Each session held in Monmouth University’s Guggenheim Library 101 at 6 p.m.
A portion of each session will be devoted to discussion of strategies for using the material in the classroom. You can also learn about Monmouth’s M.A. programs in history and anthropology. Refreshments will be served.
Past, Present, People: Professional Development Credit Hours for K-12 Educators
Teaching 250 Years of American History through Music
July 9, 2025
Presented by Melissa Ziobro, M.A.
This interactive, multi-media talk provides a look at the iconic music that helps us understand our shared history as we approach the 250th anniversary of American independence. Special emphasis is given to Thomas Edison, Paul Robeson, James P. Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Queen Latifah, Bon Jovi, and others from NJ who have contributed so much to the American music landscape. We’ll also discuss how educators can deploy free TeachRock lesson plans in their classrooms. Melissa Ziobro is a longtime educator and the Curator of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University.
The Education of Native American Children, 1950-1980: Boarding Schools (and Boarding Near Schools), Foster Care, and Adoption
July 23, 2025
Presented by Katherine Parkin, Ph.D.
This two-hour session explores the education of indigenous children between 1950 and 1980 in the continental United States. While much of our focus on the education of Native children tends to center on black and white photos of uniformed children in the early twentieth century, this workshop examines the second half of the century. We are fortunate that some survivors of the boarding school system have chronicled their experience in oral histories and memoirs, and that the federal government embarked on a national healing journey. We will explore how the federal government abdicated social and financial responsibility for educating indigenous citizens and how this vacuum was filled by religious initiatives, including fostering and adopting Native children. We will consider religion’s role in shaping indigenous schooling, including especially the role of Catholics, Quakers, and Mormons. In the 1970s, activists in the American Indian Movement countered this neglect and damage with the Red School House education movement, based in Minnesota. Participants in the workshop will come away with images, resources, and a fuller understanding of how education shaped the lives of Native American parents and children in the second half of the twentieth century.
Relevant NJDOE Social Studies Standards: 6.1.12.EconNE.13.c: Evaluate the effectiveness of social legislation that was enacted to end poverty in the 1960s and today by assessing the economic impact on the economy
Biological Anthropology: Human Evolution and the K-12 Curriculum
July 30, 2025
Presented by Hilary DelPrete, Ph.D.