A Better Way to Teach History with Jon Bassett and Gary Shiffman

Show-Me Institute Podcast · Sep 9, 2026 · 33m

Susan Pendergrass speaks with Jon Bassett and Gary Shiffman, founding partners of 4QM Teaching, about their Four Question Method for teaching history and social studies. They discuss why so much history instruction fails to build lasting knowledge, the four questions that structure a well-taught history lesson (what happened, what were they thinking, why then and there, and what do we think about that), why "knowledge first" matters for both literacy and civic discourse, and how their approach could help address declining civics and history knowledge among young people. Produced by Show-Me…