TE 865 - Adventures in Social Studies Teaching

My name is Shanna Robinson and I am a fortyish year old Social Studies educator born and raised in Lansing, Michigan.  I am a proud product of the Lansing School District and my mother has been a history teacher for over forty years. In my family, we have an adage,  “History is in our nature,” so much so, that my nieces and nephews, while not my mother’s biological relatives, even say so.  For me, however, History IS in my nature; learned through osmosis in the womb and ingrained in my DNA.  Social studies, history is just so natural to me that I remember not even studying and just knowing the answers. Concurrently, I have never wanted to be anything except an educator.  Again, this is thanks to my mother and the days before digital or electronic grading.  When I learned my alphabet and could distinguish the letters from one another, my mother would have me grade papers (maybe that’s why I hate it now!)  I was a frequent visitor at Everett High Sc...

Hey guys! I just had a great conversation with Peter Boykin, Professor at WCCC - Wayne County Community College in Detroit.  Good times, Good friends! Hope to do another one!  It was a lot of fun and many ideas were discussed!

When I was in school, I learned about the principle of Sankofa - a bird with an egg in its beak - reaching back to bring the egg into the future.   This is the iconography of going back to the past to retrieve something; a proverb similar to the saying of George Santayana, those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it. I don't have to be reminded of America's past; I live it everyday.  I am the descendant of American slaves, with chocolate brown skin and hair that curls in water or the sun.  I walk in racism and bigotry, as ever prescient as that in the antebellum period, both covert and overt, daily.  I live with the soft bigotry of low expectations and the soft bigotry of no expectations on a daily basis.  I am learned, educated, world traveled yet ostracized, doubted, and ignored on a daily basis.  America's past slaps me in the face every morning when I wake up and lulls me to sleep every night. I don't teach slavery incorrectly as I am ...

I could not begin this post on the Duties of Citizenship without talking about the recent controversy with Donald Trump and "The Squad," the four progressive congresswoman conglomerate of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Ilhan Omar; Ayanna Pressley; and Talib Kweli, (which I know this is not her name, this is a placeholder until I can find it - and I should be ashamed because I'm from Michigan and I'm SO sorry, Rashida Tlaib) and what does it mean to be a citizen of the United States?  How does this translate to my role as a global citizen; an American living overseas; a Black American woman that abides not by the double-consciousness coined by DuBois but a triple-consciousness because I not only have to consider race, and nationality, but gender in my dealings as a human person born on United States soil to the descendants of slaves?  What does it mean to be a global citizen?  Further, what does it mean to be an American Social Studies educator that happens to teach interna...

My name is Shanna Robinson and I am a second generation, fifteen to twenty year (depending on if you count certain jobs or not) Social Studies teacher from Lansing, Michigan.  I am currently teaching in China – I was just named the Social Studies Head of Department for The Barstow School, Ningbo Campus and will be teaching AP US History, US History and something else in the next school year.  Currently, I am an EAP teacher for Teesside University in the United Kingdom – I assist Chinese students in getting their IELTS Bands up so they can qualify for a visa.   I have taught social studies in a variety of different areas, locales and to students of all grade levels.  My first teaching assignment was in rural Edenton, North Carolina – which was segreagated along a railroad track and the students were allowed to proudly display Confederate paraphernalia.  I have taught in Seoul, South Korea (about twenty years ago now!) English as a Second Language. I have tau...