>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. >> I remember growing up I wasn't interested in social studies, but having training through this program I learned that social studies can be very interesting. And we have to find ways as educators to make sure that we present it as interesting as possible. One of the things that we always try to do is make connections between things that happened in our history with things that are happening today and how that connects to kids' lives. Okay, historians. You had an opportunity now to take a look at Find My Resources. You've had an opportunity -- I don't know if you heard me today. In one of the activities I refer to them as historians which kind of, you know, makes them pull their shoulders up a little bit. They like being referred to as historians, so it kind of removes the textbook and it kind of puts them in the role of a historian, of someone who researches, someone who asks questions, and something we're still working on, even questioning the answers. A lot of us know the answers just by repetition. But if we have to think about them and justify them, defend them, criticize them that may be a totally different lesson. >> There are so many resources available. The students need to have that grounding into the resources first before you can actually get them to buy in with you. I think that's what was completed in this collaboration. We got the children to buy into Library of Congress and that they could take their questions and have their questions resolved through using those resources. >> Having met the Library of Congress, I feel a tremendous amount of energy that I didn't have before. I have so much information now just at my fingertips that I didn't have before, as if it's just a click or two away. It could be a click or three away, but I feel that there's nothing out that I don't know how to get to, having been exposed to the Library of Congress. And the wealth of information that's there is just amazing. >> We introduced the draft rights in this room by looking at the Emancipation Proclamation and some other articles that we pulled off of various sites and through the LOC site. And after reading the articles and learning more about how the Emancipation Proclamation was drafted and what its real purpose was and how Abraham Lincoln's purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was not really to free all the slaves because, of course, children have this idealistic image of Abraham Lincoln and who he was. They were -- it was stone silent in the classroom. And one child spoke up and said, Well, the textbook doesn't give us all this information. Why not? I said, Well, you know, textbook is just general information. It's your job to investigate. And he says, Well, we're going to protest. We're going to protest the book publishing company because they don't give us enough information. We're not reading this book anymore. We want a better textbook. So the kids, they're getting sparked by and I'm -- because they're sparked by it, I'm constantly looking for information to give them just so I can see that look and hear them say things like that. And it really gets them excited. They want to learn more. They want to do more. And they come in ready. They're not bored. They're not sitting. Well, here we are looking at the textbook again. So it's really been an eye-opener and just, you know, a real change in teaching for me. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.