After 40 years of processing manuscript collections, I can still find some that excite me. Such is the case with a recent Civil War letter we acquired, a letter from Lieutenant Harland Richardson of the 19th Indiana (Iron Brigade) to a Mr. Reilly on 24 April 1864. This is particularly exciting for anyone interested in […]
2020 is here and with it comes an exciting year of Women’s Suffrage Centennial celebrations. With the sheer amount of information out there on how to celebrate, when to celebrate, and who to celebrate, it can be a bit daunting to know where to begin. Never fear, we are here to help! I’m going to […]
I grabbed a handful of Omaha Beach sand from the bucket and with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes and rubbed the dark particles into the name on the cross. Joseph M. Jordan, E Company, 506th Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, Indiana, June 6th, 1944 My student and I gently cleaned […]
Twitter. Instagram. Facebook. Oh My! I spend the first hour of my day drinking coffee and checking social media for the newest articles on education, museums, history and the like. I seek other masters in their fields looking for more ways to empower educators, enhance learning across the state and normally find a few stories […]
It is real. Here we go. Another academic year is in full swing. Students are settled into routine and I am throwing a wrench into the works with a new project? National History Day. Thing is, they?re excited. They?re ready to tell the story of someone Taking a Stand, this year?s project theme. I have […]
Look out, Benson and Stabler: Indiana teachers know their law and order. On Aug. 30, IHS and the Indiana Supreme Court co-hosted a workshop giving 60 teachers from all over the state a peek at the inner workings of our state government, and I was there. It was a full day all morning at the […]
As snow came through Central Indiana once again last Friday afternoon, a core team of History Day staffers departed the warm hearth of the History Center to head to the Great White North of Notre Dame, Ind., for the first district contest of the season. The contest was held at St. Mary’s College on Saturday, […]
Did anyone else catch the Scripp’s Spelling Bee on ESPN last week? My wife and I caught the last half of the final contest, and since we both work with kids of varying ages, we love watching the personalities and “quirks” of the students. I was also impressed that ESPN, the “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” […]
In March, I wrote a blog post about our collaboration with Decatur Middle School and Valley Mills Elementary School on an activity for our upcoming Indiana Bicentennial Train project. I met with this group of bright young people last week and wanted to share their idea. The team chose a 1907 railroad map from our […]
If you have followed politics and education trends over the past few years you have probably noticed theshift in focus toward a few key subjects, for this blog posts’ sake, most notably the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) initiative.There are many critics of STEM, both for and against, and all of their points are […]
