The Global, History Educator

Teaching, Historical Thinking, Professional Development, and Online Education ~ Hosted by Craig J. Perrier

Publish and Prosper: Infographics, The Networked Classroom and Student Generated Knowledge in the Public Sphere

May 7, 2013 by · 2 Comments · History and Social Studies Education, Online Education, Uncategorized, Web 2.0

Greetings.  April proved to be a busy (good busy) month. I apologize for the delay in this post.

I delivered my presentation “Publish and Prosper: Tips on Promoting Student Generated Knowledge in the Public Sphere” on March 27th  during the inaugural  School Leadership Summit.  The mission of the conference was “to kick off an event that would perpetuate and would be a place for broader conversation amongst school leaders and the ed tech / blogger / social media crowd.” Stay on the lookout for future online conferences.

This post expands upon my conference presentation. A special thanks to my session moderator Jason Borgen, program director at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education. Check out these links.

So… on to this week’s post.

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Infographic: An umbrella term for illustrations and charts that instruct people, which otherwise would be difficult or impossible with only text. Infographics are used worldwide in every discipline from road maps and street signs to the many technical drawings in this encyclopedia.”  -PC Magazine

 

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a collaboratively  generated, student infographic is priceless.  Infographics, at their best, are research based student products synthesizing text, design and visuals– typically specialized maps, charts, themes, graphs, and illustrations – in one creative and specially designed media.  At their worst,  infographics are glorified collages or posters. What distinguishe(and  elevates) an infographic beyond these static items is technology’s impact on design, crowd sourcing, and the abiltiy to edit and update information. What’s more, their educational appeal has grown with the advent of “media literacy” and “information literacy” as 21st century skills related to college and career readiness and the adoption of the Common Core State Standards.

  • They convey a lot of information using specific  language selection.
  • Useable with low language levels.
  • Visual and mathematical / statistical aspects can help to convey meaning.
  • They are much easier to read then dense text on a computer screen.
  • They lend themselves to be used across disciplines.
  • You can find infographics quickly and easily on almost any topic.
  • They develop multiple literacies and intelligences in students.
  • You can help students to become more critical of information sources.

I am arguing that infographics should be promoted as student generated media/knowledge that add to existing discussions,  can be effectively shared and modified, help achieve the demands of 21st century education, and promotes a culture of connectivism (see below).  When combined, these represent the culture of a “Networked Classroom.”

Two Infographics about infographics

  1)         From EVR: Informed Ingenuity   

 

2) From Huffington Post

 

Infographic Resources: Deciding which inforgraphic tool to use in your classroom is based (in my experience) on personal preference and school approval around privacy issues (do students have to register) and technology specs.  There are advantages to having students in a district use multiple, common (2-3) formats.  Here is a selection of infographic tools inspierd by the Daily Tekk’s 100 list.

  1.  Visual.ly: Visually is a one-stop shop for the creation of data visualizations and infographics
  2. Infogr.am: Create infographics in just a few minutes. No design skills needed.
  3. Easel.ly: Create and share visual ideas online.
  4. Piktochart: Our Mission is to simplify information and make it exciting
  5. Tagxedo: Turns words — famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters — into a visually stunning word cloud.
  6. iCharts: Create great-looking charts in minutes with interactive and easy-to-share data.

These are a great start. But if you want to see some dynamic  samples on infographics done professionally, as well as links to more information on infographics, try these:

  • NY Times:  Focus on social studies and history infographics
  • Daily Infographic Every day we feature the best information design and data visualization from the internet.
  • Cool Infographic: highlights some of the best examples of data visualizations and infographics found in magazines, newspapers and on the Internet.
  • Information is Beautiful… see the TED video below. This collection is incredible!
  • Infographic a day: What is new is that infographics’ volume, frequency, and the richness of the media.

 

Infographics require students to access, arrange, evaluate, and create information.

What is Meant by the Public Sphere in Education?

The networked classroom encourages a culture of investigation, knowledge creation, connectivism, trust, and personalized learning.  Teachers utilize their Personal Learning Network (PLN) and students can identify and tap into their own Student Learning Networks (SLN). Notice in the video below the comment that “His teacher rarely lectures. “I recognize there is use for lecture and that there are degrees of lecture substance and purpose.  However, it is clear that the style argued against is the “drill and kill” teacher centered, sage-on-stage style which some teachers erroneously claim will be the only style used in higher education.

Once your students are collaborating with peers beyond your classroom, teachers can empower their 21stcentury classroom by placing student work in

Who is your students’ audience? Where do they get feedback?

the public sphere.What is meant by the “public sphere.”  Simply put, the public sphere is anything beyond the teacher’s eyes only.  The idea of students writing a paper for a teacher’s eyes only is an anachronism. Placing student in the public sphere is easy to do with social media. One suggestion is to do this in a secure course in your school’s LMS. Moreover, students accept greater responsibility and are more invested in their work. Consider the list below a continuum moving from “narrow” to “broad” public spheres. Next to each dimension are a few suggested ways student work can interact beyond teacher-eyes-only models.

a) …classroom:  gallery walks, class discussion of student work.

b) …department:  peer editing from other sections, presenting to other classes, discipline website highlighting student work

c) …school: display tables at lunch, displays in hallways, newspapers, library archives,  part of parent nights

d) … community: student work in civic buildings, displays, local newspapers,

e) … nation: engage in projects like National History Day, collaborate with schools, and colleges, engage in contests

f) … international: establish sister schools, link with non-profits, video conferencing

g)… cyber space: present at online conferences, post work on websites, establish a learnist board, comment on blogs, utilize web 2.0 tools.

Who is calling for students to generate knowledge and publish it for public consumption? In NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL EDUCATION RESEARCH: The Influence of Technology and Globalization on the Lives of Students  it is argued  that “As pressures mount for society to equip today’s youth with both the global and digital understandings necessary to confront the challenges of the 21st century, a more thorough analysis must be undertaken to examine the role of technology on student learning (Peters, 2009).”  Likewise, “youth are active participants, producers, and distributors of new media. The digital production of youth includes over 38% of designing personal websites, 23% constructing online videos and slideshows, and 8%launching digital causes campaigns….The internet has allowed youth new opportunities in fostering global awareness of civic, humanitarian, political, economic, and environmental causes (Maguth p.3).

The arrow chart (above) frames the public sphere in spatial terms. An0ther model (below) emphasizes the level of student engagement and teacher management.  The best approach to teaching and learning will draw from both spatial dimensions and personal interaction.

 

Student work in the public sphere  can manifest in a variety of forms. Overall, this is a very exciting part of contemporary education that should be part of any collaborative classroom in the 21st century. The infographic is part of this educational model.

 

Rubrics:

The popularity of Infographics have spurred a variety of rubrics for teachers to utilize.  My favorite are here:

If you find one that you think is just as good or better, let me know.

Synthesis – Connectivism and Media Literacy

At least two epistemologies drive networked classrooms to use  infographics as the format for student generated knowledge to be shared in the public sphere.  These two ideas, Connectivism and Media Literacy,join with other learning theories (constructivism, behaviorism) and competencies (college, career, civic etc.) in the world if contemporary teaching and learning.  Both are described below.

Live long. Publish and Prosper.

According to professor  George Siemens, “connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired and the ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital. Also critical is the ability to recognize when new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday” (Siemens, 2005).

 

Center for Media Literacy: Media Literacy is a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages (information) in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.

 

 

 

 

The Connected Educator’s Full House: 8 “Ace” Resources

March 24, 2013 by · No Comments · Conferences, Online Education, Professional Development

As legend and history relates, the “Dead Man’s Hand”, 2 pairs – Aces and Eights, was Wild Bill Hickok’s final deal.  He was killed at the poker table in Deadwood in the Dakota Territory at the Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon in 1876.  His murderer, Jack McCall shot him through the head from behind.  Despite some “authoritative” claims to what the fifth card was in Hickok’s star crossed hand, it remains a mystery. One poker website notes:

 “The transcript of McCall’s trial, for having shot Hickok, has a witness claiming that the fifth card was the jack of diamonds. The card used in the

Hickok’s final hand. How will educator’s play their hand?

