Welcome To The Sunflower HGSS JournaL
Greetings! My name is Adam Topliff, and I’m excited and honored to introduce myself as the new Humanities Program Manager for History, Government & Social Studies at the Kansas State Department of Education.
I come to KSDE after spending the past 21 years in the classroom, with stops at Centralia Jr.-Sr. High School, Wamego Middle School, and most recently, Wamego High School. My wife, Jennifer, and I continue to call Wamego home, and I’m excited to begin this next chapter while continuing to serve the educators and students of Kansas.
During my years in education, I’ve watched initiatives, programs, and systems come and go. Through all of those changes, however, one thing has remained constant: the impact a single classroom teacher can have on the learning and lives of their students.
Schools across Kansas are filled with dedicated educators who work every day to create moments of learning that students will carry with them long after they leave the classroom. At the center of that work is Social Studies.
In our Social Studies classrooms, students are challenged to think deeply through inquiry and compelling questions. They navigate different perspectives, viewpoints, and ideas found in both primary and secondary sources. As they sift through that information, they consider how it shapes their understanding of the past and its influence on the world they live in today. Finally, they communicate their thinking in a variety of ways, articulating claims, connecting evidence to their thinking, and explaining the reasoning behind their conclusions.
That is the DNA of a Kansas Social Studies classroom.
I’m excited for the journey ahead and, more importantly, excited to walk that journey alongside you. My hope is that you can be informed, stay connected, share ideas, celebrate great work, and make it a little easier to find the resources and opportunities that can strengthen Social Studies education across our state.
To help keep those opportunities, resources, and information centralized, I created the Sunflower HGSS Journal. Each month’s newsletter can be found in the Editions section of the site. You’ll also find a growing library of quality resources designed to support strong Social Studies instruction.
We also want to celebrate the great things happening in classrooms, schools, and communities across Kansas. Our Stories Worth Sharing page is a place to highlight those moments, whether they come from your classroom, your school, your professional work, or somewhere else in the Social Studies community. If you have something worth sharing, I’d love to hear about it. You can find the submission form on that page.
Finally, our KSDE HGSS team is made up of an amazing group of educators who are ready to help, support, and connect with you. Please know that we are here to serve you and the students of Kansas. If there is ever anything I can do to help, please reach out.
I’m looking forward to getting to know you, learning from you, and working alongside you as we continue strengthening Social Studies education across the Sunflower State.
Adam Topliff
Humanities Program Manager – History, Government & Social Studies
Kansas State Department of Education
adam.topliff@ksde.gov
