arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment

As with everything, there has historically been significant opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. Activist Phyllis Schlafly led much of the opposition to the amendment, and the argument is simple: sex-neutral treatment in law could potentially harm women. Schlafly argued that:

“What that amendment would do is to make all laws sex-neutral. Well, the typical, classic law that is not sex-neutral is the draft registration law. And we were still in the Vietnam War in 1972.

“I had sons and daughters about age 18. My daughters thought this was the craziest thing they ever heard. You’re going to have a new amendment for women? And the first thing is they’ll have to sign up for the draft like their brothers. Now, that was an unsalable proposition.”

Thanks to the efforts of activists and opponents like Schlafly, the amendment fell short of approval, gaining only 35 of the 38 it needed to by 1982, that year already a Congressionally approved extension of the limited time for ratification the amendment had already exceeded.

So What’s Next? 

What’s next? Good question. It’s unclear at this point whether or not Virginia ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment actually means it is ratified and in our Constitution, simply because of that expiration date. We can likely expect court challenges from both sides on this issue, without a doubt.An interesting paper from the Congressional Research Service is worth a read!  It explores questions around ratification in great detail.

This topic is certainly something that would be good fodder for discussion in the classroom, tying into civics, government, history, and current events!

Useful and Cool Resources for Exploring the ERA

DocsTeach: The Equal Rights Amendment

Arguments for and Against the ERA  

FJCC Lesson Plan on Amending the Constitution (compares 19th Amendment to ERA)

The National Women’s History Museum Lesson Plan on ERA

Video Overview

FL Rep. Ben Diamond

As the title of this post says, democracy is not a spectator sport. In order to serve as active and knowledgeable members of the civic community of this great state and the broader representative democratic republic in which we live, it is necessary for those who are learning what it means to be a part of it all to actually have the chance to practice in their roles as ‘citizen apprentices.’

Recently, a bill was introduced in both chambers of the Florida Legislature, spearheaded by Rep. Ben Diamond, to create a sort of ‘civics literacy practicum’ that takes civics learning in this state to the next level.It is an exciting opportunity! So what exactly makes up this ‘civics literacy practicum’? Let’s take a look at key components of the bill, beginning with an overview of the House version:

The Requirements of the Civic Literacy Practicum

In order to successfully complete a civic literacy practicum, students will have to:

• identify a civic issue that impacts the community
• research the issue from multiple perspectives
• develop a plan for being involved with the issue
• Create a portfolio to evaluate and reflect upon the experience and the outcomes or likely outcomes
  • include research, evidence, and a written plan of involvement

The practicum itself must be non-partisan, focus on addressing at least one community issue, involve multiple perspectives, and give the student an opportunity to engage in civil discourse with someone who holds a differing perspective on the issue.

Community Service Hours

The hours outside of classroom instruction that a student devotes to the nonpartisan civic literacy practicum to implement his or her plan of involvement may be counted toward meeting community service requirements for participation in the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program. School districts should include and accept nonpartisan civic literacy practicum activities and hours in requirements for academic awards,
especially those awards that currently include community service as a criterion or selection factor.

Freedom Schools

This is an interesting incentive for schools to encourage students to take part in this practicum: schools can be officially designated by the state as ‘Freedom Schools’. In order to be a Freedom School, schools must:

• demonstrate that they have integrated proven practices of civic learning and engagement into the classroom
• extend those same practices across the broader curriculum
• engage in high quality professional learning community work around student achievement and best practice
• a certain percentage of students graduating with a regular diploma, service learning hours, AND success in the civics literacy practicum.

Looking over the Senate version of the bill, the core of it is very simple, and I suspect that these will merge well in committee.

As a reminder, Rep. Diamond put forward a similiar bill last year. That one died in committee, in part because it put more expectations and mandates on schools and districts as far as course development and implementation, as well as some of issues with language choice. This bill, however, may see more success than we might think of otherwise. We here at LFI/FJCC certainly hope so!

Friends, as you may be aware, we have been offering a free online course series, The Civics Classroom, open to all teachers but primarily targeting new and early career civics teachers in Florida.

“I just wanted to thank you for offering the online Civics Modules, I learned so much during the first one and can’t wait to implement some of the things I learned.” —A beginning civics teacher “Thank-you also for the course- I learned quite a bit about how to teach Civics in Florida and to especially to 7th graders.” —An experienced teacher new to civics in Florida

After much reflection, review of data, and discussion with teachers, we are going to be relaunching the course series later this spring with a new approach. The original iteration of the course featured a heavily interactive component where participants would engage with each other to discuss particular aspects of civics teaching and learning. The goal was to build a PLC of civics teachers that could work together and get to know each other, serving as a resource for each other no matter what district they were in.

Unfortunately, this did mean that we required folks to work on a specific timeline in each course; it was hard to feel successful in the course when you had to wait an extended period of time for someone to respond to your posts!

We believe that this course can improve instruction in civics. We think it can make a difference in the experiences and practices of civics teachers, and help hold the hand of new and beginning civics teachers as they find their way. So we want folks to find it beneficial, and to complete it. We want folks to feel success. As such, we are revising the course series in its entirety. What does this mean? Well, the videos and extra resources will remain, as will the expectations of a pre-test and post-test and submission of student data in order to get recertification points. The most significant change will be the replacement of the discussion boards and any timeline/deadline expectations.

The discussion boards are being replaced with a quiz at the end of each module, to ensure that you did learn about the focus of the module and are coming away with a greater sense of what is necessary to succeed.

You will be able to work at your own pace and not rely on others for successful completion of the course. 

We expect to relaunch the course series later this spring, and we believe that the revisions we are making based on your feedback and the data we have reviewed will make the course series far more accessible and beneficial to civics teachers across the state and beyond.

Watch this space for more information about the relaunched course series! Questions can be directed to Dr. Steve Masyada.