The EU on NPR

If you're teaching Europe next year, refresh your knowledge and understanding of the EU.  Here's an NPR series well worth listening to.  Thanks to Gali Beeri of UNC's Center for European Studies for the links.

• A Fitful Dream: European Unity Shaken by New Woes
• From Stalwart to Skeptic, Germany Rethinks EU Role
• Can the European Welfare State Survive?
• Spain's Boom to Bust Illustrates Euro Dilemma
• In Europe, Obstacles to a More Perfect Union

You can receive regular updates on events and resources for teaching Europe and the EU by subscribing to the CES/EUCE listserv.  Send an email to galiATuncDOTedu with the subject "Please subscribe me to your newsletter."  

Professional Development: AP for Social Studies--Deadline July 30th

Free professional development opportunity in August for NC K-12 social studies teachers.  Read below, follow the link, and act fast--deadline is July 30th.

To support the mission of the NC State Board, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) is providing a two-day professional development opportunity for K-12 Social Studies teachers. This two-day training will focus on preparing social studies teachers for the rigors of advanced placement courses as well as building capacity for social studies teacher to add rigor to their honors and standard classes.

Date: August 3-4, 2010
Location: Peace College, Raleigh, North Carolina
Cost: FREE!
The goals of the institute are to:

• Build teachers’ capacity for teaching AP courses
• Build teachers’ capacity to add appropriate rigor to their instruction and assignments
• Build capacity for K-8 teachers who could help prepare students to take AP courses upon entering high school
• Provide on-going dialogue about AP courses, teaching strategies, and teaching resources through the use of an on-line medium 

To learn more, click here.

Happy Independence Day

Nineteenth-century poet Walt Whitman had something to say about American education when he spoke at the dedication of a new school in Camden, New Jersey, in 1874.

Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a public school?

Ah! more—infinitely more . . . . 

And you, America,
Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
The lights and shadows of your future—good or evil?
This Union multiform, with all its dazzling hopes and terrible fears?
Look deeper, nearer, earlier far—provide ahead—counsel in time;
Not to your verdicts of election days—not to your voters look,
To girlhood, boyhood look—the teacher and the school. 

You can read the entire poem, "An Old Man's Thought of School," here.

Happy Fourth of July!