Professional Conference Observations

I recently attended the New England Regional Genealogy Conference here in Providence.  The workshop I attended was about Genealogy and the Core Curriculum State Standards.  The conference speaker was Catherine Zahn, a New Jersey elementary school educator of over 25 years.  Ms. Zahn is considered well read in her craft according to the NERGC write up.  This session stuck with me because of the newness (to me) and relevance it has in social studies.  Genealogy has never quite hit home with me as I’m adopted.  The fact that it is an important component of social studies amazes me that I have not seen genealogy in the curriculum. 

According to Ms. Zahn, “Genealogy is history’s other sister.”  Social studies encompasses history and genealogy, but we often don’t use the latter.  The expectations today are that we need to prepare the children for a global economy.  Ms. Zahn’s argument for this was based on a faulty foundation of the student’s own culture.  “How can we prep our kids today for cultures if they don’t know their own?” 

Ms. Zahn went on to discuss how teachers and librarians could incorporate genealogy into their domains.  There were many great suggestions made.  My favorite was to try to get a grant for archaeological digs with a professional or even use the grant to pay the professional to come speak to the class.  Google maps and pinpoints were another really great tool expounded upon.  Ms. Zahn showed an example of the town map near the school and she was able to pinpoint historical places.  One student found out that they were residing on a historical site.  Census Records was another big tool the conference expanded on.  Ms. Zahn uses them to show comparisons, what jobs were relevant at the time, and any big changes recorded. 

One main project I enjoyed hearing about was to create an archives notebook.  This can be a binder of photos, documents, and information.  This can be kept in a hardcopy format or created on Google’s Digital classroom. 

I was fortunate to be placed at Catherine Zahn’s table because I was able to discuss secondary strategies for using genealogy.  Ms. Zahn suggested several books as resources for lesson plans.  We also discussed boundaries in the class.  Some students and parents will not feel comfortable with having their own backgrounds researched.  Ms. Zahn suggested that I have alternate local people available that would enjoy participating in having their background researched.  The powerpoint she used was also made available to everyone.  I spoke to almost everyone at the table and found out they were librarians.  Some of the focus of the conference was placed on ProQuest and Ancestry.com.  These are good tools to utilize and have many primary and secondary sources for viewing. 

I found this to be a valuable conference that I never knew existed.  I spoke with the chairwoman about advertising on college campuses about the next NERGC in Springfield, MA in 2017.  I hope you will take a look at their website and consider this conference for future SED/ELED students.  I know that I can’t wait to incorporate some of the ideas into my classroom.  This will help bring the community and history alive and into the class.