 

re-creation of the shooting in Deadwood, as well as the card supposedly suggested by other eyewitnesses is the nine of diamonds.” And finally, the Deadwood museum uses a five of diamonds that is on display in Deadwood. “I suppose nobody will ever know, considering the town of Deadwood, and alot of its records, burnt to the ground in 1879″

I like to imagine, at least for this blog post, that the mystery card was actually an Ace or an 8.  Bill’s hand would have been better, at least.

 

So, what hand has been dealt to contemporary educators?  In March, the Huffington Post reported  their findings from a teacher satisfaction survey.  The findings are not optimistic; and maybe not too surprising.  “As school districts continued to cut budgets, increase class sizes, and implement teacher performance evaluations, teachers’ job satisfaction plummeted in 2012, reaching an all-time low…Teachers’ job satisfaction has declined 23 percentage points in the five years since 2008, according to the long-running survey of educators and principals. Only 39 percent of teachers reported they were very satisfied, the least since 1987, the survey showed. The percentage of teachers who said they were very satisfied dropped five percentage points in 2012.”

No quick fixes here. However,  I have found that there are benefits when educators are networked.  I believe it increases morale, innovation, collaboration, inspiration, and general support.  Overall, a sense of professionalism increases.  I have created two categories network benefits below.  Have fun exploring them, getting involved, sharing and using them.

I wonder if any cards were wild in Wild Bill’s last hand.  Regardless, all of the resources below have wild benefits for you and your students. No bluff. Your deal!

 

 

4 Ace Online Professional Development/Networking Opportunities

 

1- The Connected Educator Month Archives:  Funded by the US Department of Education.  The Connected Educator Month 2012 Archives have been officially released, with nearly one hundred recordings, transcripts, and other professional development resources to date from CEM 2012, searchable by format, audience, and topic.  http://bit.ly/cemarchives  Be sure to check out the session “Professional Learning and the Learning Profession” which addresses such questions like

  • What and where are the best (social) opportunities for educators to work on and learn for their practice in the coming year?
  • What steps should every educator consider taking to become more connected, and what are the key resources that can help?
  • In what kinds of learning do teachers (and other educators) need to be engaged in the 21st century, and how will technology help?
  • What are the key methodological and content trends in the classroom (e.g., flipped classrooms, core standards) with which technology (in general) and communities or networks (specifically) can impact and help?

 

 

 

2- The School Leadership Summit: Thursday, March 28th, is the inaugural, online, and free School Leadership Summit.   http://www.SchoolLeadershipSummit.com

It is a unique chance to participate in a virtual and collaborative global conversation on school leadership with presentations by practitioners.  Conference strands are aligned to the internationally-recognized ISTE National Education Technology Standards for Administrators and include the leadership topics of: Vision in a Changing World, Teaching and Learning in a Changing World, Professional Learning in a Changing World, Data-driven Reform in a Changing World, and Ethical and Responsible Use in a Changing World.  TICAL (the Technology Information Center for Administrative Leadership) is the founding partner of the conference.

 The Summit is held online using Blackboard Collaborate and open to anyone to attend.  The conference schedule is kept current at  http://admin20.org/page/schedule and during the conference will be viewable by specific world time zones. Visit my session at 7:00 pm.
3 -ASCD Webinars:  ASCD’s free webinar series brings experts in the field of education to a computer near you. Their webinars address timely and relevant topics like the Common Core State Standards, 21st century learning strategies, and closing the achievement gap.  Bonus hand, they archive each webinar, so you will never have to miss your deal.  Also, ASCD takes suggestions. Be sure to fill out their request feature.
4- The Educators PLN: This is a ning site dedicated to the support of a Personal Learning Network for Educators. Resources, blogs, other websites, discussion forums and more make this a hyper active community. Browse the “Leader Board” to get an idea of who is doing what and who is most active. So, sign up, create your profile page and let the networking begin.

4 Ace Online/Classroom Resources:

1-Show World: The website creates a map morph based on the criteria you select. All you do is select a subject from the top menu and watch the countries on the map change their size. Instead of land mass, the size of each country will represent the data for that subject –both its share of the total and absolute value. The main topics “People, Planet, Politics, Business, and Living” have a multitude of sub categories to choose from. Also, the site allows you to explore data for the World, the US, and Japan.  Data sources are cited, there are zoom options, a table that ranks the category leader and much more. The search for the  screen shot is based on the number of McDonald’s restaurants in the world.  Eat up…

 

2- Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square: The Global Public Square is where you can make sense of the world every day with insights and explanations from CNN’s Fareed Zakaria leading journalists at TIME and CNN, and other international thinkers.Record his show and watch a segment in class. Features include

 

3- TED Ed: TED-Ed is a website for teachers and learners. Lessons worth sharing allows you use, tweak, or completely redo any lesson featured on TED-Ed, or create lessons from scratch.  You can also get involved or recommend someone: “The most meaningful TED-Ed videos are collaborations between the TED-Ed team and at least one of the following: a curious learner, an exceptional educator, or a talented visualization artist. If you are one of these types of people, or if you know someone who is, please help guide our effort to create a library of lessons worth sharing…”  Check this out!

 

4- Open Culture: Formed in 2006, Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Web 2.0 has given us great amounts of intelligent audio and video. It’s all free. It’s all enriching. But it’s also scattered across the web, and not easy to find. Our whole mission is to centralize this content, curate it, and give you access to this high quality content whenever and wherever you want it. Free audio books, free online courses, free movies, free language lessons, free ebooks and other enriching content — it’s all there!  I just watched Waiting for Godot.

 

What it Means to be a (Global) Educator in 2013: The Good, Bad, Pretty, and Ugly.

March 15, 2013 by · No Comments · Global Education, History and Social Studies Education, Professional Development

In 1945 Harvard University published the  General Education in a Free Society (also known as the “Redbook”).  The report summarized two years of research about education in American high schools and suggested a program of study for higher education. The text, selling over 40,000 copies, attempted to answered the question “What should every student know?”

“In the Social Sciences”  wrote Charles Bevard in 1964,  “the Redbook suggested a course it called “Western Thought and Institutions,” which would cover social thought from the Greeks, though  Aquinas, Machiavelli, Luther, Bodin, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Bentham, and Mill, to the present day. The course would also include enough history to enable students to understand what they read in its proper historical context.

Following suit, the Humanities course was blatantly Euro/Western- Centric requiring professors “to cover eight books selected from a list which might include Homer, one or two of the Greek tragedies, Plato, the Bible, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Tolstoy.”

Upon reflection, the Redbook’s occidental slant is not a surprise.  As Louis Menand notes in his The Marketplace of Ideas, “Harvard did what Columbia had done at the time of the first World War it supplemented its curriculum with courses specifically designed to meet contemporary exigencies.”   Therefore, it is essential to recognize Harvard’s report as a Cold War artifact defining, celebrating, and exceptionalizing the Western, capitalist node of the Cold War binary. Within this context, the Redbook is a lucid, valid piece of educational research and policy. But, history records change over time.  And every number one hit eventually falls off the charts.

Later works by E.D. Hirsch Cultural Literacy and Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and his unfortunate , infamous  swan song Who Are We? The

Senor Huntington – way past his prime and out of his league in 2004.

Challenges to America’s National Identity are works clinging to the Redbook’s mid-20th century world view.  At the time of each publication, 1988, 1996, and 2004 respectively, the authors’ narratives about identity and education reeked of post-colonialism and simplified triumphalism teetering on a ledge of anachronism and prejudice about the “Other.”  To the contemporary global educator, Hirsch and Huntington are, simply put, out of tune.

