Edward Ayers and other participants at a national summer conference in 2006 discussed the question of how to better prepare future K-12 history teachers. Their dialogue led them to focus on history departments, and how historians in those departments can mentor future teachers. Those ideas have been collected in an online paper titled, The Next Generation of History Teachers, which is now available on the AHA web site.
This document reviews the current situation of K-12 history teaching, then goes on to discuss “concrete, immediate, and targeted strategies” for history departments to recognize and assist students who will become the history teachers of the future. The authors provide numerous resources for departments to draw upon to guide and inform themselves on these issues. All of the pages devoted to this project allow readers to comment and further debate. Or, if readers prefer, a PDF version of this paper available as well.