Thinking Historically About the State of Social Studies Education with Sarah Jencks and Elizabeth Grant

In this episode, we are thinking historically about the state of social studies education with two leaders in the museum world. For the next six weeks, Thinking Nation's Executive Director, Zachary Cote, will interview various leaders in social studies education in the lead up to Civic Learning Week (March 11-15, 2024). In each episode, Zach will talk to the guest(s) about the state of social studies education broadly, while also looking specifically at the data found in a white paper published by Education Week in November 2023, which Thinking Nation commissioned. We hope that these conversations stir up ideas in the Civic Learning and Social Studies communities about how we can move forward and best support and sustain social studies education in the future in order to preserve and protect our constitutional democracy.

In this week's episode, we are joined by two museum experts. Elizabeth Grant is the Chief Program Officer for the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, PA. Sarah Jencks is Principal Consultant at Every Museum a Civic Museum. In addition to their decades of museum-focused expertise, Both Liz and Sarah serve on the Board of Directors for the National Council for History Education. Both of this week's guests give us a lot to think about in our conversation as we think about how to best move forward as a field.