So, what narratives about (global) education exist today.  How far have we come nearly 70 years after the publication of the Redbook? What are some national policies that exist?  How does your school, district, department and own teaching relate to the narratives below? Who defines global education and how is it supported and implemented?  Below are interpretations of global education… in four keys.

 

The Good: Australia – “Global Perspectives: A Framework for Global Education in Australian Schools”

Australia published their conversation on global education in 2002  to “clarify the goals, rationale, emphases, and processes of global education and to serve as a resource  – a philosophical and practical reference point .”  WOW! Music to my ears. Their resource page provides multiple items across K-12 education and engage readers with a series of Socratic questions on why to adopt a global perspective.   Even better, their five learning dimensions are forward thinking, identify “opportunities to learn” and explicitly mention globalization as a goal. BIG SMILE.  The document even includes how this can be done across grade level and content. Rubrics included.  Lastly, contrasted to the US document below, there is no reference to national security as a rationale  to embrace global education. Instead, Australia broke from the Redbook and recognized the changing demands to succeed in multi-polar, interconnected world. Top Marks Australia!

The Bad: The United Kingdom –   “The Revised UK History Curriculum”

Ever feel like you stepped back in time. Not to a better era, but to one where you are happy to have moved away from,to progress beyond the past’s shortcomings. Welcome to the UK’s new national history curriculum. It is important to note  that when educators and academics reference “World History” it doesn’t mean they share an international or global methodology. The UK’s regression huddles around the glories of the past empire and asserts that learning British, and to some extent, European history, equates learning World History.

  • Purpose of study -A high-quality history education equips pupils to think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. A knowledge of Britain’s past, and our place in the world, helps us understand the challenges of our own time.
  • Aims- The National Curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils know and understand the story of these islands: how the British people shaped this nation and how Britain influenced the world”

Pupils will learn about events including the including the Norman Conquest, Henry II’s dispute with Thomas Becket, the Black Death, the Wars of the Roses, and execution of Charles I, the union with Scotland and the rise and fall of the British Empire.”  So very, well, Redbookish. E.D. Hirsch would be happy.  Celebrated historian Niall Ferguson  applauds the nationalism and glaring lack of non-western, transnational, and global perspective in the UK curriculum despite overwhelming criticism: “The content of the draft Programmes of Study are far too narrow in their focus on British political history. References to women and diverse ethnic groups are clearly tokenistic. Nods to social, economic and cultural history are rare. The authors of this curriculum have completely failed to understand what progression in history might mean or how a good grasp of chronology can be developed. More than twenty years of thoughtful and sophisticated approaches to curriculum development have been thrown away in this document…the Programmes of Study are far too narrowly and exclusively focused on British history to serve the needs of children growing up in the world today”

The British Secretary of Education Michael Gove’s document falls alarmingly short  of global education theory and practice.  It reminds me of  the Pogues  song  “Navigator”:

“Their mark on this land is still seen and still laid
The way for a commerce where vast fortunes were made
The supply of an empire where the sun never set
Which is now deep in darkness, but the railway’s there yet.

The Pretty: The United States – “Succeeding Globally Through International Education and Engagement 2012-2016″ 

Overdue?  Yes.  Unclear on how it will be funded?  I believe so.  Admirable in its scope and objectives? Affirmative.

In the DOE’s  own words, “The strategy, which the Department has already begun to implement, will be used to guide the Department’s activities and allocation of resources to reflect the highest priority and most strategic topics, parts of the world, and activities. It affirms the Department’s commitment

The Global Competence Task Force, formed and led by the Council of Chief State School Officers’ EdSteps Initiative and the Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning

to preparing today’s youth, and our country more broadly, for a globalized world, and to engaging with the international community to improve education.”  Despite its reference to national defense and homeland security as answers to their question “Why an International Focus?” the strategy does contain clear educational theory and practice which emphasizes global competencies for students: “Our hyper-connected world also requires the ability to think critically and creatively to solve complex problems, the skills and dispositions to engage globally… or take alternate perspectives and is infused with global texts, issues, or problem.”

I like it. It has potential… now it needs buy in. To what extent will the national paradigm influence state and local educational visions?  Checkout the plans graphics and outline.  It speaks to a global educational choir, but needs a plan of action for implementation. The document’s strategy references a need for “international bookmarking and applying lessons learned from other countries.”

Ummmm… see Australia below… I mean, above.  (Ok, that will be funny tomorrow).

The Ugly: Global Education Frameworks that reinforce “The Other”. In his reflective work, The Other, Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński reminds us that globalization has put Western relations with “Others” in a new situation. “For five centuries (the West) dominated the world , not just politically and economically, but also culturally…The long 500 year existence of such an uneven, unfair system, has produced numerous ingrained inhabits among it participants.”  The global divide addressed during the the post-colonial/Cold War order has been largely bridged by the “flatness” of globalization.  Asymmetrical relationships  and global disjunctures still exist, however.

READ THIS BOOK!

READ THIS BOOK!

Despite that fact, each of the narratives above reinforcea divide between US and THEM  by essentializing culture as a fixed, natural, static characteristic.  This is done by the use of phrases like “other cultures” and “other people”. Continued use of these phrases is a major shortcoming for any model of global education.

Australia -  the best of the three, the document still falls into the other trap “being open to the cultures of others.”

The US- The multi-cultural traditional in education still creates the unwanted model that there is a true, real US citizen surrounded by all these “other” groups in the nation and world.  This document doesn’t shake that legacy “an appreciation for other countries and culture”.  Still this is a big improvement.

UK-  Here is this irony, the document doesn’t use “other” because in the curriculum no one else exists beyond the British.  Agency emanates from the island into the ether where the other may exist.

The alternative is too recognize that culture is fluid, dynamic, and is a range of behaviors and beliefs with any nation, region, or group.  Instead of “other cultures”, try using “global” or “world” cultures.  The “other” that used in these documents fails to teach that there is no one singular way of acting/thinking in any nation and that for all the celebrated differences, humanity is living in an era where mote people have common experiences, due to technology, than ever before.

Teaching culture as a complex, intepretative,  fluid process – not as a way to identify the “other” when you meet him/her  is the most important part of global competency.  If not, global education remains a museum tool we use to rank groups in a hierarchy of civilized/ advance.  In the end, it is  rather simple to make an epistemological, existential, educational move around how we teach about the “Other.”  This is a cornerstone of authentic global education.

Depending on what educational framework you read, the concepts Global Intelligence, Global Education, Global Awareness, and Global Perspectives are often used as synonyms despite their specific nuances. However, “Global Competencies”, I argue, incorporate these other headings in five  main groupings: content, skill,  habits of mind, pedagogy, and assessment. In turn, “Global Competencies” offer obtainable, relevant, and measurable educational goals for students and educators.

Finally, I want to share with you this fantastic infographic shared by educator Allison Morris.

Please Include Attribution to EducationNews.org With This Graphic Most Education Countries Infographic

The Power to Problematize: Using Alternative Narratives in the U.S. History Survey

February 10, 2013 by · No Comments · Global Education, History and Social Studies Education

Note, this post originally appeared at SmartBlog Education on February 7th, 2013 and can be accessed here to see comments and explore the SmartBlog website. What is below has additional information not found at SmartBlog.

Engaging students in the process of constructing understanding and meaning of the past is a central act of history education. To do so demands a paradigm shift for students who have been taught to consider the past as an established external truth that is to be memorized. Moving from a history/memorize/noun to history/construct/verb model is facilitated by teaching the concept of “historical narrative.” In my experience, this is an incredibly exciting, relevant and rigorous way to teach about the past.

