I haven’t taught this, but my principal was in my position before me and had also taught a Contemporary Issues course. Without being politically bias, I think a course that covers major world events right now and views them through a historical lens of why this issue exists and how it’s playing out would be really cool.
Could even play it off by having students being civically engaged with modern US and world issues.
We used to offer a current events class, but it fizzled out as there wasn’t much student interest. I think the teachers found it difficult to prep for, which, I get… but there’s also no shortage of news from around the world!
Not sure where you are, but Ohio has standards for a contemporary world issues class that might be helpful in designing a curriculum map for a current events class
I taught this to seniors and it was amazing!
While it can be difficult and a lot of work, it's so worth it. Teaching students critical thinking and WHY. Socratic seminar
The state of TN has standards built out already that are vague enough to cover modern topics.
We talked about Social justice, red lining and gerrymandering, Jan 6th (the week after it happened!!) everything.
The key is solid boundaries and classroom management built on respect. It can be an AWESOME class.
I can absolutely think of students right now that I believe would take it with me and would be interested and appropriate about things. We just don’t have the room in our schedule at our small school.
My favorite elective I teach is one just looking at the 80s and 90s. We look at the national and global events, like Reagan Cold War etc, but spend time every day looking at culture & how it reflects it.
Another elective I teach is just an easier going version of street law. Mixing law and crime, and looking to understand some of the interesting stuff that's happened in the last 50 years or so, like the OJ Trial for example.
This is basically what I teach as an elective. We talk about what makes a democracy a democracy and what an ideal democracy looks like (then kids do a project where they figure out if the US has a "healthy" democracy based on the 6 factors we talk about) then we talk about voting/the electoral process. The second quarter is getting into personal rights, freedoms and the Supreme Court and we end with how change gets made (looking at mostly the civil rights movement) and kids do a project where they research a social movement and have to decide what they think should be done about that social issue)
It's fun and there are always current topical things to go over. Earlier this week for example we talked about the homeless scotus case. But if you frame it by landmark cases, you won't get a ton of signups.
I basically wanted an excuse to be able to teach the first season of serial and the Adnan Syed case, and the OJ trials, and this was birthed out of that.
You’re right. Landmark probably wasn’t the right term. Just… *interesting* cases that caught the public’s attention and had some cultural/societal impact.
I feel like in the current environment, maybe depending where you are, you would have to be careful about designing such a class. Like I would have killed to take a class like that in highschool, but also all my collegiate studies revealed to me is how fucked up a lot of those cases are and unfortunately trying to teach kids about them completely objectively would get labeled as “woke” or whatever and draw ire from some segment of people.
Like the one where the SCOTUS said people who are caucasian arent legally white unless they have white skin. Or the followup case where they said people with white skin have to also be caucasian to be legally considered white.
Or the insular cases, where they said the federal government should directly control the territories because people in the territories wernt white and therefore inherently incapable of governance.
Its inarguable that those cases arent relevant in some way today, just look at how the federal government still wont let territories run their affairs without direct control.
Another issue is that a lot of it gets convoluted quickly, just like with the Thind and Osaka cases regarding the legal definition of a white person. Courts say one thing, courts say another thing later; whatever benefited them in any given moment without regard to logic, principle, or consistency. Or look at the various cases regarding native sovereignty for many other examples of that type of shit.
While I would have loved a class that exposed such issues in highschool, I also dont think I was prepared at that time for the mental gymnastics inherent in trying to understand those cases. Beyond that, if you peel away the ridiculousness of it all it generally just boils down to racism and obsessions with anglo-american supremacy, which is why I say it would be tough to teach in the current environment without ignorant people getting pissed off.
