Summer Teacher Recertification Workshop


Beginning in summer 2012, CAS plans to initiate an annual, five-day training and recertification workshop for public school social studies teachers, grades 6-12, in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, titled “The American Founding in the Classroom: Constitutionalism, Capitalism, and the Roots of American Life.”  This workshop will be coordinated in conjunction with CNU’s Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program.  By utilizing our rich network of local historical resources—including museums and historic sites that were instrumental in the founding of Virginia and the United States—the workshop will help Hampton Roads middle and high school teachers develop new ways to incorporate proper understandings of America’s founding principles, history, and capitalist system into their curricula.
 
Public school teachers in Virginia are required to earn 180 recertification points every five years to maintain their teaching license.  A workshop such as this one would provide 30 points toward recertification.  Each morning of the first four workshop days will consist of classroom seminars focusing on the core documents, debates, and philosophies that guided the American founding, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, and the works of the philosophers who most influenced the Founding generation, such as John Locke and Adam Smith.  Each afternoon, workshop participants will travel to key historical sites and museums in the region, including Jamestown, Yorktown, Colonial Williamsburg, the Virginia War Museum, and the Mariners’ Museum.
 
We see a tremendous opportunity to enhance the social studies curriculum in these critical areas of American studies throughout Hampton Roads by providing detailed and rigorous teacher recertification programs.  We are working to raise $15,000 annually for three years (totaling $45,000) to support this program.