Teaching history through narratives focuses on knowledge construction, resource evaluation and active learning. These skills speak to the demands of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, global competency and 21st-century education. Furthermore, considering alternative historical narratives invites collaborative practice, research and technology integration. Students can engage with narratives and analyze the power structures and purpose of dominant and marginalized histories. For example, contrasting the “official, master narrative” found in state standards and textbooks with “alternative narratives” introduces students to perspectives beyond nationalized history. Moreover, this celebrates creative and critical thinking.

The February 2013 issue of Smithsonian article “When Did Humans Come to the Americas?” notes, “The peopling of the Americas, scholars tend to agree, happened sometime in the past 25,000 years.” The dominant theory, the Clovis theory, over time, acquired the force of dogma. “We all learned it as undergraduates,” one scholar  recalled. “Any artifacts that scholars said came before Clovis, or competing theories that cast doubt on the Clovis-first idea, were ridiculed by the archaeological establishment, discredited as bad science or ignored.”  Presently those alternative theories, depicted in the map below, carry more weight and successfully challenge the primacy of the Clovis theory. “Take South America. In the late 1970s, the U.S. archaeologist Tom D. Dillehay and his Chilean colleagues began excavating what appeared to be an ancient settlement on a creek bank at Monte Verde, in southern Chile…The excavators found cordage, stone choppers and augers and wooden planks preserved in the bog, along with plant remains, edible seeds and traces of wild potatoes. Significantly, though, the researchers found no Clovis points. That posed a challenge: either Clovis hunters went to South America without their trademark weapons (highly unlikely) or people settled in South America even before the Clovis people arrived. There must have been “people somewhere in the Americas 15,000 or 16,000 years ago, or perhaps as long as 18,000 years ago.” This map shows some main contemporary theories challenging the Bering Sea Ice Bridge story.

Most analyses of contemporary and ancient human DNA suggest that America’s first immigrants came from Asia. They traveled over a land bridge or along the coast. An alternative theory is that members of Europe’s Solutrean culture voyaged to the East Coast.

Most analyses of contemporary and ancient human DNA suggest that America’s first immigrants came from Asia. They traveled over a land bridge or along the coast. An alternative theory is that members of Europe’s Solutrean culture voyaged to the East Coast.

So, what are some fruitful areas of unlearning/learning found in U.S. History courses? Below are three typical units used in high-school U.S. history courses. The section after suggests ways to rethink the standard narrative found in textbooks.

Standard Narrative Examples

Consider these descriptions of extended lessons found in textbooks used at multiple levels (standard, honors, AP, IB, etc.) in our high schools. Quotes are taken directly from textbooks.

1. The Imperialist Vision

“During the late 1800s, the desire to find new markets, increase trade, and build a powerful navy caused the U.S. to become more involved in international affairs.”

2. American Interwar Isolationism: 1918-1940

“With the international system of the 1920s now beyond repair, the United States faced a choice between more active elements to stabilize the world and more energetic attempts to isolate itself from it. Most Americans unhesitatingly choose the latter.”

3. Cold War

“… an era of confrontation and competition between these two nations (the USA and USSR) that lasted from about 1946-1990 … became known as the Cold War.”

 

Alternative Narrative Options

British Historian Richard Overy reminds us that history “at its best is critical, exciting, thought-provoking, frustratingly ambiguous and uncertain … If history becomes just heritage studies, the collective intelligence will be all the poorer.” In turn, provocative questions and multiple perspectives are cornerstones of effective history instruction. Below are valid alternative narratives corresponding to the standard ones above.

Overy’s work on World War II has been praised as “highly effective (in) the ruthless dispelling of myths.”

1. Empire in U.S. History

When the United States became independent, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson talked about the United States becoming a powerful empire in the future. To achieve this goal, the United States expanded its borders, influence, and power around the globe. For example, the United States was victorious in a war with Mexico (1846-1848) and continuous wars with Native Americans. Both campaigns expanded the nation’s western border across the continent.

2. The Myth of U.S. Isolationism

U.S. interwar intervention existed in the Dominican Republic (1916-1924), Guatemala (1920), Honduras (1919, 1924, 1925), Panama (1921, 1925), and Haiti (1915-1934). Whether defined as militaristic, political, economic, or cultural, U.S. intervention was the norm, not the exception, in the 1920s and 1930s.

3. Beyond the Cold War Binary

The Cold War was the name given to the international world order that lasted from 1945-1991. From the destruction of World War II, two “super powers,” the USA and the Soviet Union, led two blocs of contending nations. A third group, the Non-Aligned Movement, did not formally have a desire to be involved in the Cold War. Main countries involved included Indonesia, India, Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Ghana. However, membership expanded to nearly 100 nations during the Cold War. During the Cold War, these three groups were called the First, Second, and Third World. Scholar Odd Arne Westad in his award winning work The Global Cold War points out that the term “Cold War” “came to signal an American concept of warfare against the Soviet Union.. the Soviets….never used the term officially before the Gorbachev era.”  Instead the USSR used a narrative of Western imperialism.  Therefore the term “Cold War” has limitations to explaining the global order and geo-politics.

 

The ubiquity of standard narratives reinforces a history that is rarely, if ever, challenged. In fact, more nuanced, analytical responses on standardized tests that challenge these perspectives would be penalized or marked as wrong. These narratives are no longer needed as an assimilating identity tool. Contemporary education as well as the dynamics of globalization call for  the skills, content and thinking addressed by using alternative historical narratives.  So, what parts of the U.S. master narrative can you problematize?

Global Perspectives in U.S. History Education and the Limits of a National Narrative

January 26, 2013 by · 1 Comment · History and Social Studies Education

Click here to see/read Dr. King's Nobel Prize Speech

Click here to see/read Dr. King’s Nobel Prize Speech

This past Monday, the United States observed a federal holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. A 2011 monument to King was erected along the Washington D.C. Tidal Basin. The placing of King’s statue is in line with the Jefferson and Lincoln monument symbolically linking the narrative of freedom and civil rights across three centuries of U.S. historical narrative.  But King’s legacy goes beyond national borders. That’s right, people, other nations pay tribute to MLK. In fact the organization the Overseas Vote Foundation has identified a collection of tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. outside U.S. borders (the list includes Italy, Germany, France, and Australia). There is a school named after Dr. King in Ghana and a garden memorial in India linking King and Gandhi.

Hiroshima, Japan celebrates MLK’s birthday with nearly the same fervor as the U.S. Former mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, right, is credited with holding a special banquet at the mayor's office in honor of King each year to honor his commitment to human rights. (Photo: Kyodo /Landov)

Hiroshima, Japan celebrates MLK’s birthday with nearly the same fervor as the U.S. Former mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, right, is credited with holding a special banquet at the mayor’s office in honor of King each year to honor his commitment to human rights. (Photo: Kyodo /Landov)

We shouldn’t be surprised by King’s global appeal.  He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 where he recognized that his work in the U.S. had global connections: “Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”   King frequently broadened the context of work effectively framing the U.S. civil rights movement as a case study in global human rights. A few years later  during his 1967 “Christmas Sermon on Peace”, he reinforced his global gaze stating:

“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.”

Wow, that is powerful and is a clear inroad to how teachers can globalize the U.S. History survey. So, MLK  the figure, the idea, the historical phenomenon isn’t “owned” by the U.S.  (Let us also not forget the resistance that many U.S. citizens had, [and still have?] to the holiday. Arizona, New Hampshire, and South Carolina were all resistant to the federal holiday). In fact it is a difficult argument to make that any idea, place, event, or group can fully,  and legitimately claimed by a nation as the sole possessor.

Engaging with historical narratives as constructs to be analyzed not memorized is key to effective, relevant  teaching of history (I argue it is the most important).      “Project Narrative” of  Ohio State describe  narrative as a basic human strategy for coming to terms with fundamental elements of our experience, such as time, process, and change….”  Stanford’s “Beyond the Bubble” project identifies Narrative as one of their 4 Historical knowledge categories which  encompass various ways of knowing about the past.” Check out their video:

So, what happens when we combine historical narrative with global education? Why make the move to broadening national narratives? What are the benefits of globalizing national narratives?  Below is a list of resources/manifestos that argue for or have made the move to globalizing the U.S. history narrative and address the questions above.