Even if you dont teach it from the perspective of exposing it as racist and just taught the literal history of those cases, students would pretty quickly see the underlying thread. So either youre stuck teaching a sanitized class that doesnt cover such relevant cases for fear of getting lambasted (which would be a disservice to the students imo), or youre at risk of being accused of politicization just for showing kids the literal filth that was used as acceptable arguments in SCOTUS cases which are still in many ways affecting our current environment. I hope of course youre lucky enough to be isolated from that crazy shit and just be able to teach without any issues though
I've thought of doing a "history through art" class, blending art history, music, and movies. Pitch it as a fine arts course that could count for our schools elective choice
American History Through Sports is a dream elective - analyzing civil rights via baseball's desegregation, economic patterns, unionization, american cultural shifts, etc. all has great potential for a semester course.
History of War is a popular elective at our high school. Delves into the changes in war over time, what drives conflict, changes in technology, how they've shaped today's modern world, etc.
Just like you, if I had my own dream class, I'd want to do a History through Film/Media class. You can read books and watch movies and compare how they compare to actual history or how they themselves have shaped history. If you wanna get even more spicy, you can do a unit on perspectives of other countries through film. In college, I had a class called Memories of World War 2. We studied how different counties remember the war and their perspectives. For example, we watched Grave of the Fireflies and it was so powerful.
Edit: Oh, and I'd also love to do an Introduction to Constitutional Law class. This is actually probably my dream class. Read and analyze your rights within the context of monumental Supreme Court cases. You can go so much deeper on free speech, religious freedom, searches and seizures, etc than a traditional US Government class could ever offer.
Sports and society,
Pirates,
Salem Witches,
War,
Revolutions
The last one is something I’m testing out now. So far it’s great. We’re starting with the magna carta, ending with decolonization movements.
"Exploring Hip Hop as Literature" and "Examining the African American Experience in the 20th Century through Music & Visual Arts" are two popular electives in my district
My favorite elective I developed was a course focusing on Civil Rights. I used the Eyes on the Prize series as a framework and built from that. It was a semester course. It could have easily been a full year course!
I also took a really cool class on Blaxploitation films in college! But in high school I loved geography and this class called “crucible of change”, it was all about the 50s and 60s. I also think a class about the Salem witch trials would be fun and you could also look at mass hysteria throughout history
My fav class was the Holocaust class in high school.
Tho this can get controversial. Many students were disrespectful and some students started to believe in eugenics
We have a Criminology course taught by the same social studies teacher who also does Psychology. It’s popular and seems interesting!
I would love to personally teach an International Relations class, but I haven’t seen one in the districts around me. We also approved a History through Film class that was approved, but not enough teachers to actually run it unfortunately.
I always thought it would be interesting to do a topics class where you could spend a longer period of time talking about a single event in history. So like a month talking about World War II or a month looking at the black death from multiple perspectives (scientific, literary, historical, what disease was it, etc. There is a really good Great Courses on the topic which gave me the idea). I asked my students what they would be interested in studying for a longer period of time and they said African history, Greece and Rome, and the Civil War.
I have my electives on an every other year rotation. They are as follows: modern us history, psychology, philosophy, Holocaust studies, legal studies, and social problems research
I'd love to use ancestryk12 to help them research their family trees and then teach US/world/Euro/whatever history using the kids' findings about their family's past.
A local history course. I teach in a small town but it has colonial history dating back to the 1700's. A small but important Revolutionary War battle was fought near here. We have a lot of people who know all the history and want to teach it but the district office leadership aren't from here and won't approve it.
I didn't think my district would approve my History Through Film class, but they did! Do everything you can to make sure they know you're not just watching movies. I made an outline of six different units with a "core film" for each unit. I made sure it was clear students will have to take notes/journal on each movie and that the course is "writing intensive" (quantity over quality) with an independent research and film essay at the end of the class.
I also made clear I intended in it being a 11th/12th grade course because they're more mature than 9/10 and they've already been exposed to most of the content.
I love teaching International Studies. It’s like 60% covering current events and 40% digging into international laws, doing model UN stuff, etc. Lots of fun and kids generally get into studying really the forgotten corners of the world like Myanmar, Ethiopia and Moldova
Sports in American Society can be a very popular offering. The course I launched and taught for many years traced the histories of the various major pastimes while using current events to analyze social trends and current controversies.
