anthro notes

a newsletter for teachers

vol. 1 no. 1

spring 1979

Description of AFTP (Anthropology for Teachers Program) including AnthroNotes

DO YOU TEACH ANTHROPOLOGY in the Washington metropolitan area or use anthropological concepts and materials in your teaching? Would you like to? Are you interested in new ideas and/or materials? This newsletter's purpose is to reach the community of teachers interested in teaching anthropology, whether in a fifth grade or a college level course. ANTHRO•NOTES will present information about upcoming meetings and events; reviews of new books, films, and curricula for teaching anthropology; articles and interviews; and descriptions of interesting classroom activities. We welcome your suggestions and your questions. You may be seeking a particular book or a stimulating technique that others reading this newsletter can suggest.

ANTHRO•NOTES is part of an NSF-funded Anthropology for Teachers Program conducted by George Washington University, in co-operation with the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Anthropology. This program, involving monthly seminars with area anthropologists, has three components: 1) a two-semester graduate credit course, 2) a newly formed resource center for teaching anthropology, and 3) this newsletter.

The forty teachers of science, social studies, and anthropology participating in this year's program from the District of Columbia and Montgomery County give it high ratings. The program will continue next year offering an eight credit, tuition-free graduate course, with book and travel stipends. The course consists of eight monthly topics relevant to secondary school teachers. Three weekly meetings each month are held at a school convenient to the teachers. The fourth meeting each month is held at the National Museum of Natural History or at The George Washington University. Teachers meet with anthropologists to learn about their research. Some of the anthropologists participating this year have been Dr. J. Lawrence Angel, Dr. Douglas Ubelaker, Dr. Colin Turnbull, Dr. Eliot Liebow, Dr. Geza Teleki, Dr. Robert Humphrey, Dr. Alison S. Brooks, and Dr. Catherine Wagner. N.S.F. has funded the program for 1979-1980 when it will be expanded to include Virginia teachers.

In organizing this program and talking with teachers, we discovered their desire to create a network of teachers interested in teaching anthropology. This newsletter, which will be published three times a year, is one way to help foster this network.

If you wish your name to be added to our mailing list or wish to write an article for ANTHRO NOTES, write or call Ruth O. Selig or Ann Kaupp, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 20650, 381-5961/5964.