  •  La Pietra Report: The 21st century opened with the OAH’s call  to rethink the teaching of U.S. history. “While this approach seeks to contextualize United States on a global scale in so far as such a scale is pertinent to the questions at hand, it does not propose to subsume United States history under the umbrella of world or global history. We would not have United States history thus erased; rather the aim is to deepen its contextualization and to extend the transnational relations of American history.”
  • The Choices Program: Brown University’s respected curriculum released the “The U.S. Role in a Changing World ” module in 2009. Although not really global approach to the historical narrative, the module does embrace a global context a situates the U.S. nation in it.  The “possible futures” section engages students in “four distinct alternatives that frame the current debate on the role of the United States in the world.”
  • NCSS: The organization published  “Social Studies and the World: Teaching Global Perspectives” in 2005.   The text is a great complement to their online summary which urges “Global education and international education are complementary approaches with different emphases. The integration of both perspectives is imperative to develop the skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed for responsible participation in a democratic society and in a global community in the twenty-first century.” The text includes a chart the address criticisms of global education including claims that it teaches moral relativism, divides the world between oppressed and oppressors, is unpatriotic, and is hostile to capitalism.  NCSS disagrees with all of those claims.
  • The History Channel:  “The History Channel recently sponsored a global teach-in to address the tendency of textbooks to avoid a global approach to American history—a perspective that often leads students to conclude that America’s story is largely separate from the broader history of humanity. The Statue of Liberty, one of the most popular heritage sites in the United States, is a quintessential vista in American textbooks and yet its story is a global one—mingling with the stories of millions of immigrants greeted by the statue as they entered New York harbor. Links like these demonstrate that American history does not begin or end in the United States, and approaching these global strands through heritage sites is one way to broach comparative history with K–12 students. “  The live teach in is below.


Globalizing national history narratives won’t eliminate nationalism or collective national identity.  Think about it, most people have a superficial understanding of U.S. history and are still “good citizens.”  There are other societal events, rituals, and symbols (holidays, sports, life experiences, media) that occur frequently with a wider appeal which bind U.S. citizens.  National narratives were created to assimilate immigrants and indoctrinate national identities. National history education responded to that late 19th early 20th century need.  However, with today’s emphasis on globalization, global systems, and world power players other than the nation-state,  history education should prepares students with global competencies to think and act intelligently and successfully in contemporary society.  Simply out, teaching a traditional national U.S. narrative to students short changes them.

Oh and if you didn’t know, the Martin Luther King Jr. monument in Washington D.C. was created by Chinese sculptor Lei Yikin. And guess what, that is OK  because Dr. King’s legacy is not owned or dictated by the United States.

 

Social Studies/History Education – 21st Century College, Career, and Civic Readiness Skills: “Context”

January 10, 2013 by · 2 Comments · History and Social Studies Education

Happy 2013… or is it?  We often forget that “time” and “space”, besides being two central dimensions of history and social studies education, are themselves social constructs rooted in contextual understanding.  One simple way to expose and/or remind students of the import of context in their construction of knowledge is through purposeful questioning that challenges accepted, internalized constructs. For starters,  “What year is it?”, “In which season does New Year’s take place?”, “Which way is “up/down” on a globe?”, and “what is normal.”

Beyond spatial and temporal constructs, recognizing and understanding context, and in turn “perspective” and “relativisim”, are valuable (ahem ‘marketable’), critical skills for our globalized reality. Social studies and history education is well versed to teach students about contexts.

Lionel Trilling - "I Object!"

Lionel Trilling – “I Object!”

To paraphrase mid-20th century intellectual Lionel Trilling, the creation of objective systems (legal, educational, moral, political, cultural, intellectual etc.) is one of noblest ventures of humanity.  There existence allows societies to advance, invent, agree, and thrive.  “That disrespect for mind Trilling saw epitomized in the aggressive relativism that ridiculed the very idea of “objectivity”, and with it, Trilling insisted, the idea of reality itself. Today, Trilling’s defense of objectivity, as an idea and an ideal, has a prophetic ring, an appeal to redemption, so to speak. ‘In the face of the certainty,’ he told his audience, ‘that the effort of objectivity will fall short of what it aims at, those who undertake to make the effort do so out of something like a sense of intellectual honor and out of the faith that in the practical life, which includes the moral life, some good must follow from even the relative success of the endeavor.’  Yet, it must be remembered that humanity’s objective systems are just that… human made, and therefore subject to change and open to interpretation. Thus the need to celebrate the understanding of context across time and space.

Stanford University’s “Beyond the Bubble” identifies Context and Contextualization as important historical thinking skills.  I wish they were more explicit when identifying the usefulness of the skill beyond investigation of the past. “Contextualization asks students to locate a document in time and place, and to understand how these factors shape its content.”   Take a look:

I believe “Beyond the Bubble” whose project directors include the esteemed Sam Wineburg, imply that context is a college/career/civic life skill.  Along the same line of thought, in a recent article, the AHA’s Tuning project,concurs: “History students need to be able to find and sift information, read with a critical eye, assess evidence from the past, write with precision, and be able to tell stories that analyze and narrate the past effectively. We can also agree about a variety of ways students can demonstrate such skills… Take number 8 from the AHA’s discipline core: “Explore multiple historical and theoretical viewpoints that provide perspective on the past.”

But, outside of the history education-verse, how much is understanding “context” valued. Is it explicitly identified as a critical thinking skill and a foundation of college,career, and civic readiness? I argue that unless “historical thinking skills” are touted as marketable talents they will remain niche, “nice to have”, academic assets.  Please note marketable skills include those are “humanistic” – interpersonal, evaluative, introspective, affective, and existential. Indeed these “soft skills” go a long way towards success. In his 2011 Challenge of Rethinking History Education, Bruce Van Sledright argues for the existential quality of contextual learning “students become increasingly aware of themselves, their beliefs, convictions, and dispositions.”
A CONTEXT-AMPLE:
The recent pop culture attention to “superhero”  Abraham Lincoln and the 150th Anniversary of the  Emancipation Proclamation (lines were 3 hours long for a 20 second viewing at the National Archive)  provides an ideal case study demonstrating the power of context. Indeed, with this man and his celebrated document, slaves held in the Confederacy of the United States were set free.  A triumphant moment indeed which led to further changes in social, economic, political and cultural conditions of African-Americans.

Global education/competencies provide a valuable context  for understanding emancipation and slavery in world history. A simple  step is to see where US emancipation fits in relation to other nations. Below is a small sample of events that really did turn the world upside down:

Abolition of Slavery

1794 – Haiti

1824 – Spain (after an apprenticeship)

Play the Lincoln Challenge- Click Here

1825 – Chili
1829 – Mexico
1833 – The entire British Empire (after an apprenticeship)
1834 -South Africa
1846 – Danish West Indies ( now Virgin Islands)
1854 – Venezuela & Peru
1860 – Russia (frees the serfs)
1863 – Netherlands
1865 – United States
1875 – Portugal (in their colonies)
1886 – Cuba
1888 – Brazil

Such a simple act of placing an event in a temporal context is a huge step to an empowered understanding of the past. It places ideas like freedom and democracy in context, and encourages valid critiques of claims of paragons to those virtues.

But more significantly allows critical, creative, and reflective insight and engagement with the present and the self.  Being skilled in contextual understanding enable students to evaluate contemporary social constructs (race, gender, class, nationalism, identity etc). In turn, the existing attempts at objectivity Trilling mentioned are challenged and not reified. To me, this certainly prepares students for the future.

