Skip to main content

The Other Histories - ST Week 5.1

One pressing question that is at the forefront of my mind as I consider lesson planning, content delivery, and the alignment of my teaching with my philosophy as a progressivist educator is this: how can I maintain a balanced representation of perspective and experience when teaching the humanities? The incorporation of multiple, coexisting, and/or simultaneous realities when examining the past and present is what makes the humanities (and really anything, for that matter) worth studying. A large part of my senior thesis for my American Studies/History program last semester highlighted the importance of teaching World War I through the eyes of those who experienced it and its repercussions, not only from the trenches, but also on the homefront, during the interwar period, and beyond. The fact that experiencing history was and is not limited to white voices, white authored textbooks, and old white men who started wars is enough of a reason for students and teachers to demand a wide range of representation in their studies for the sake of learning whole truths with the added bonus of diverse mediums. Studying the soldiers of the Great War’s trenches is entirely beneficial to one’s world history education, but there is so much more to war than the literal fighting. Celebrating MLK, Jr. (as my class did last week) is great for diversity awareness and inclusion, but taking one day out of 180 to look at diversity is not equivalent to championing an equitable and socially just curriculum. This week, my students continue their studies of westward expansion in the United States; however, I created a multi-day lesson that my cooperating teacher and I will layer into his own lesson plans, filling in some diversity gaps that our original plans would have left wide open. This week, we are talking about the forced removal of Native Americans, and all of the harsh realities that came with it.


Source: https://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2018/03/GettyImages-517330290.jpg


Our Native American perspective of Westward Expansion started today with the image above. Students were asked to write down what they noticed about the image in a few sentences, from the people in the picture to the words written all around. After a few minutes of private reasoning time, we discussed the image as a whole class, underscoring the portrayal of Native Americans in the image and the critical depiction of white settlers moving west. Of course, this image paints an entirely different picture than the “American Progress” painting I introduced students to at the start of our unit. 

Students then worked on a mapping activity for the remainder of class, charting out the Trail of Tears and drawing in Native American tribal land borders within U.S. lines before expansion began. Tomorrow, students will complete another mapping activity, drawing in current Native American reservation lands in the United States. Hopefully, students will see just how significant the losses for Natives were post-expansion, and I look forward to discussing how much the Native population is still impacted by the white man’s dream of “Manifest Destiny” today. Following the mapping activities, students will read excerpts from writings that detail the Trail of Tears and white missionary work with the Native American population (particularly the Cherokee), as well as examine some before and after portraits of “Americanized” Native students attending white boarding schools between 1880 and 1900. Ultimately, my goal is to have students discuss the positive and negative impacts of fulfilling Manifest Destiny from all perspectives, and I believe this lesson will prepare students to argue both sides effectively and with fair representation.

As a future educator, I know that the amount of time I will be able to spend on any given social studies/ humanities topic will depend on deadlines and standards. As a passionate historian and progressivist teacher, I aim to plan and implement lessons that fairly represent all perspectives and experiences of history, no matter how whitewashed popular sources may be. While there will never be enough time to adequately teach every possible angle of a historical event or literary text, I am committed to balancing as many realities and truths of historical study as I can in the classroom. My students deserve a diverse and inclusive take on education. History and soon to be history depend on it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Multimedia and Westward Expansion - ST Week 2.3

Happy Thursday! As the first week of my student teaching semester comes to a close, I thought I would take some time to reflect on the introductory lessons to our Westward Expansion unit. Although most of today’s class time was absorbed by Vermont’s STAR reading exam (I will post my thoughts on the STAR as I learn more about it in the coming days), students had an opportunity to continue their westward expansion work during whatever class time remained after they turned in their exams. By tomorrow (Friday, 1/10), students are expected to have completed the work for the three introductory lessons reviewed earlier this week. From my observations, most students appear to be on track for tomorrow’s due date, but only time will tell! For now, I’d like to focus on the multiple forms of media employed in these opening lessons, and I will note some major points of consideration that I am still pondering after four days of learning. The introductory lessons for the Westward Expansion unit a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Senior Year! Starting off with Inclusion and Big IDEAs

Hello! It has been a long summer and a rapid start to my last year as an undergraduate at Saint Michael’s College, but I am excited to be back in the classroom (both at St. Mike’s for my senior Education and American Studies courses, and Essex Middle School for my final placement and student teaching)! Before the student teaching semester begins, most secondary education students at St. Mike’s wrap up their studies with two courses focused on classroom particulars: teaching in an inclusive classroom, and approaches to teaching in your specific content area (which, for me, is humanities). As the title of this blog post suggests, I would like to reflect on some recent conversations and learning from my Teaching in an Inclusive Middle/High School Classroom course, namely those regarding the history and development of inclusive law. The idea that all students, no matter their race, ethnicity, religion, intellectual or physical ability, etc. should have access to free, public, app...
Post a Comment
Read more

Theories in Education: Dewey, Parker, and Progressivism

Looking around a college classroom, it is less likely that a student will ask the professor a question than it would be if the students were all in kindergarten. Somewhere along our careers in education, the wonder dies. Not completely, but almost completely. Students stop asking questions, but continually feel pressure to produce correct answers. Where is the education system going wrong? The American education system has abandoned a wide variety of academic subjects for a more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) based curriculum several times in the young country's history. The Industrial Revolution, the Machine Age, and the Space Race all shifted the focus of American schools to mechanics, math, and other STEM subjects. While there is less pressure to teach strictly STEM, the effects of the educational shifts are long-lasting. Even today, it seems that humanities classes are more focused on grammar and syntax than creativity and imagination. However, th...
1 comment
Read more