Award-Winning History Lesson Plan

The lesson divides students up to look at primary sources around four case studies of race and ethnic exclusion in United States history: Mid-19th century Native Americans, Anarchists and the 1919 Red Scare, Japanese-American Internment, and Muslim Detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The purpose is to analyze how the definition of citizenship changes in times of national stress and how our definitions of dignity and citizenship often diverge at such times.

He presented the overall idea and reflections on the lesson at the 2018 conference in San Antonio, Texas.

“Every day, I explore with my students the struggle for dignity that has framed the human experience,” shares Mr. Shulman. “We take the Socratic approach in seeking to know ourselves so that we can appreciate our relationships with those around us. We grapple with James Baldwin’s notion that ‘one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with the pain.’”

Congratulations, Mr. Shulman!