 

 

 

 

Publish and Prosper: Tips on Promoting Student Generated Knowledge in the Public Sphere

December 16, 2012 by · No Comments · History and Social Studies Education, Online Education

In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1997 novel Timequake, there is an exchange about the “innocent question: ‘Art or not?’”.  Here is what Vonnegut comes up with.

RIP 1922-2007: With the publication of his novel Timequake in 1997, Vonnegut announced his retirement from writing fiction. He continued to write for the magazine In These Times, where he was a senior editor.

Listen: “Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity (emphasis added)… People capable of liking some paintings or prints or whatever can rarely do so without knowing something about the artist. Again the situation is social rather than scientific… If you are unwilling (or in education, unable [my addition]) to claim credit for your pictures…there goes the ball game.”

The social action Vonnegut stresses at the close of the 2oth century, has become a pillar of 21st century education manifestos and best practices.  The “social activity” mentioned above, transferred to contemporary education instruction, manifests in the call for students to generate knowledge through a variety of production styles which are then placed in the public sphere. Simply put, the traditional practice of  students writing a paper for one set of eyes (the teacher’s) to see, digest, comment and evaluate is an anachronism.  Continued practice of this type of assessment is a remnant of the sage on the stage model of education. It is indeed time to reinvent the wheel.

So, who is calling for students to generate knowledge and publish it for public consumption.  First, let’s explore some perspectives from  the recent publication NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL EDUCATION RESEARCH: The Influence of Technology and Globalization on the Lives of Students edited by Dr. Brad Maguth  “As pressures mount for society to equip today’s youth with both the global and digital understandings necessary to confront the challenges of the 21st century, a more thorough analysis must be undertaken to examine the role of technology on student learning (Peters, 2009).”  Likewise, “youth are active participants, producers, and distributors of new media. The digital production of youth includes over 38% of designing personal websites, 23% constructing online videos and slideshows, and 8%launching digital causes campaigns….The internet has allowed youth new opportunities in fostering global awareness of civic, humanitarian, political, economic, and environmental causes (Maguth p.3)

Student generated knowledge is a powerful educational experience.  These clips are a tribute the unleashed potential of celebrating student interests and sharing work in the public sphere.

1) “Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs “childish” thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids’ big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups’ willingness to learn from children as much as to teach.”

2) Nikhil Goyal is a student at Syosset High School in New York, United States. He wrote a book: All Hands on Deck: Why America Needs a Learning Revolution to be published in September 2012. Goyal writes for the Huffington Post, guest blogs for the New York Times, and contributes to NBC Education Nation.  “Students are left out of the debate, even thought we have the most important opinions.  Instead of schools cherishing students’ passions and interests, they destroy them. Let’s raise kids to dream big and think different. America will need to re-kindle the innovative spirit that has propelled in the past. It’s a do or die moment. Bring on the learning revolution!”


These messages and practices are supported by present, influential movements in 21st century education. Consider the following frameworks and strategies for the future of education practice. How close do your schools and classrooms meet these goals and aspirations for our students and educators?

A) Vision for the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Inquiry in Social Studies State Standards:  Dimension 4  highlights the ways students use to present their ideas (e.g., essays, debates, video productions), the venues in which they present their ideas (e.g., classrooms, school gatherings, public meetings), and the ways in which they work (e.g., individually, small groups, whole class).
Readiness for college, career, and civic life is as much about the experiences students have as it is about learning any particular set of content, concepts, or skills. Thus the learning environments that teachers create are critical to student success. Students will flourish to the extent that their independent and collaborative efforts are guided, supported, and honored.

B) Succeeding Globally Through. International Education and Engagement. U.S. Department of Education. International Strategy. 2012–16 “The Global Competence Task Force … defined globally competent individuals as those who use their knowledge and skills to investigate the world beyond their immediate environment, recognize their own and others’ perspectives, communicate their ideas effectively with diverse audiences, and translate their ideas into appropriate actions.

C) Common Core State Standards:  “Although information is provided in both arguments and explanations, the two types of writing have different aims.
Arguments seek to make people believe that something is true or to persuade people to change their beliefs or behavior. Explanations, on the other hand, start with the assumption of truthfulness and answer questions about why or how. Their aim is to make the reader understand rather than to persuade him or her to accept a certain point of view. In short, arguments are used for persuasion and explanations for clarification.

I guess another question to ask is to what extent do these statements actually carry weight in state standards and testing and school cultures.  Are these ideas valued? Buy whom?

Well, I still believe that the most important factor in educational experiences is the classroom teacher.  If you are still doing the one way practice of student –> teacher publishing, fear not.  Below are some tips on student products. But first, what is meant but he “public sphere.”  Simply put, the public sphere is anything beyond the teacher’s eyes only.  Consider the list below a continuum moving from narrow to broad spheres of public. Next to each dimension I included a few suggested ways  student work can interact beyond teacher eyes only models. Of course the list is not complete but hopefully gets the idea juices flowing.

The Public…

a) …classroom:  gallery walks,  class discussion of student work.

b) …department:  peer editing from other sections, presenting to other classes, discipline website highlighting student work

c) …school: display tables at lunch, displays in hallways, newspapers, library archives,  part of parent nights

d) … community: student work in civic buildings, displays, local newspapers,

e) … nation: engage in projects like National History Day, collaborate with schools, and colleges, engage in contests

f) … international: establish sister schools, link with non-profits, video conferencing

g)… cyber space: present at online conferences, post work on websites, establish a learnist board, comment on blogs, utilize web 2.0 tools

 

But what to publish?  Well, the sky is the limit here. One suggestion is to do this in a secure course in your school’s LMS. Here are some concrete (not a total) list of suggestions.

Publish what?

*Writing (all types)      *Visuals/mind-maps        * Blogs/Wikis         *Infographics

*Presentation                  *Video/Audio/Media posts       *Comments to an established webpages

Overall, this is a very exciting part of education that need not be done always, but should be part of any model classroom.  Agreed?

and so it goes…

Seattle to St. Thomas: 5 Reflections from the U.S. Empire

November 25, 2012 by · 1 Comment · Conferences, History and Social Studies Education, Online Education, Professional Development

This past week I traveled to two parts of the US empire.  People, American citizens especially, still resist and wrestle with this concept.  High school history courses, promoting the narrative that the US flirted with imperialism during the Spanish-American War but then quickly abandoned the idea,

What does the French soldier mean when he says America fights for the biggest “nothing” in history?

don’t help.  I find it amazing that this narrative persists as the dominant one despite the scholarship that has discredited the national myth.  For me, the first book that really drove the idea of American empire home was Niall Ferguson’s 2004 Colossus.  Ferguson points out “Many Americans doubtless play Age of Empires…But remarkably few Americans -or, for that matter American soldiers – would be willing to admit that their government is currently playing the game for real. This book argues not merely that the United States is an empire, but that it has always been an empire.”

Six years later, the 2010, 500 page plus tour de force Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference  by Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, compares the development of two mighty land based empires the USA and Russia.  In essence, anything beyond the boundaries set by the treaty of Paris in 1783, were imperialistic gains via war, treaty, and treasure. “Within the extension of continental empire to the west, the Euro-American “pioneers” marched along the road to full political participation and statehood; Indians were on a path to the reservation…”  Native Americans are the conquered peoples of the overland American Empire (Seattle, Washington included). The US Virgin Islands, bought from the Danes in 1917 were part of the overseas island empires (Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam etc) and are classified by the UN as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, and are currently an organized, unincorporated United States territory. But if you go to the US VI, you realize that trading deeds and making inhabitants citizens (of sorts) doesn’t erode a culture of difference.   The resort staff is almost entirely black. And as I talked to a white immigrant from Ohio on the island, she recognized that she had moved to the US imperial hinterland and lived “where the white people do” on the island.

So, while at a conference in Seattle, former home to the Duwamish and Suquamish, and then on vacation in St. Thomas VI where resort workers uncomfortably wished me a “Happy Thanksgiving”, I reflected on these 5 items related to global, history, education, and teaching. Enjoy.

