Facing History and Ourselves is a website that's filled with resources designed to help teach the truth of history with the goal of stopping hatred and bigotry.
The idea, as the company says, is to look clearly at the choices of the past to allow us to more ably face the decisions we make today. This examination of our complex past, it says, will help us build a more equitable future. This effort started back in 1976, from one classroom in Brookline, Massachusetts, and is still going strong today.
Those who can't remember history are condemned to repeat it, as the saying goes. This website helps to avoid that outcome through education of what might otherwise go untaught. While that's great for students and parents, it represents a powerful resource for educators to access and use in the classroom.
What is Facing History and Ourselves?
Facing History and Ourselves is a website full of resources that aim to teach the harsh and more complex realities of history that might otherwise go unheard. From bigotry to racism, the resources face the harsh realities of our past in a way that allows us to see more clearly the mistakes of the past in order to avoid more in the future.
While this is a great resource for anybody to access, it is designed specifically to help educators. A wide variety of resources are available that are both freely varied but also Common Core standards-aligned.
While this service has been around since 1976, it's the ability to access everything easily from the website that makes it more powerful now than ever before. From teaching materials to videos and podcasts, there's plenty to access, download, and use as needed to fit in with the educator's way of working.
How does Facing History and Ourselves work?
Facing History and Ourselves is immediately accessible from its website so it can be used by pretty much anybody with a device that's connected to the internet and runs a web browser.
Teachers can go right to the teaching resources to learn new teaching methods, to find out how to meet standards, and to download worksheets and more for aid in teaching in the classroom.
Students can navigate to the many videos to hear directly from those who suffered these experiences in the past.
Anyone can also attend live events that are held relatively regularly and in varying locations to make these as accessible as possible to as many people.
The site requires users to create an online profile for full access to materials. But with little information required and no costs, it makes sense to take this step.
What are the best Facing History and Ourselves features?
Facing History and Ourselves is full of helpful resources that include videos, lesson plans, complete units, resources, podcasts, and more. Thankfully, there is Common Core standards alignment too, making it all very helpful for educators.
Materials are helpfully laid out with useful topics such as bullying, civil rights, the Holocaust, American genocide, and more. Units are spread over weeks of teaching while the lessons within last an hour or two, typically. This all allows for accurate planning of teaching so educators can asses how this will fit in with plans, accurately.
Teachers are specifically offered ways to improve their skills with professional development options. These include workshops and classes -- which generally incur a fee -- but there are also some free resources to be found in video format on the website, too.
Usefully, there are links included to extension activities and further materials beyond what is provided in the units themselves, allowing for further exploration.
How much does Facing History and Ourselves cost?
Facing History and Ourselves is free to access and use. Simply sign up, using an email address, and all the many resources are right there at your fingertips. This is ideal for educators who need little else to get going with lessons using the site.
Some paid options are available in the form of training. These opportunities become available as and when these courses are being run. Some are live events and in-person, while others are webinars and online. Some free materials are also here to be used for personal development.
Facing History and Ourselves best tips and tricks
Start with now
Pick a current event, or trend, that can be linked to the past event being studied so children can relate to what's happening then and now.
Set work
Go beyond the resources and set research projects for the class to go and look into, with a view to adding more layers to the story when everyone reports back to the group.
Get personal
Invite students to reflect on stories from history and share their experiences that may relate to the past and allow them to make it more personal.
