AIHE - Mission and Purpose

Mission Statement

The American Institute for History Education's mission is to provide substantive, engaging historical content and activities for teachers to use in their classrooms that will dramatically increase students' comprehension of historical events, personalities, issues, and trends. The American Institute for History Education's programs will also produce a marked increase in students' problem solving and thinking skills, through substantive application activities. Students will see a historical continuum, not a series of disconnected events.

Purpose of the Institute

The American Institute for History Education was founded to provide history teachers with high quality professional development programs, firmly anchored in rich historical content, along with substantive historical lessons, activities, and resources to use in their classrooms. AIHE appreciates the tremendous need for teachers to have access to optimum quality historical content and more advanced resources. Study after study, and results from NAEP testing, demonstrate that American students are not receiving competent history-education opportunities. Both students and teachers have been subjected to banal textbooks and programs that barely skim over the crucial issues in American History.

mission image Students need to be engaged in substantive historical content. Only through reading solid, exciting historical narratives and working with primary source material will students grasp the essential events of American History and proficiently comprehend the crucial issues of modern society.

The American Institute for History Education believes that students will rise to high expectations if teachers provide them with the means. Voluminous empirical and quantitative research verifies this. Students will comprehend abstract ideas and think critically once they have a competent base of knowledge. Thinking skills will increase commensurate with the amount of data students retain. The American Institute for History Education works to provide teachers with the materials to help students analyze erudite historical material, process the information, synthesize substantive data, and articulate reasoned conclusions.

“To know nothing of what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child.”
- Cicero

What others are saying:

Maureen Wexler says:

Dear Editor:

As teachers with the Bayonne Board of Education, it is our privilege to inform you that the city of Bayonne has a treasure in its midst. For the past three years, due to the tireless professional efforts of Evelyn Taraszkiewicz, we have been afforded the opportunity for extraordinary experiences. We teachers have visited such places as Gettysburg; Lowell, Massachusetts; Plymouth, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; Harlem, New York; Trenton, New Jersey; Ellis Island; Sycamore Hill, Philadelphia; Williamsburg, Virginia; and others too numerous to mention. Coupled with these trips, we've attended seminars given by historians, and numerous colloquia.

All of these events were made possible by a $500,000 federal Teaching American History Grant created and implemented by Evelyn Taraszkiewicz, Director of Social Studies, Language Arts, and Service Learning. This grant was obtained at zero cost to the taxpayers of Bayonne. We would be remiss not to mention Kevin Brady, Ph.D., one of the founders of the American Institute for History Education, for his dedication and cooperation with Mrs. Taraskiewicz in coordinating and arranging all our activities. This woman's passion for learning is limitless and contagious. Educators of her caliber are a rarity and all too often not acknowledged.

The intent of this letter is to thank a generous, intelligent educational leader and to bring to the public's attention the importance of her great contribution to the education of the children of Bayonne. From all of us who have the pleasure of working fro and with a woman of such stature, Evelyn, we thank and salute you!

You're Traveling Historians!



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