Under the Hood’s Mark Haggard Encourages Teachers to Teach “Beyond the Book” at Statewide History Conference

Boise, Idaho

October 2, 2008

Mark Haggard, Emmett High School history and government teacher and co-founder of Under the Hood Ministries, took his speaking skills into another venue on Thursday, October 2, speaking at the Idaho Council for History Education Annual Conference in Boise.  He found himself amongst impressive company including Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist Mike Luckovich, and history professors from the University of Chicago, the University of Wisconsin, USC, and Boise State.

In his program, entitled “Teaching Beyond the Book,” Mark encouraged attending teachers to do something creative for their students.  During the course of the school year the fifteen-year veteran of teaching engages his own students in numerous activities to expand their reasoning skills and promote higher-level thinking, rather than just telling them to “Read and Respond,” or “Crank the Blanks.”

Not expecting on overwhelming turnout, Mark produced fifteen handouts for attendees.  By the time he had yelled “Recruits!” and the last bewildered stragglers entered his room finding a place to stand along the wall, a nice young student from the Boise High School History Club had to go downstairs to make fifty more copies.  The turnout was much greater than expected.

During the first part of the hour teachers took the place of his students taking the place of recruits preparing to go into the trenches of World War I.  He decided against meeting the attendees at the door and throwing them into a trench as they walked into the room, but the teachers found themselves immersed anyway, viewing photographs and listening to first hand accounts of the horrors of trench warfare, just as his World History students have for more than a decade.

He then shared his process for creating experiential activities for his students.  Experiences that include:

• Finding a good place to establish a settlement in the New World
• Building a Transcontinental Railroad
• Creating a War Plan to crush the Confederate Rebellion in the South
• Advising President Truman on whether or not to use the atomic bomb against Japan
• Deciding key cases as a member of the Supreme Court
• Wheeling and Dealing in the Stock Market during the “Roaring Twenties.”
• Negotiating with other delegates to write the Treaty of Versailles
• And many more

But rather than sell teachers a product, he challenged teachers to try creating activities for themselves (much to the chagrin of the Houghton-Mifflin and Glencoe exhibitors downstairs).  He offered different templates for activities so that they would not have to “Reinvent the Wheel” with each activity.  With his activities already written they can now simply replace the words “Civil  War” with “World War I,” or replace the word “Patriots” with “Secessionists,” and students will be placed into a historical experience that they will not likely forget.

After the presentation numerous teachers asked how to receive his “Beyond the Book” material.  Mark is more than willing to share his teaching ideas:

Contact him by e-mail at info@underthehoodministries.org