We've heard a lot about the dire shortage of math and science teachers that has forced educators trained in other disciplines to teach those subjects "out of field." But we've heard much less about shortages in field of history. Why? Because poorly educated principals and ed school types often see history as the easiest subject to teach, "since it involves no math or grammar," as one principal put it. So easy, in fact, that some schools routinely assign their weakest instructors to cover history classes. Gregory Kent Stanley, a high school teacher in Georgia with a graduate degree in history, describes his route from ed school classes on "the film projector, laminating machine and bulletin board" to the classroom (recounting numerous slights to the study of history he encountered from the education establishment) in the autumn issue of Pi Lambda Theta's educational HORIZONS. "Faith Without Works? Twenty-five Years of Undervaluing Content Area Knowledge," by Gregory Kent Stanley, educational HORIZONS, Fall 2001.
