Whose Revolution?: Teaching the Declaration of Independence for America's 250th
Program Description:
As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding in 2026, classrooms across the country face a pressing question: how should teachers introduce a document written by and for a narrow slice of colonial society to students whose America looks nothing like 1776? In this session, Thomas James, professor and education historian at Teachers College, Columbia University, examines the Declaration of Independence not just as a historical artifact but as a living curricular challenge, one that asks educators to reckon with whose freedom, whose equality, and whose revolution the document actually described, and whose it has come to represent since.
James brings a distinctive vantage point to this question. Over twelve years at Teachers College, he served as Provost, Dean, and Vice President for Academic Affairs, following earlier deanships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and NYU's Steinhardt School of Education. He is also the author of Exile Within: The Schooling of Japanese Americans, 1942–1945, a landmark study of how American ideals of liberty and equal citizenship were tested, and denied, during wartime internment. That history of exclusion and its educational consequences shapes how James thinks about teaching founding documents honestly, neither discarding them nor teaching them uncritically.
Ahead of the nation's semiquincentennial, James makes the case that the Declaration's principles belong at the center of every student's education, not despite the contradictions in its history, but because grappling with them is exactly what makes teaching it meaningful.
TC Academy's free speaker series gives you access to TC faculty’s expertise—across education, psychology, health, and leadership—and a preview of the programs offered through TC Academy.
Dates & Registration
Date: October 14, 2026
Time: 5:00pm - 6:00pm EST
Location: Online
Price: Free
For more information, questions or to register: Email tcacademy@tc.columbia.edu
Speaker
Dr. Thomas James
Thomas James is a professor of history and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he served as Provost, Dean, and Vice President for Academic Affairs from 2007 to 2019. Prior to TC, he served as Dean of the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and as Vice Dean, then Acting Dean, and Professor of Educational History at NYU's Steinhardt School of Education. He is the author of Exile Within: The Schooling of Japanese Americans, 1942–1945, regarded as a seminal work on the education of Japanese-American children during wartime internment, and has published widely on educational history, policy and governance. James is deeply committed to inspiring educators to weave the principles of the Declaration of Independence into their curricula, believing that these foundational ideals belong at the heart of every student's learning experience.
What You’ll Learn
- How to frame the Declaration of Independence's origins for students, without either idealizing the document beyond controversy or willfully dismissing it outright.
- Why the 250th anniversary offers a timely occasion to ask "whose revolution" the founding represented, and whose it has come to include since.
- How historical episodes of exclusion, such as the wartime internment of Japanese Americans, illuminate the gap between founding ideals and their real-world application, and what that gap means for teaching history productively for active citizenship.
- Practical approaches for weaving Declaration’s principles into curricula so that students engage meaningfully with foundational texts and discover the relevance to their own lives today.