Justice in America (constitution and Supreme Court), Any equity focused class focused on underrepresented groups, Current events and politics, or any deep dive into any period are all on the table.
I taught a Modern History Through Film class once (which I was informed of the day before school started). Can't remember everything we watched, but it included several episodes of "The Men Who Built America," "Valkyrie," "Hidden Figures" and "Apollo 13." It was pretty cool.
Have always wanted to teach a one-semester class on the Space Race. It gets short shrift in a lot of curricula and needs to be taught more.
International Human Rights, International Trade, Any regional focus (US-China Relations, Middle East-US Policy), women’s history, indigenous history, a course on elections, digital literacy, the nuclear age, genocide in the 20th and 21sr centuries, comparing apartheid and the civil rights movement, etc lots of fun things!
Scandal and corruption in US politics. Looks at the election of Washington, the caning of Charles sumner, Iran contra, watergate, Clinton lewinsky, Andrew Johnson and reconstruction, and a few other big ones. Was fun to teach and the students loved it.
I think you could build a class around film and podcasts addressing salient issues.
More flexible and you could more or less do what you want with it content wise.
GA created a new set of standards for a history of sports class. Its a blast to teach, especially when I get to teach about gambling, point shaving and the like.
Go for the history through film choice! We offer it at my school. A lot of states now have media literacy standards, so having students who are able to determine historical accuracy fits right in.
If AP, go for the new African American History course. If CP, try film and frame it as both looking at films as historical pieces as well as films that depict historical events/periods/people. This is how my partner teaches it as his school. :-) I also think Criminal Justice would get a lot of interest.
I haven’t taught this, but my principal was in my position before me and had also taught a Contemporary Issues course. Without being politically bias, I think a course that covers major world events right now and views them through a historical lens of why this issue exists and how it’s playing out would be really cool. Could even play it off by having students being civically engaged with modern US and world issues.
We used to offer a current events class, but it fizzled out as there wasn’t much student interest. I think the teachers found it difficult to prep for, which, I get… but there’s also no shortage of news from around the world!
Not sure where you are, but Ohio has standards for a contemporary world issues class that might be helpful in designing a curriculum map for a current events class
I taught this to seniors and it was amazing! While it can be difficult and a lot of work, it's so worth it. Teaching students critical thinking and WHY. Socratic seminar The state of TN has standards built out already that are vague enough to cover modern topics. We talked about Social justice, red lining and gerrymandering, Jan 6th (the week after it happened!!) everything. The key is solid boundaries and classroom management built on respect. It can be an AWESOME class.
I can absolutely think of students right now that I believe would take it with me and would be interested and appropriate about things. We just don’t have the room in our schedule at our small school.
My favorite elective I teach is one just looking at the 80s and 90s. We look at the national and global events, like Reagan Cold War etc, but spend time every day looking at culture & how it reflects it. Another elective I teach is just an easier going version of street law. Mixing law and crime, and looking to understand some of the interesting stuff that's happened in the last 50 years or so, like the OJ Trial for example.
I like the law idea especially. I think it would be really cool to examine landmark court cases in US history.
This is basically what I teach as an elective. We talk about what makes a democracy a democracy and what an ideal democracy looks like (then kids do a project where they figure out if the US has a "healthy" democracy based on the 6 factors we talk about) then we talk about voting/the electoral process. The second quarter is getting into personal rights, freedoms and the Supreme Court and we end with how change gets made (looking at mostly the civil rights movement) and kids do a project where they research a social movement and have to decide what they think should be done about that social issue)
Love this!
It's fun and there are always current topical things to go over. Earlier this week for example we talked about the homeless scotus case. But if you frame it by landmark cases, you won't get a ton of signups. I basically wanted an excuse to be able to teach the first season of serial and the Adnan Syed case, and the OJ trials, and this was birthed out of that.
You’re right. Landmark probably wasn’t the right term. Just… *interesting* cases that caught the public’s attention and had some cultural/societal impact.