 

1) 3rd Annual Global Ed Conference:  Wow! Another great conference. For three years Lucy Gray and Steve Hargadon  have co piloted a landmark event. This year’s conference was co-sponsored by iEARN. With an expanding staff, following, presenters, archive, and energy, the conference is part of the present and future of professional development.  Check out the archives over the past three years, there is so much there.  Time and space no longer restrict PD opportunities.  My two presentations are linked below. The first as a presenter and the second as a guest panelist. Get involved!

(a) Navigating a Flat World: Teaching Globalization in Secondary Education:  Recording is found here    This is my 3rd presentation at GEC conferences (See my blog menu for the other two).  How come the most influential concept, process, and phenomenon not explicitly taught in high school? How can we claim to have a 21st century education without it being part of school curricula?

(b) Keynote Speaker Ed Gragert: Conference Wrap Up: Recording is found here  . I presented ideas about the future of professional development (PD) and how it can catch up to how we teach students – Personalized, Teacher Created Knowledge, and Technology Enhanced and Networked PD.It was a great tribute to all those who made the conference possible.

 

2)  93rd NCSS Conference:  The theme of the 2012 conference, held in Seattle WA, was “Opening Windows to the World.” The event offered 3 days programing and presentations across the social studies educational landscape.  Everyone knew, however, that the main event was the unveiling of the NCSS social studies framework.  That event, however was pushed back until the next conference in St. Louis.  In the interim, a panel outlined what had been done, what future work can be expected,  fielded questions from the audience, and shared the Vision for the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Inquiry in Social Studies State Standards .  This document “provides guidance for states to use in enhancing their standards for rigor in civics, economics, geography, and history in K-12 schools. The C3 Framework, currently under development, will ultimately focus on the disciplinary and multidisciplinary concepts and practices that make up the process of investigation, analysis, and explanation which will be informative to states interested in upgrading their social studies standards. The forthcoming framework, to be released in 2013, will be a significant resource for all states to consider in their local processes for upgrading state social studies standards, rather than set standards for states to adopt.”   Take a look, start the discussion, and post your comments.  For example… where does sociology, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology fit?  Is civics a discipline?

3) Online Facebook Debate: Anyone can engage Harvard Historian and Department Chair David Armitage in an online Facebook debate! Sponsored by the journal Itineario, Armitage’s opening statement addresses the question “Are we all global historians now?”  Part of Armitage’s response is “But in one strong sense we could say that we all have to be global historians now. By that I mean, if you are not doing . . . this formulation will get me into trouble, but let me nevertheless put it in these strong terms: if you are not doing an explicitly transnational, international or global project, you now have to explain why you are not… The hegemony of national historiography is over.”   Join the conversation and comment on Facebook here. Armitage’s full interview is here.

4) Contributors Wanted: American Imperialism and Expansion: ABC-CLIO Press is publishing Imperialism and Expansionism in American
History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia, an ambitious, 880,000-word, 4-volume project that will serve as ABC-CLIOs lead American history title for 2014. Each of the 4 volumes will include an historical overview, chronology, thematically organized A-Z entries, primary sources, glossary, and bibliography. For topics pertaining to the 18th and 19th centuries, including expansion within the continental U.S.: David Bernstein:
David@davidbernstein.net.    For topics pertaining to the 20th century: Chris Magoc:  cmagoc@mercyhurst.edu   I have signed up for three so far – “Isolationism”, “GI Joe (yes the toy)”, and “Top Gun (film)”.


5) Online Education & Best Practices:  What makes an online class a successful experience for students and teachers.  One answer is the same one we can yse for a F2F classroom… good  teaching.  Effective online educators are made not born. Regardless of the platform you use or the subject you teach, these 20+ characteristics should be core beliefs and practices for online education shared by teachers and students.  Sponsored by edudemic, the list will reinforce some strategies, remind you of ones forgotten, and reveal new pedagogy to consider.  My favorite is number 2 “Online should never mean easy, for teachers or students“… which is yours?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teaching in a Flat World during International(?) Week: Globalization and the Global Ed Conference

November 11, 2012 by · 1 Comment · Conferences, History and Social Studies Education, Professional Development

I recently came across this quote/mantra from Ian Juke  (futurist, educator, author):  “We need to prepare students for their future, not our past. I like that.   It would make a great theme for this year’s  International Education Week designated from Nov 12-16.  Started in 2000, IEW is celebrated in 100 nations (factsheet here).  Let’s here Secretary’s Duncan’s overview:

Hmmmm. Title IX, a great laudable achievement indeed,  seems to fall short of an international theme I was expecting.  Even under the umbrella of “global health” the narrative finds its way back to the the celebration of the “national” on a global stage.  The connection to the Olympics is well taken,but feels like an after thought to extend a “national” event (Title IX) into the broader world.  I feel we can do better. But where can we go for inspiration?

The Global Education Conference, conveniently held during the same week, is a fantastic outlet (or alternative to the DOE’s  for theme this year) for topics in international education.  ” The third annual Global Education Conference, a free week-long online event bringing together educators and innovators from around the world, will be held Monday, November 12 through Friday, November 16, 2012 (Saturday, November 17th in some time zones). The entire conference will be held online using the Blackboard Collaborate platform (formerly known as Elluminate/Wimba) with the support of iEARN worldwide as the conference founding sponsor, who will be running their annual international conference in conjunction with this event.

The Global Education Conference is a collaborative, inclusive, world-wide community initiative involving students, educators, and organizations at all

The 2010 and 2011 archives are available at their website. Amazing!

levels. It is designed to significantly increase opportunities for building education-related connections around the globe while supporting cultural awareness and recognition of diversity. Last year’s conference featured 340 general sessions and 18 keynote addresses from all over the world with over 10,000 participant logins.”  Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Please attend my session “Navigating a Flat World: Teaching Globalization in Secondary Education” on Tuesday, November 13th from 7-8 pm EDT.   link is here

Below is a preview to the session.  I look forward to your feedback, insights, and continued discussion on this topic.  Enjoy & see you soon.

Preview

Globalization, the dominant system, force, and project impacting our political, economic, social, and cultural lives, isn’t widely or deeply studied in United States’ high schools.  Typically, globalization is relegated to a topic “covered” at the end of the school year in a World History course or integrated into “current event” styled assignments.  In rare cases, high schools courses offerings include an elective course on globalization or highlight as a school wide “habit of mind” in an effort to demonstrate dedication to global education. Effectively engaging students with globalization, therefore, is largely directed by classroom teachers. Enhancing teachers’ knowledge, instruction, assessment, and professional development around globalization should be an imperative in contemporary education. How is globalization conceptualized and taught by your department, school, and individuals in your district?

Globalization, furthermore, has challenged the education profession to reflect upon established contemporary educational theory and policy, as well as rethink educational outcomes and pedagogy. Systematically, this is typically directed under the auspices of 21st century teaching, leading, and learning and/or initiatives around college and career readiness.  Specific to social studies and history education, globalization suggests the need for alternative narratives beyond the traditional national and civilizational contexts that have dominated the field for generations. In turn, a sincere engagement with globalization in high school curriculum yields opportunities for educators to rethink their craft and impact student understanding of their contemporary and future realities.

 

Below, are two experiences/lessons around a pair of ideas essential to an authentic understanding of the complexities of globalization. The outcomes of these lessons were instructive for both me and my students.  However, the objective is to move globalization from the margins of education to the center of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and cultural identity of schools. I am confident that if you explore these topics individually or in a PLC, as part of formal professional development or as a practice of a professional educator, students will benefit from your experience and knowledge. Moving forward, it is essential for high school history and social studies educators (with the support and guidance from administrations) to modify  instructional strategies and expand their content knowledge in order to explicitly explore globalization as an essential part of 21st century education.

