Author: cperrier

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

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?

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

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 put, 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.

 

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

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.

 

 

 

 

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

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…

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

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?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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Tricks, Treats, and Tony Blair

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!

 

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5 Easy Pieces for a Global Classroom

Adapting classroom practice should be an easy, ongoing set of processes drawing from a range of resources and nodes of information. Professional teaching, and teachers, are at their best when they are agile, adaptable, open, and look to improve their craft. Of course there are ranges of willingness, complexity, time, and opportunity around this aspect of education.  Focus and organization are key attributes as well. However, classroom improvements need to not be paradigm shifts in teaching.  Small pieces which explore the possibilities of education, address contemporary educational demands, and indulge teachers’ interests form the base for continued evolution. This includes changes made in the name of global education. I suggest this need not be an all encompassing move. Likewise, static teaching is like bad customer (and existential) service…

 

If Jack was the student and the waitress a teacher set in stagnant practice, the order (adaptive teaching) never gets delivered (authentic, relevant learning).  Thankfully, their is no lack of ways teachers can explore and improve their craft.  Below is a menu of 5 global education resources.  They can be engaged in varying layers of depth, explored individually or with  a group, and implemented according to your students, personal, school, and community needs.  Let me know what you think about them and how you use them. I am going to get a chicken salad sandwich.

Global Nomads: Connect -> Collaborate –>Create –> Change!  So simple, yet so effective a formula is the central mantra of Global Nomads.  “Global Nomads Group (GNG) is an international NGO whose mission is to foster dialogue and understanding among the world’s youth. GNG engages and empowers young people worldwide using media, including: interactive videoconferencing, webcasting, social networking, gaming, and participatory filmmaking. GNG operates at the intersection of international and peace education, striving to serve as a vehicle for awareness, bridging the boundaries of cultural misconceptions and instilling in our audience a heightened appreciation and comprehension of the world in which they live.”   Heads up…. their  Election Watch Webcast is coming up:

  • WhenThu, November 1, 12pm – 1pm
  • DescriptionGrades 7-12 Join us as we follow the 2012 Presidential election campaign. In this four-part program, we will explore the following topics: • Voting in the USA & Campaign 101 • Political Parties: Policies, Perspectives & Promises • Voting Day
  • Register at http://bit.ly/N9pK81

Collabornation: Whoa! You have to check this interactive website designed by Susan Fisher of Ridgeview IB Charter School in Georgia. In her own words “This is the gamification website I created as an integral part of my “Dream Classroom” where students can experience and interact with the  curriculum in an exciting and unique way. It includes elements of flipping, webquest design, differentiation, gaming, and project based learning… just to name a few. Areas the students explore include Noob Quests, Cartographer’s Workshop, Shaman’s Insight, Capital City, Economist’s Lair, Library, Urgent Evoke and Arcadia.The names are all plays on the themes we visit throughout the year.”  It feels like Blade Runner meets Khan Academy… a great mix indeed.

 

Tourwrist: This is pretty amazing.   “In less than 60 seconds, you can now create, label and submit your own 360°panorama (pano) with the totally free TourWrist iOS app.”   Although not designed as an educational tool, using Tourwrist in social studies and history classes adds a visual element to lessons, projects, etc not available before. Be sure to scroll up and down to get the full effect.

UN Cyber Schoolbus: “The United Nations Cyberschoolbus was created in 1996 as the online education component of the Global Teaching and Learning Project, whose mission is to promote education about international issues and the United Nations. The Global Teaching and Learning Project produces high quality teaching materials and activities designed for educational use (at primary, intermediate and secondary school levels) and for training teachers. The vision of this Project is to provide exceptional educational resources (both online and in print) to students growing up in a world undergoing increased globalization. The Global Teaching and Learning Project is part of the Outreach Division of the United Nations Department of Public Information. ” My favorites include their curriculum of 20 global issues and their interactive game on refugees.

