Humanizing History by Teaching with Primary Sources

If you think of social studies as a dry, dusty march of names and dates to memorize, think again. In the last two decades, as historical records have been digitized and made accessible to the public, teachers have begun using primary sources as portals for students to connect with the real people and places that came before them. At Rockingham County Public Schools in Virginia, fourth graders learn about the Civil Rights Movement by studying photos of segregated schools in Virginia and reading diary entries of a local Black high schooler who became one of the plaintiffs in the Brown vs. the Board of Education case. In the process, these young students not only learn the facts and figures of the fight for school integration, they develop critical thinking skills that they can apply to other subjects of the past, present and future.