Experience 1 – Defining Globalization:

Overview:  One explanation of globalization defines it as the ongoing acceleration of economic, social and cultural exchanges across the planet (Suarez-Orozco & Sattin, 2007).  The late Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillo framed globalization, in part, as contemporary utopian construct.  Thomas Friedman’s “flatness” parlance is part of society’s collective consciousness. But these are but a few of the conceptualizations of globalization. Moreover, virtually every historical issue is a complex web with a multitude of contexts and overlapping networks. The narratives we produce and teach about globalization greatly impacts our students’ understanding.

 Essential Questions:

In what ways is globalization a process or set of systems and structures that produces global flows and networks?

To what extent is globalization a designed project directed by individuals, groups, companies, institutions etc?

What is power and what types of power are there?

How do we complicate the “the West and the Rest” exceptionalist narrative?

What individuals, groups, and systems have agency in our global world?

What is the “global village” and how valid is that concept?

Sample Instruction:

  • I provided student groups with one vocabulary list t accompanied with varying explanations/definitions of globalization.
  • Students summarized there explanation/definition to the class.
  • When complete, the definitions were compared and contrasted.
  • As a class we predicted who would find these definitions valid and accompanied photos of global events to help guide the discussion
  • Note as an extra I would show scenes from the film Baraka as well.
  • As a closure, I introduced the concepts of “Social Construct” and “Narrative”

Experience 2 – Globalized Grays:

Overview Professor John Willinsky, in his work Education at Empire’s End, explains the legacy of binary thought that produced “such two-dimensional spectrums as civilized and savage, West and East, white and black.”  In turn, the process of othering becomes built in to history and social studies education. The globalized world we live in, however, is complex and nuanced and should be taught as such.  Rethinking the past as a shared arena suggests that the realities of globalization complicates world views and identities, and challenges constructed realities and categories of thought.  One simple way to address the binary legacy is to always consider a third alternative. This simple step challenges accepted (and limited) world views.

Essential Questions:

How can you move beyond dualities to expand student understanding?

Do you teach students about “othering” and the limitations of an us/them mentality?

Is culture taught as a dynamic process or a set package of essentialized ideas and values?

How are terms like “modern” and “civilized” used and explained to students?

How much collaboration do you do with educators outside of your school, state, and nation?

 Sample Lesson:

  • Set up a list of RSS feeds from a range of media sources around the world accessible for your students (I used NetVibes).
  • This will establish a “flipped classroom” aspect where students can access this site outside of school.
  • Assign students a current event topic that is covered by a range of global news agencies and sources. OR, present a US article of an event in class as the “control” article, and have students explore as above.
  • (As a side, I used a map resource as well, for students to track where they looked for media coverage. You can set guidelines about this too.)
  • Assessment can vary obviously (reflective, summative, compare and contrast) but I required students to identify at least three takes on the event.  More versions would receive higher points.

Suggested Sources

http://issues.tigweb.org/globalization

http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?storyid=9689

http://www.ycsg.yale.edu/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Birth of the Modern World   Bayly’s contribution to this lexicon provides an analytical framework rooted in the re-conception of modernity.

Interconnectedness and interdependence of political and social changes across the world…resulting in human action adjusted to each other and came to resemble each other across the world.  These rapidly changing connections between different human societies during the nineteenth century created many hybrid polities, mixed ideologies, ands complex forms of global economic activity. Yet… these connections could also heighten the sense of difference… But those differences were increasingly expressed in similar ways.19

Tricks, Treats, and Tony Blair

October 31, 2012 by · 1 Comment · History and Social Studies Education, Online Education

Happy Halloween! I survived the 2012 Zombie Run in Darlington MD this past weekend…barely. I had one flag on my belt left.  It is interesting to see what holidays and festivals catch on in nations AND how they are interpreted, what meanings are given to

The Zombie Run in Maryland 2012. Click here for VIdeo

them, symbols used, traditions created, and rituals practiced. I have always been a fan of Halloween’s regional boundedness (in the US -New England,PA, NY, NJ,  made sense… but beyond those states, it never resonated with me). Halloween in Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana… just doesn’t seem to fit. What about in India, China, or Saudi Arabia? When I lived in Brazil, there was a quasi-visceral movement against celebrating Halloween. It was seen as cultural imperialism by the US; non-sensical practice to sell candy.  Halloween was a pop-cultural event celebrated beyond the expat community.  What other parts of the globe had it expanded? A quick search found this map charting global Halloween created on ChartsBin (more on this website in the future). ChartsBin does reference its sources!


via chartsbin.com

So, what is behind my Halloween mask today. I have one history trick, one technology treat, and a Tony Blair Global…BOO! Enjoy.

TRICK:  Video games can teach.  Growing up playing simulations/adventure games on my Apple IIGS like Pirates!, Revolution ’76, and Balance of Power expanded my vocabulary and conceptual frameworks, introduced me to historical people and events, and reinforced time and space contexts. It goes without saying then, that I felt blissful nostalgia when I saw ads for Assassin’s Creed 3 a historical action game set around American Revolution. Great. Another generation would engage the American Revolution in a different format and enjoy it.  But then I read CNN’s review by Larry Frum “American history unfolds in ‘Assassin’s Creed 3″.   The article takes nothing away from the game. It is Frum’s opening paragraph that makes me wince: “History, we are told, is immutable. What has happened cannot be changed and, when lessons are not heeded, is doomed to repeat itself.: UGGGHH.

Issue 1:  History is not immutable.  History is a rendering of the past, a human conceptual construct that changes according to sources used, experiences, intent etc.

Issue 2: What has happened changes because interpretation changes.  This is an empowering aspect of historical study. History is not an external canon to be memorized.

Issue 3: History doesn’t repeat itself. History doesn’t DO anything. History is not a mystical force that directs. Most of all, history is not inevitable. When people speak in these terms they are sharing their world views, and limited understanding of historical studies, theory, and epistemology.

A potential fix addressing these issues can be found in The Big Six a new publication by Peter Seixas and Tom Morton.  Add it to your professional development reading and “to do ” list.

TREAT: The University of Texas at Austin, Hemispheres and Not Even Past are pleased to announce the launch of 15 Minute History, a podcast—with supplementary materials—about World and US history.  This podcast series is devoted to short, accessible discussions of important topics in World History and US History. The discussions will be conducted by the award winning faculty and graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin. They are off

Channel Warhol with these15 minutes of fame!

to a great start!  As of Halloween 2012, they have 5 episodes:

Another neat feature is that they are taking suggestions! Email the staff (they got back to me within minutes). Combine that with a transcript of the podcast and further reading, and 15 minute history’s future looks bright. Add them to your bag of tricks… I mean treats.

TONY BLAIR:I was recently introduced to an outstanding Global Education program/curriculum used in over 600 schools worldwide called Face to Faith. Started in 2008, the  The Tony Blair Faith Foundationaims to promote respect and understanding about the world’s major religions and show how faith can be a powerful force for good in the modern world.  The former Prime Minister of the UK notes “I have always believed that faith is an essential part of the modern world. As globalisation pushes us ever closer it is vital it’s not used as a force for conflict and division. Faith is not something either old-fashioned or to be used for extremism.”  This sentiment may unsettle some individual’s world views and narrative of a secular progression through world history.  Meeting with a teacher who uses the program in Utah public schools, curriculum coordinators, representatives from the DOE and NCSS, I soon realized that Face to Faith was an empowering curriculum that trains educators how to teach global issues through religious perspectives. Amazing!  The program is in 19 countries; Australia, Canada, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Singapore, UAE, UK, Kosovo, Ukraine and USA. Face to Faith guarantees an interactive, global and life-changing experience for participating schools, teachers and students.

If interested, you can contact Dr. Charles Haynes  director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum and a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, or Marcia Beauchamp at   marcia.beauchamp@tonyblairfaithfoundation.org

BOO!