US Peace Institute:  I had the pleasure of visiting the institute at its new, stunning headquarters in Washington D.C. this past week.  The institute, “the

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
Baruch Spinoza

independent, nonpartisan conflict management center created by Congress to prevent and mitigate international conflict without resorting to violence”, recognizes that conflict is part of humanity but need not lead to violence and war.  Their education programs, many of them found at the Global Peacebuilding  Center, are extensive including classroom resources, professional development, networking, and online resources.  There is something very every level of educator… don’t miss the conflict style assessment test, virtual passport, and essay contest.

OK…. 6 easy pieces. Consider this dessert.  Mmm.. Enjoy.

My Hero:  “Educators use The MY HERO Project in schools, libraries, after-school workshops, and community and media centers around the world to build student’s 21st Century skills, stimulate character development and engage them in thinking critically about heroism, personal and cultural values, human rights, and environment issues.”  There are numerous resources on their educators page   A great feature is the numerous ways to share projects to the community on their site form around the globe.

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The Global in World History Courses – Opening and Escaping the Nation-State Box

Take a look at a world map and what do you see? A common reply identifies our planet as  a  puzzle of nations pieced together by contiguous, interlocking (and distinct) borders. Each nation-piece of the puzzle seems to be its own little world, structured and organized with certain/unique people, places, landforms, ideas and “ways of life.”  The borders that connect them, although not physical lines, are recognized borders of identity, government, and culture.

In turn, each of these nation-pieces act as self contained packages, neatly understood and categorized in our world view that we could title

 

The real puzzle is how to teach history and society unrestricted by traditional national narratives that dominate education. When will high schools alter the national paradigm and incorporate alternatives: Transnational, Global Systems, and Regional “World” networks?

“Earth-nation-puzzle.”  An additional impact of this world view is the production of  the national history narratives. Courses in one’s nation, often required for graduation, are pillars of contemporary educational models. This is not a “bad” thing… it is, however, limiting.  In his 2009 work National History and the World of Nations, Columbia professor Christopher Hill argues that “the writing of national history in the late nineteenth century made the reshaping of the world by capitalism and the nation-state seem natural and inevitable.”   Tracing this historiography of the nation-state can take many routes. At least two stops along the way I suggest are:

1)  Recently deceased Eric Hobsbawm’s  The Invention of Tradition (1983) which argues that many “traditions” which “appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented.”They distinguish the “invention” of traditions in this sense from “starting” or “initiating” a tradition which does not then claim to be old. The phenomenon is particularly clear in the modern development of the nation.

  2)   Prasenjit Duara’s 1997 Rescuing History from the Nation  argues that many historians of postcolonial nation-states have adopted a linear, evolutionary history of the Enlightenment/colonial model. As a result, they have written repressive, exclusionary, and incomplete accounts…he redefines history as a series of multiple, often conflicting narratives produced simultaneously at national, local, and transnational levels.

So, how does this limit our world view?  Conceptions of identity, culture, and history based on the nation are reinforced as natural phenomenon bestowed upon citizens at birth, immutable, and essentialized.  This generates a feeling of “American-ness” or “French-ness” or “Chinese-ness ” etc that we use to understand ourselves and “others” in the world and allows us to rank people on whatever “-ness.”  We come up with ideas of “Authentic Thai-food” and “Pure Spanish Experiences” and boast about stereotypical qualities that are somehow passed on to us through ethno-genes  which we can’t  alter.  (Isn’t this denial of responsibility what the existentialists were talking about?).  Fortunately, this imagined, oversimplified taxonomy is a social construct to which no man-made objective system can be applied.  Sorry Hulk Hogan, there is no such thing as a “Real American”… beyond citizenship.

