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Teacher Review for PBS LearningMedia: Soldiers, Veterans, and War in American Life

Great tool to gain a deeper understanding of what it is like to be serve America during war.

Joe T.
 Classroom teacher
Cabell Midland High School
Ona, United States
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My Subjects Social Studies
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My Rating
Learning Scores
Engagement
Pedagogy
Support
My Students Liked It Yes
My Students Learned Yes
I Would Recommend It Yes
Setup Time Less than 5 minutes
Great for Further application
Homework
Individual
Knowledge gain
Student-driven work
Great with Advanced learners
ELL
General
Low literacy
Special needs
How I Use It
The title of this web site, Soldiers, Veterans and War in American Life prepares you and your students for what they are going to experience. The site allows your students in depth analysis and understanding of what it is like to be a soldier fighting for America. It allows comparisons of fighting the war and returning home from war to war and century to century. It offers my students insights into what it was like to fight and return home in wars such as WWII and Korea compared to veteran's experiences returning from Vietnam. Comparisons are easily made between the way we commemorate individual wars also. It allowed my students to better understand the traumas and horror of the Vietnam War and how that was magnified by protests as they returned home. A further window of opportunity is added in that contemporary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are also included and provide meaningful and relevant analysis of this generations wars. This provides a easily accessible way to teach students current events and draw connections from history to modern military operations.
My Take
This PBS web site offers the quality and in-depth discussion that you expect from a PBS offering. It is well produced and pleasing to the eye. It is also aligned to national content standards and provides teacher resources as well as student resources.The content is meaningful and easy for students to use for knowledge gain and research. The content covers all American wars from the War of 1812 to Iraq and Afghanistan. It explores what it was like to be in the war, to return from the war, the commemoration of the war and offers analysis of each war. It is an excellent tool to dive more deeply into individual wars for the individual and the war as a whole. The mix of videos and written stories will benefit a wide variety of students and learning levels. Students can delve even further into topics without leaving the PBS family of websites in doing their own research and analysis.