While some of our partners are still holding on to the dog days of summer, most of us have welcomed back students at this point. You got this! You’re crushing it. Your students are fortunate to have you as a teacher.
As we kick off the 2025-2026 school year, I want to take some time to talk about mindsets.
If you’ve ever been in a room with me, you have heard me say that “history is a discipline, not a content.” I say it so much because this is the paradigm shift that can transform social studies classrooms. Viewing ourselves as teachers of a discipline gives us deeper purpose and presents us with more opportunities to empower our students. Content alone can often divide us, but a disciplinary approach unites us.
With that said, I want to re-highlight our Historical Thinking Skills posters. These posters, which highlight both our skills and our document analysis protocol, THINKS, can be easily printed off and put up in classrooms. They serve as reminders to ourselves and our students that the foundation of our classrooms is thinking, not memorization. Content is essential, don’t misunderstand me, but historians are defined by their ability to engage with the past, not their ability to remember it.
Click on each poster’s image to download PDF.
(If you live in the LA area, I may be able to drop off some pre-printed posters. Just reach out!)
The second thing I want to highlight is our “Historical Thinking Skills Explained” video series on Youtube. If you know me well, you know that brevity is not my strength. So, creating 10 videos at around 5 minutes or less was no small feat! I hope that each video gives both educators and students a quick summary of the definition, purpose, and practice of each corresponding skill.
Some of my favorites are below!
While the back-to-school nerves are real, even for the most veteran of teachers, I also hope that we use this moment in time as an opportunity to orient ourselves toward the discipline we teach. In some cases that might mean a reaffirmation of the disciplinary approach we ended last year doing. In other cases, that might mean a renewed commitment to this discipline that we fell so in love with that we became educators.
Are you looking for more strategic and intentional ways to integrate a disciplinary mindset and inquiry approach in your classrooms? We’d love to support you. Our platform was designed to simplify the implementation of our rich and complex discipline. Our tools, assessments, and data build stronger departmental collaboration, rich vertical alignment, better literacy outcomes, and most importantly support the cultivation of thinking citizens—essential for the flourishing of our democracy. Get in contact with us to talk through ways we can support your classroom and school.