So, what is the value of thinking beyond oversimplified categories related to the nation-state? I argue that being able to think with complexity and depth about the social constructs of identity, culture, and the nation is a 21s century/college and career readiness/global education-awareness-literacy, skill that is:

  • essential to understanding a networked globe of systems and flows of ideas and people.
  • coveted by  employers in a globally competitive market.
  • embraced and furthered by higher education
  • required in secondary education

So, how do we escape the limitations of  national history and identity, nation-state box? Below, I outline multiple ways teachers can explore teaching

Interesting how an imagined character became a symbol of authenticity for a nation. Say your prayers, eat your vitamins and you NEED TO WATCH THIS VIDEO! Fantastic.

beyond the nation-state. It is important to note, that I am not advocating denying the existence, power, and influence of the nation-state on history and contemporary society. However, it is but one way to engage reality and the world.   National borders create borders of thought. UT Austin’s Institute for Historical Studies says it better than I.

“humans have defined ourselves with borders and boundaries: markers in space, time, identity, aspiration, imagination, and as many other realms as our hopes and fears have conjured or devised…We also seek to understand borders as conceptual, ideological, and often porous divides that maintain systems of difference and inequality. Borders frame social and cultural spaces where different intellectual concepts, artistic styles, aesthetic movements, academic disciplines, or mass media genres encounter one another and negotiate their differences. Broadly imagined borders are functions of environments, religion, mobility, markets, citizenship, and warfare. Crossing borders can illuminate the construction of nations, communities, and intellectual categories and suggest how differing histories might be conceived.”

Consider these starting points, share them,  and let me know what you think.  I am confident they will help expand your students’ world views and facilitate their engagement with global constructs, realities, and possibilities.

Approaches:

  • 1Big History: Imagine exploring 13.7B years from before the Big Bang to modernity. Big history reveals common themes and patterns that help students better understand people, civilizations and the world we live in. David Christian developed big history to ask big questions and tie together big concepts. Now he and Bill Gates are working on the Big History Project to bring the course to life for high school students and invigorate interest in the big fields of science, math and history. See his Ted video.
  • Transnational History:  Many of the most significant developments in history — whether in religion, philosophy, the environment, or other aspects of life — happen “irrespective of national identities,” said Akira Iriye, a professor of history at Harvard University. “It’s a very exciting moment in the profession to see so many historians moving in this direction. This approach has been embraced by many including the European University Institute, Duke, and the Center for Transnational History.
  •  Braudel’s World:  Fernand Braduel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (1949) left a theoretical legacy that has been reinvigorated using Ocean based “worlds” of inquiry. These approaches see oceans as connectors not obstacles to flows of people, ideas, events, and things.

a) The Atlantic World: Over the past two decades a large number of historians have come to treat Atlantic World history as a formal area for scholarly inquiry.  This arose from recognition that many of the most significant historical forces of the Early Modern World could be better understood by analysis of their generation and impact over this broad geographic area.  Intercontinental trade, the exchange of ideas and technology, and the mass emigration of peoples reshaped life in each of the Atlantic continents in the Early Modern World. Scholarship here abounds.

Pacific centered US History by Bruce Cummings. Try starting the US national narrative not in Jamestown and Plymouth. Multiple narratives raise the bar of cognition and empowers students.

b)  The Pacific World: In Finding the Pacific World  it is argued that it is possible to define the “Pacific World” as a temporal and geographical category…   The idea that there was indeed a Pacific World, in a specific historical period, then, offers a starting point for closer analysis of the networks that existed within it and witnessed a philosophical and cultural consciousness of the Pacific, as demonstrated by trade, cultural connections, and deliberate international affiliation based on shared Pacific location.”
c) The Indian Ocean World: The Indian Ocean has been a zone of human interaction for several millennia, boasting a 1,500-year history of active high-seas trade before the arrival of Europeans in 1498. This website seeks to enhance the profile of Indian Ocean history, long neglected relative to the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in both academic study and world history courses. This source is focused on secondary education.