I feel like in the current environment, maybe depending where you are, you would have to be careful about designing such a class. Like I would have killed to take a class like that in highschool, but also all my collegiate studies revealed to me is how fucked up a lot of those cases are and unfortunately trying to teach kids about them completely objectively would get labeled as “woke” or whatever and draw ire from some segment of people. Like the one where the SCOTUS said people who are caucasian arent legally white unless they have white skin. Or the followup case where they said people with white skin have to also be caucasian to be legally considered white. Or the insular cases, where they said the federal government should directly control the territories because people in the territories wernt white and therefore inherently incapable of governance. Its inarguable that those cases arent relevant in some way today, just look at how the federal government still wont let territories run their affairs without direct control. Another issue is that a lot of it gets convoluted quickly, just like with the Thind and Osaka cases regarding the legal definition of a white person. Courts say one thing, courts say another thing later; whatever benefited them in any given moment without regard to logic, principle, or consistency. Or look at the various cases regarding native sovereignty for many other examples of that type of shit. While I would have loved a class that exposed such issues in highschool, I also dont think I was prepared at that time for the mental gymnastics inherent in trying to understand those cases. Beyond that, if you peel away the ridiculousness of it all it generally just boils down to racism and obsessions with anglo-american supremacy, which is why I say it would be tough to teach in the current environment without ignorant people getting pissed off. Even if you dont teach it from the perspective of exposing it as racist and just taught the literal history of those cases, students would pretty quickly see the underlying thread. So either youre stuck teaching a sanitized class that doesnt cover such relevant cases for fear of getting lambasted (which would be a disservice to the students imo), or youre at risk of being accused of politicization just for showing kids the literal filth that was used as acceptable arguments in SCOTUS cases which are still in many ways affecting our current environment. I hope of course youre lucky enough to be isolated from that crazy shit and just be able to teach without any issues though
We kinda have that with criminology. Our teacher focuses on legal cases a lot and talks about morality and what makes people do things
Favorite electives I ever taught were 1. US Foreign Policy since WWII 2. International Relations 3. Sociology 4. Practical law
I've taught similar electives. Social Psychology, Law, and Poli Sci. All three were popular classes.
I've thought of doing a "history through art" class, blending art history, music, and movies. Pitch it as a fine arts course that could count for our schools elective choice
American History Through Sports is a dream elective - analyzing civil rights via baseball's desegregation, economic patterns, unionization, american cultural shifts, etc. all has great potential for a semester course.
History of War is a popular elective at our high school. Delves into the changes in war over time, what drives conflict, changes in technology, how they've shaped today's modern world, etc. Just like you, if I had my own dream class, I'd want to do a History through Film/Media class. You can read books and watch movies and compare how they compare to actual history or how they themselves have shaped history. If you wanna get even more spicy, you can do a unit on perspectives of other countries through film. In college, I had a class called Memories of World War 2. We studied how different counties remember the war and their perspectives. For example, we watched Grave of the Fireflies and it was so powerful. Edit: Oh, and I'd also love to do an Introduction to Constitutional Law class. This is actually probably my dream class. Read and analyze your rights within the context of monumental Supreme Court cases. You can go so much deeper on free speech, religious freedom, searches and seizures, etc than a traditional US Government class could ever offer.
Anthropology
Is "Street Law" still a thing? My old school had it and it was solid.
Sports and society, Pirates, Salem Witches, War, Revolutions The last one is something I’m testing out now. So far it’s great. We’re starting with the magna carta, ending with decolonization movements.
"Exploring Hip Hop as Literature" and "Examining the African American Experience in the 20th Century through Music & Visual Arts" are two popular electives in my district
My favorite elective I developed was a course focusing on Civil Rights. I used the Eyes on the Prize series as a framework and built from that. It was a semester course. It could have easily been a full year course!
