Global Conference Session: Globalizing the High School U.S. History Survey Course: Free, Collaborative, and Self-Paced Professional Development

This particular session was led by Craig Perrier and can be summarized as follows:
 "Globalizing the U.S.History Survey Course is an essential aspect of change in contemporary education addressed in these 5 free, online professional development modules for history teachers which prepares them to empower their students for a global, interconnected world."

 Essentially, this presenter, Craig Perrier (his blog here) is a teacher who was given a grant by Longview Foundation and IREX to create a website for teachers to educate themselves on how to re-think their curriculum by implementing global theories across every part of Social Studies. He is still in the creation process and is looking for people to edit his work before he publishes it. He also was hoping to spread the word about his work. It was unclear how to spread the word since he does not have a published website yet for this work.

His presentation was mostly him showing us the way the website will be eventually designed. It is a really awesome initiative and it is very important in our globalizing world. I thought it was provoking how he demonstrated that the U.S. was certainly not "isolated" during the 1920s-1940s but instead was involved all over the world in various countries and this myth has been allowed to perpetuate in many textbooks still today.

His blog is also extremely provoking. One submission I read was "the 4-11 on 9-11" regarding our American view of 9/11 and how there is a major misconception being perpetuated by Social Studies teachers. Here is a direct quote:

"I lay it out there, Khalid Sheik Muhammad is the master mind of 9-11. Osama Bin Laden is not the mastermind behind 9-11. Therefore, any educational material, standards, test, curriculum, etc, that professes Bin Laden is, needs to explain its stance against the sources below." 

He then names five sources one of which being the 9/11 Commission Report. 

This is an extremely interesting man and I am glad I attended his session. I look forward to this website being published!