What are teachers in the second semester as opposed to second semester and how do we beef up the expectations so when the kids come in in ninth grade? This particular group of ninth graders have a lot of reading challenges and so we're also operating at a time period where the teachers feel like the reading and writing skills, maybe it's COVID and a hundred other factors but those are areas that we as social studies teachers, not English teachers, are very much part of that so closing that eighth to ninth grade gap I don't think is anything that's unique necessarily to social studies but by frequently getting those teachers together, talking to students as they're coming in the hope is that we can continue to have those really high standards in ninth grade but at the same time the compacting of some things or the intensity of ninth grade might need to change a little bit by having less students. The other particular challenge and I don't think this is unique to social studies is content and skills and how you blend those content and skills so that kids are prepared. There are very few kids, some, but there are very few kids that go on to become politicians or city managers or whatever his kid does. The majority of us do other things, right? We're not training historians so the reading and the writing skills are an absolutely essential part of the process.

The majority of us do other things, right? We're not training historians so the reading and the writing skills are an absolutely essential part of the process. Some of this is curricular but some of it also is making those sorts of adjustments as well. Thank you. I guess my final thing is if you could just speak for the whole community to hear about DBQ and the micro DBQ because I think it's wonderful. Yeah. So DBQ has been around longer than I have. It's the main kind of heart of AP history classes so our main three history classes are world and U.S. and Euro. There are plenty of other classes like psych and econ and things like that but that's the traditional basis of those classes. DBQ is anywhere from five to eight documents and one question and what kids have to do is sift through those documents to find patterns, cause and effect, similarity differences, things like that, but yeah, exactly, but also when we go back to sourcing source those documents and we can review all of those sorts of elements so it's really higher level thinking. In the report the idea of doing the micro DBQs are so that it doesn't have to result in a massive essay. It can be 15 minutes at the start of class where two things are put in front of kids.

In the report the idea of doing the micro DBQs are so that it doesn't have to result in a massive essay. It can be 15 minutes at the start of class where two things are put in front of kids. We're doing more and more visual primary sources at the elementary level so I talked about the history lesson and look at two pictures and compare those things so it's higher order critical thinking around primary and secondary documents that are hopefully getting kids to be able to kind of see patterns in history and be able to analyze information. Thank you. Sure, thank you. Okay, so I think the work is great. I think the work is great. I think the revamp that you did even as you're exiting stage right here along with me is great. I had a couple questions. So in order for our students to be engaged global citizens how are we incorporating current events into the social studies curriculum K through 12? You know, how do you guys do that as a team to make it age appropriate especially given all the things that we're seeing unfold in history real time today? Yeah, great question. At the elementary level sometimes it's what the kids bring up, right?

Yeah, great question. At the elementary level sometimes it's what the kids bring up, right? To be real and honest in the world we've lived through in the last 15 years a lot of times teachers need to prepare for the kid that said I saw this on television so some of that is unscripted and responding to the needs and things that kids see in a way that's age appropriate and our elementary teachers are learning that goes into those things that are essential. As they get to the middle school it's more scripted and incorporated. Mark is always consistently showing the what's it called? CNN 10. They're all kinds of high paced relatively short six to eight minutes and it brings up all kinds of different questions and issues that are age appropriate. The kids are going to be learning on the class, pick and choose when there are spots. Lunch conversations will often be did you talk about this? How do we handle those things? Frequently when things come out I'll shoot out emails and sources the night before so we know that kids are going to come in having questions about Israel, Iran, Venezuela, you know what I mean? Sometimes it's where is Venezuela? So teachers have those resources so they may plan a lesson and sometimes it goes in different directions and you have that secondary slide set to say okay let's pause for a second. Where is Venezuela? Who is the leader? What happened? And be able to walk through those things.

What happened? And be able to walk through those things. It's a combination of sometimes it's a consistent approach and a class like civics is built into that and sometimes it's kind of responding to the news of the day. And then my other question. I think it's great by the way that you're moving civic values up to seventh grade because I agree with you that if we wait until high school it's too late. You know one thing I don't know if this is if you guys have thought about this or if you think about what happens then after you introduce civics in seventh grade but I think there's a civic community give back component that we could really enhance through starting in seventh grade. So a lot of other high schools in our area make that an intentional part of the curriculum.