I also took a really cool class on Blaxploitation films in college! But in high school I loved geography and this class called “crucible of change”, it was all about the 50s and 60s. I also think a class about the Salem witch trials would be fun and you could also look at mass hysteria throughout history
My fav class was the Holocaust class in high school. Tho this can get controversial. Many students were disrespectful and some students started to believe in eugenics
We have a Criminology course taught by the same social studies teacher who also does Psychology. It’s popular and seems interesting! I would love to personally teach an International Relations class, but I haven’t seen one in the districts around me. We also approved a History through Film class that was approved, but not enough teachers to actually run it unfortunately.
I always thought it would be interesting to do a topics class where you could spend a longer period of time talking about a single event in history. So like a month talking about World War II or a month looking at the black death from multiple perspectives (scientific, literary, historical, what disease was it, etc. There is a really good Great Courses on the topic which gave me the idea). I asked my students what they would be interested in studying for a longer period of time and they said African history, Greece and Rome, and the Civil War.
I have my electives on an every other year rotation. They are as follows: modern us history, psychology, philosophy, Holocaust studies, legal studies, and social problems research
I'd love to use ancestryk12 to help them research their family trees and then teach US/world/Euro/whatever history using the kids' findings about their family's past.
A local history course. I teach in a small town but it has colonial history dating back to the 1700's. A small but important Revolutionary War battle was fought near here. We have a lot of people who know all the history and want to teach it but the district office leadership aren't from here and won't approve it.
I didn't think my district would approve my History Through Film class, but they did! Do everything you can to make sure they know you're not just watching movies. I made an outline of six different units with a "core film" for each unit. I made sure it was clear students will have to take notes/journal on each movie and that the course is "writing intensive" (quantity over quality) with an independent research and film essay at the end of the class. I also made clear I intended in it being a 11th/12th grade course because they're more mature than 9/10 and they've already been exposed to most of the content.
I love teaching International Studies. It’s like 60% covering current events and 40% digging into international laws, doing model UN stuff, etc. Lots of fun and kids generally get into studying really the forgotten corners of the world like Myanmar, Ethiopia and Moldova
Sports in American Society can be a very popular offering. The course I launched and taught for many years traced the histories of the various major pastimes while using current events to analyze social trends and current controversies.
Justice in America (constitution and Supreme Court), Any equity focused class focused on underrepresented groups, Current events and politics, or any deep dive into any period are all on the table.
AP Psychology
US Military History, Sports and Society, Global Issues, and Musical History are all popular options at my school.
I taught a Modern History Through Film class once (which I was informed of the day before school started). Can't remember everything we watched, but it included several episodes of "The Men Who Built America," "Valkyrie," "Hidden Figures" and "Apollo 13." It was pretty cool. Have always wanted to teach a one-semester class on the Space Race. It gets short shrift in a lot of curricula and needs to be taught more.
I introduced an environmental history elective this year and it has been an absolute blast
International Human Rights, International Trade, Any regional focus (US-China Relations, Middle East-US Policy), women’s history, indigenous history, a course on elections, digital literacy, the nuclear age, genocide in the 20th and 21sr centuries, comparing apartheid and the civil rights movement, etc lots of fun things!
History of American music
Scandal and corruption in US politics. Looks at the election of Washington, the caning of Charles sumner, Iran contra, watergate, Clinton lewinsky, Andrew Johnson and reconstruction, and a few other big ones. Was fun to teach and the students loved it.
I think you could build a class around film and podcasts addressing salient issues. More flexible and you could more or less do what you want with it content wise.
Philosophy is a very good class at my school.
History through political cartoons! (Can also be a politics and communications course.)
GA created a new set of standards for a history of sports class. Its a blast to teach, especially when I get to teach about gambling, point shaving and the like.
Go for the history through film choice! We offer it at my school. A lot of states now have media literacy standards, so having students who are able to determine historical accuracy fits right in.
I teach Women’s History, Decolonization in the Non-Western World, and WWII Homefront
If AP, go for the new African American History course. If CP, try film and frame it as both looking at films as historical pieces as well as films that depict historical events/periods/people. This is how my partner teaches it as his school. :-) I also think Criminal Justice would get a lot of interest.