Teachers Study LBJ and Primary Source Materials at Presidential Timeline Teacher Institute - July 14th, 2009

Times were turbulent in 1965. Although President Lyndon Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to eradicate discrimination in public places, there were still laws and policies in numerous parts of the country that barred many people from voting. Johnson considered the right to vote fundamental to a democratic society and realized that voting inequities must be eliminated to truly end segregation and other forms of discrimination.

Johnson worked tirelessly for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and his actions and decisions were crucial in its passage. Analyzing those decisions and actions and the motivations that influenced Johnson was the focus of the Presidential Timeline Teacher Institute, held July 9-12 and hosted by the College of Education’s Learning Technology Center. Twenty-five teachers, invited from around the country, studied presidential decision-making and the Voting Rights Act. They focused on teaching these subjects with primary source documents, many of which are available on the Presidential Timeline. The Institute was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Department of Education.

The Institute’s first day was held at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. Surrounded by the museum’s trove of Johnson Administration artifacts, Rebecca Deen, Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington described the powers of the president and the elements that can influence the amount of power a president can wield. Deen discussed how a president’s personality, the parameters of the presidency, and the political environment of the time shape the decisions presidents make.

Participants analyzed a phone conversation between President Johnson and Martin Luther King. Johnson’s request of King to publicize the most egregious examples of voter discrimination was part of Johnson’s strategy to influence the public’s support of the voting rights legislation.

Cinthia Salinas, Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction here at UT Austin, spoke on the second day about how to read and interpret primary source materials. She led the teachers through an examination of several Johnson memos and phone conversations. Participants then analyzed three primary source materials that offered conflicting points of view and discussed how the materials might have influenced the President’s decision-making process.

For its third day, the Institute moved to the College of Education’s Sánchez Building. Mary Knill, Director of Digital Strategies of the National Archives’ Office of Presidential Libraries, showed participants how to use the Presidential Timeline and search its assets. The Presidential Timeline features an interactive timeline of the 20th century based on the administrations of American presidents. It contains digitized artifacts and primary historical resources, such as audio and video clips, photographs, and documents from the collections of the presidential libraries. The Presidential Timeline is a project of the Learning Technology Center, which partnered with the twelve presidential libraries, and was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation.

The teachers shared their own favorite Web sites for finding primary source teaching materials, such as photos and political campaign ads. Knill also described how to search the LBJ Library’s recordings of Johnson’s telephone calls and provided a glossary of archive-related terms.

Paul E. Resta, professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Director of the Learning Technology Center, discussed the impact that the convergence of technologies in today’s smart phones will have on education. He described how new technologies, such as social networking tools, can be used with primary sources in teaching history. He also stressed the importance of understanding that today’s students are the “digital generation” and that teachers should strive to use technology to engage them in ways that are familiar to them.

Ken Tothero, the LTC’s External Projects Coordinator and Project Manager for the Presidential Timeline and the Teacher Institute, and Graduate Research Assistants Ryan Crowley and Royce Kimmons demonstrated the use of PrimaryAccess and VoiceThread. These online tools allow students and teachers to easily create digital storytelling activities with primary source materials, and to comment on and discuss the materials created.

On the last day, led again by Cinthia Salinas, the teachers grouped into teams to create their own classroom learning activities using primary source materials. Salinas encouraged them to develop lessons that challenged students to evaluate primary source materials and then use these materials to generate a digital project. Each group then made a presentation to the others to describe their learning activity.

The teachers’ response to the Institute was enthusiastic. By examining President Johnson’s decisions during the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and learning more about the use of primary sources, they were able to develop techniques for teaching many historical subjects. They enjoyed the expertise of the presenters, and most were inspired to use not only more primary sources in their teaching, but also more technology. They also enjoyed sharing ideas and drawing inspiration from one another.

The teachers also provided suggestions to improve the Institute. Says Ken Tothero, “We plan to hold several more teacher institutes over the next three summers, and we would like each one to be better than the last. We hope that the institutes can have a lasting impact on the way American history is taught.”

—Laurie Caldwell, LTC Communications Coordinator

Related Sites:

• The Presidential Timeline
• The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum