Gaining new perspectives and going new places in a time of isolation
About this time last year my wife and I dragged our tired kids from their naps, got them changed, and packed the car. We put in water bottles, enough snacks for a weekend backpacking trip, and cozy hats, gloves, and scarves. A short 20 minute drive later (full of music from Amy Grant’s incredible 90s Christmas album) we arrived at the Portland Zoo for their annual Zoo lights. It was a noisy affair, jostling and bumping into strangers as we waded through the crowds to find the next display. We sat in the old train as it drove through the zoo, all the while my son spilled hot cocoa on his jacket because he couldn’t keep his eyes off the lights.
Looking back, this all feels very odd. Crowds. People. Noise. No masks to be seen, except those used to keep faces warm. This year has taken much from us, and asked of us even more. Now a student teacher, I’ve seen first-hand the toll that distance learning has taken on students and parents alike. As teachers, what can we do to use our subjects not only as vehicles for learning, but also as ways for kids to experience wonder, excitement, and enjoyment of new things in a time when they are primarily stuck in home?
Make history come alive
Now we have a real chance to change hearts and minds when it comes to a subject that can often be dry and repetitive. History (and Social Studies) can be an escape from the ordinary, and an opportunity for adventure for students who are otherwise sitting in their living rooms. When airports are closed, hotels are dangerous, and travel is expensive, a history lesson can still transport students somewhere new. My hope through these activities is that students can still experience at least a little of what it would be like to really be somewhere…to be anywhere. Use history as a tool for learning and exploring…maybe even a short respite from the monotony of isolation. I’ve highlighted a few lessons here that I hope could do this.
Here I examine the exploration of the city of Barcelona through comparative images and maps. We used a picture compare to show side-by-side changes over time between old Barcelona and today. In this way I hope to not only give students a glimpse of the past and an opportunity to talk about change, but to also allow them to explore on their own. We are able to use these images to place ourselves in a space and time, to transport via our imaginations. The very process of examining the map can be an escape as well as an opportunity to critically think about what societies value and how they change over time.
The next lesson I’ve highlighted is a lesson I designed around using travelogues as primary sources. In it we examined excerpts from two travelogues written by Muslims as they journeyed in and around the Middle East, Indian Ocean, and India. The goal with this lesson is to critically evaluate how to use travelogues as primary sources by considering what kind of information is or is not reliable, and examining author intents. I feel like this lesson also allows for a lot of freedom from the teacher to let students get lost in the experiences of another. Learning empathy by better understanding another culture, as well as the simple idea of using your imagination to place yourself somewhere new…these are valuable skills that desperately need attention in these times.
While this was certainly a more personal type of post, the lesson itself was a great way to really lose yourself in another person’s experiences. We examined census data and maps to look at the real living situations and historical livelihoods of relatives, friends, or even complete strangers. This was a great way to learn about new places, and could be a personal journey for some students who may be cut off from their family during distance learning and a pandemic. I look for assignments to create experiences for others that not only teaches them, but also engages them emotionally.
One of my favorite things about studying history is learning how to dissect a source and understand what voices of the past have to tell us today. Approaching the start of my student teaching placement, I was concerned about I would have success engaging with students in an online format. I was unsure if my love of the subject would carry through and if students would be able to grasp the lessons, I hoped they would. While remote learning has certainly come with its own struggles, I am pleased with the progress I have made encouraging students to engage with primary source information and come to their own complex conclusions.
Over the summer of my MAT program, one of my instructors, Tom McKenna, showed us a lesson he had created for his students in 1983. As a teacher, Mr. McKenna sought to teach students at Grant High School about redlining and the racial history of Portland by asking his students to create a short film about South Portland. The film included photos, map, and interviews with residents of the now demolished South Portland neighborhood. Once home to Portland’s immigrant community, the film showed how urban renewal projects labeled parts of South Portland as ‘blighted neighborhoods,’ making way to the condos, Keller Auditorium, and other features the city hoped to construct in South Portland in the 1950s. In other terms, Mr. McKenna’s class did the work of real historians – discovering the past by tracking down primary and secondary source information and creating something new to contribute to the conversation around the history of urban renewal in Portland. As a history teacher, I seek to create lessons that can similarly extend beyond simply memorizing dates, names and facts. I want students to grapple with the tangible questions of history by creating and discovering the past in a way that transcends textbooks to build critical and historical thinking skills, persuasive speaking and writing, creativity, and a desire to learn.
This class gave me the flexibility to explore document-based lessons in a variety of approaches and technological considerations. Below, I’ve highlighted several lessons I created with the intention of building these skills.
In this lesson, students will analyze a series of images related to the theme of organized labor struggles to build historical thinking by asking key questions about each document that are designed to scaffold students to increasingly complex levels of historical thought. By asking and responding to these questions, students will gain a greater understanding of labor rights struggles and an appreciation for multiple points of view on related issues such as racism in the workplace, and source bias.
This lesson could serve as an introduction to labor rights struggles that accompanied the Gilded Age. Students would use critical thinking to analyze image primary sources as a way to prepare for analyzing the era in greater detail.
This lesson is the basis of the first lesson that I taught in my student teaching placement. Renaissance Italy was one of my primary focus areas as an undergraduate, and as soon as I discovered that my CT was preparing material to teach about the Black Plague, I was immediately excited to jump right in. Along with my PLC’s co-student teacher, Maggie, I created two lessons that asked students to explore primary sources from the era of the Black Plague to understand this time period and draw parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first lesson included several written and image primary source documents along with sourcing questions that were selected to encourage students to consider the meaning of the source and their authors potential biases and points of view.
The second lesson asked students to draw parallels to the modern-day, including by comparing the uniform of plague doctors to that of a doctor treating COVID-19 patients and analyzing medieval thought to how diseases spread through artwork with modern government infographics. Lastly, this lesson included an opportunity for self-reflection by allowing students to describe ways that COVID-19 had affected them personally.
This mini lesson was designed as a potential companion to a social studies class conversation about the history of freedom of speech by introducing students to a time in which free speech was restricted during WWI. This lesson could be either a part of a government class, or a U.S. history class in a larger unit on WWI. Engaging in this lesson as a larger part of WWI also has the potential to allow students to see beyond the combat of the war itself to understand the consequences that the reality of the war had in the U.S.
This lesson includes a Google Form with an embedded version of former presidential candidate and labor rights activist, Eugene Debs, famous ‘Canton Speech,’ in which he decried the U.S. government’s involvement in WWI. After listening to the speech, students in this lesson will read an excerpt from a newspaper article describing how Debs was arrested for ‘disloyalty’ for giving this speech and asked to respond to questions that gauge students factual understanding of the speech and newspaper article and asks for them to provide their opinion on the legal and ethical question of if Debs’ arrest was justifiable and if freedom of speech should ever be restricted.
This lesson encourages students to understand the contest of the era and leads into a larger political debate that is applicable both to our past and the present. One way to expand on this mini-lesson could be by breaking students into two groups to debate Debs case, and whether the U.S. government was justified in arresting political dissidents for speaking out against the war.
My final project for this class, and one of the lessons I am most proud of, this lesson guides students through an exercise in indigenous land recognition. Land recognition is a concept which I only became familiar with in the last few years, however, I believe this simple act of recognizing the indigenous groups that still struggle with the effects of settler-colonialism is highly important. I believe this lesson could work as part of a unit on the concept of westward expansion to recognize the indigenous groups, whose struggles are often left out of the school textbooks and School House Rock videos on this topic. Additionally, this lesson could fit in with a unit on indigenous history for students to learn about the original people who inhabited the Pacific Northwest and build students empathy towards their historical marginalization.
In this lesson, students will be introduced to the concept of land recognition and its importance by viewing two videos about the importance of honoring native land. The intention of these videos is to start a class conversation which would gauge student’s thoughts on why it is important to acknowledge the original people of the land and what we can do to examine the impact of our presence on native lands.
Further, students will analyze two maps that show U.S. settler expansion and which lands are technically ‘unceded.’ This map also allows students to learn about the names and dates of different treaties involved in the U.S. government taking indigenous lands. The lesson includes sourcing questions for students to read and analyze the Treaty with Kalapuya, which ceded lands of much of present-day Oregon to the United States.
Lastly, students will use a second map to identify and learn about the original people of the Pacific Northwest, including where they lived and the languages, they spoke to create their own land acknowledgements.
I believe this lesson could be expanded on to encourage the school to create its own land acknowledgment or engage students in meaningful indigenous activism, such as a clothing, supply, or PPE drive for indigenous communities fighting COVID-19.
The final post I wish to highlight in this portfolio takes a more personal approach than the others highlighted above, however, I believe it could be adapted into a meaningful lesson on immigration, redlining, and personal history. We examined HOLC redlining maps and census data to analyze housing practices and learn about life in the 1940s. I chose to use this as an opportunity to explore my personal family history by finding my family in the census and writing about the historic Greek Neighborhood that existed in San Francisco in the early 1900s. This was an excellent project for me to learn about the importance of ‘place’ as a historic and geographic concept.
I believe students would benefit from an adapted version of this project, which either encourages them to explore their own family history or the history of where they live. I believe an adaptation of this project could benefit students by connecting historic concepts they’ve learned about with themselves, and see how history affects them and their families more personally. This lesson could also serve as an introduction to housing segregation practices, and the concept of redlining, Portland’s Vanport and Albina neighborhoods, and urban renewal, more broadly.
A concept that many are familiar with. Oftentimes, the picture of history that is provided in K-12 education is very Eurocentric and is not representative of the wide range of backgrounds that students come from. Personally, I did not begin to receive a multi-perspective version of American history until I sought out those classes in college. As a future social studies teacher, part of my philosophy has always been to give students the opportunity to consider history from a new perspective that they may not have been exposed to before.
In light of current events, during the course of this class we focused on marginalized groups. I would also say that “change” has been a major theme of this class as well, both in subject matter and being a natural consequence of the unprecedented current events that we are living through. As a result, I got to dive deeper into these subject areas as a student.
Coincidentally, looking at racial issues and social change have always been topics I’ve wanted to emphasize for my future students. These topics happened to become more relevant than ever this year, and the following posts are a reflection of my own growth and learning within these themes as well as examples of lessons that I could use with my students to help them develop their historical thinking skills while being challenged to engage with topics they may be unfamiliar with.
Three of my favorite posts, which can be seen below, all have the common theme of addressing social movements throughout American history.
In addition to giving me the freedom to dive deeper into my areas of interest, this class also pushed me to explore new tools and different ways of looking at history. Below is a link to my favorite post that is the result of an assignment that pushed me to research New Deal HOLC maps and the 1940 Census. I have never researched this kind of primary source material before, and the fact that I was able to build such a personal connection to this assignment made it incredibly interesting. I will definitely be doing something like this in my own future classroom so that my students have the chance to explore their own personal history.
My posts from this semester are not only a reflection of how I have progressed as a student, but also an example of how my future students will learn and grow when they get to take on similar assignments.
“In the Beginning,” there is book and in that book there is the first page of writing; my page. I am the author of this book or posts. My stories are written and these stories help me express the things I love.
Some of my favorite posts that I did during this course were creating a haiku in just 4 minutes! You are the artist, paint what comes to mind. Show your talent on the canvas and let your words blossom. Follow this guide and you will master this skill that you can use in your classes or elsewhere
Another post that was my favorite was called “Looking Deeper Within the Picture.” They say a picture can tell a thousand words, I say that it could explain even more. Think of any picture and give three questions. If you see The Great Wave of Kanagawa, one of your questions could be, “what is the history behind the style of paint,” or “how do you feel when looking at a majestic painting.” With those questions, your eyes will begin to see something greater.
And the last post that I will showcase has something to do with change. The title for my final project is called “Into the Civil Rights Movement: A New World. During the Civil Rights Movement, one word could sum up the whole era; that word was “change.” In this lesson, I would ask students, “How are the events during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s similar or different from the contemporary protest for civil rights and racial equality?” During this year of 2020, there have been a number of racial incidents. We need to fight for change. The fight for change doesn’t start in the next year, it starts now.
