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Sammamish High School, a public school near Seattle, is trying to implement problem based learning throughout its curriculum. Edutopia is documenting the five year process. Here is one of several videos in which Sammamish High School teachers share some of the challenges involved in transforming their curriculum.

God, glory, and greed. Those are the motives for exploration we learn and teach in world history. The greed involved the money to be made on spices, especially nutmeg.  The Dutch East India Company formed to handle the trade. Two video clips, one from the PBS NewsHour, and the other from National Geographic, review the importance of the spice trade between 1450 and 1750. The PBS NewsHour clip, in honor of Thanksgiving, reviews the history of nutmeg. It came from one tiny Banda island in Indonesia called Run. The Dutch controlled the island and the nutmeg trade but the British went to war to gain control for herself. The treaty ending the war gave the Dutch  the nutmeg trade and ceded Britain control of New Amsterdam. EAT, the Story of Food, also includes a segment on the history and importance of the spice trade. You can find the clip in the EAT video by scrolling to 11:49 minutes.

Survivors of the 1937 Nanjing massacre pose for a photo during a ceremony in Nanjing on July 6, 2013; Han Yuqing/Corbis. An original version of this post was published on November 20 on Facing Today, a blog by Facing History and Ourselves . By Mara Gregory on November 20, 2017 Ms. Gregory is the International Project Manager at Facing History and Ourselves December 13, 2017 will mark the 80th anniversary of the Nanjing Atrocities . Between December 1937 and March 1938, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded the city of Nanjing, unleashing a spree of violence, murder, and rape on thousands of women, men, and children. Popular memory and history lessons often begin World War II with Europe in 1939. Few people know about the history of World War II in East Asia and the mass violence that took place in Nanjing two years before. As we come upon the 80th anniversary, consider these three reasons to teach about the Nanjing Atrocities. Broaden your teaching of World War II beyond a European ...

Here’s a terrific essay about the similarities between the ancient and modern states of the Middle East. It might be a great assignment for students as a review of what happened in Asia after Alexander the Great died or for students studying the Middle East today. In an essay for the History News Network , Philip Jenkins, professor of history at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, argues that the ancient history of the Middle East is not that different from the chaos and terror that characterizes the region today. Jenkins looks at the Seleucid empire in 200CE with its capital city just twenty miles from Bagdad. He notes that at its height, it was the most populous city in the world. In India, Seleucid power imported war-elephants, perhaps the most cutting-edge military weapon of the day. And the empire left a rich cultural heritage in science, a result of the Greek influence of the Seleucids. The Romans defeated the Seleucids in 190BCE. The empire split up and ...

Teaching Globalization? Here's an excellent clip from the PBS Newshour which shows how Boeing depends on the global market place to build its planes. (scroll to about 1:57 to start) Boeing shows PBS economics reporter, Paul Solmon, a big table map with different parts of a Boeing plane from markets all over the world. For example, the fuselage comes from Japan, the rudder from China,  and the wheels come from Britain. The advantage of so much outsourcing, according to IMF chief economist, Simon Johnson, is that those suppliers  are likely to buy the completed plane.

Here are three short entertaining clips about the French Revolution and Napoleon.  The first reviews Napoleon's life in a three minute cartoon. Madonna sings about many of the events of the  French Revolution in the second clip, and the history channel reviews the effectiveness of the guillotine int he third clip.

Teaching context or synthesis? Here's a short documentary on the impact of the Columbian Exchange that does a great job with both.  I showed about 20 minutes of “When World’s Collide: the Columbian Exchange” and was able to point out to students a definition of context and synthesis, and  even a way to write a CCOT thesis. After talking about contact in the New World, the host goes back to Spain and to Ferdinand and Isabella. He then provides context for Spain on the eve of exploration reminding us of wars of religion and the Catholic conviction of Ferdinand and Isabella. He then ties this context back to exploration saying that their religious conviction will have an impact on exploration and the New World. We examined synthesis twice. First, the host notes that many indigenous Americans held on to some indigenous beliefs despite conversion to Catholicism. Where did this kind of thing happen in another part of the world? How about Islam moving into Africa? Later in the video,...

Want to know more about foot-binding which began in China in the 10th century during the Tang Dynasty? The Atlantic Magazine has a terrific essay about the origin and impact of foot binding. Did you know, for example,  that it started when an emperor's concubine bound her feet for a dance. The practice spread as other women wanted to imitate her in order to gain the emperors favor. And did you know that practice continued well into the 20th century. Pearl Buck wrote about it her best-selling book, "The Good Earth. AGerbil - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7379520ption