Resources

1001 Inventions : The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Muslim civilisation stretched from Spain to China. From the 7th century onwards, men and women of different faiths and cultures built on knowledge from ancient civilisations, making breakthroughs that have left their mark on our world. Learn more about the 1001 Inventions educational programmes, blockbuster exhibitions, award-winning films, books and international productions.

A History of the World in 100 Objects: A 100 part series by Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, exploring world history from two million years ago to the presentDiscover the 100 objects featured in the Radio 4 series; listen to the programmes online and download the podcast; see what The British Museums and other museums in the UK have contributed, and find out more about the project on the BBC.

 Gapminder: The brainchild of Hans Rosling, the website now contains a teacher’s page.  Gapminder is used in classrooms around the world to build a fact-based world view. Using the nation-state as the main unit of analysis, comparing data challenges the constructed identities we have of ourselves and others.

Teaching History Blog: Jeremy  Greene is a history teacher at Chelmsford High School in Massachusetts. He teaches all levels of world history and  is interested in world history curriculum and pedagogy and in  internationalizing or globalizing the US history course.  He is a member of the board  for the New England History Teachers’ Association and a member of the WHA’s Teaching Committee.His recent blog addresses these themes.

 

 

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The Early American Republic’s Encounters with the “Muslim World” – Yes, they happened!

Recent events in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and across the geo-cultural region we call the “Muslim World” has the high potential to reinforce two limited, over-simplified world views:

  1. A Binary Us-Them Mentality
  2. A totalizing “Othering” of a group

Performing a simple search of recent headlines  uncovers dramatic labels “Mayhem in the Middle East”, “Islamic Anger”,  and, of course, Newsweek’s ridiculous cover – “Muslim Rage” – which yielded an abundance of retorts (i.e. Salon  and The International Business Times).

Fortunately, addressing these can be done in classrooms on a daily basis. In fact, addressing both of these cosmologies, I argue, is essential for any high school program that embraces paradigms of 21stcentury education and/or global awareness. However, despite these “en vogue” educational monikers, there is no guarantee that social constructs regarding “identity” and “culture” are addressed with sufficient depth and rigor.  Doing so would empower students to engage media coverage. Doing so would be an indicator that contemporary education takes serious the claim “college and career readiness.”

In a recent blog post Daniel Martin Varisco, professor of anthropology at Hofstra University, addresses the constructed  “Muslim” problem: “There is a problem with labeling here. Just because the protesters are “Muslim” in principle does not mean they represent the vast majority of Muslims in these countries. A very small minority is taking advantage of an out-of-control situation to power play.”

Newsweek’s cover is evidence that Edward Said’s Oreintalism is alive and well. Click here to hear Said in a 4 part video.

 

I have found these three instructional approaches to be effective, engaging  starting points for students to understand world views and reflect on their own:

  • Defining “Social Construct” – I contend this is a key term missing from every curriculum  and program standards  I have seen.
  • Emphasize complexity by refusing binary explanations and either/or options. (This includes how we teach the Cold War, for example.)
  • Define “Culture” as a fluid, changing, complex set of meanings that are created and not as a natural, essentialized package of actions and beliefs.

So, back to the Muslim World, what opportunities do teachers of US History surveys have to promote complexity and variety this early in the school year. Across the board, US History textbooks don’t mention US-Muslim relationships as part of the early American curriculum – instead focusing on US relations with UK, France, and Native Americans. Typically, US relations with the Muslim world is framed as a 20th century phenomenon manifesting from the achieved “super power” status that put the US in the  backyards of  nations worldwide.

Likewise, teachers may not be aware of the growing scholarship in this field.  Below, I offer 5 events/ideas/people that highlight  US-Muslim encounters between 1776-1830.  Check to see if your textbooks include these items and leave a comment with the book title and publisher so we can applaud their globalizing efforts.

a) American Independence:    In 1777, Morocco became the first country whose head of state, Sultan Muhammad III,  publicly recognized the new, independent  United States of America.  A decade later, Thomas Barclay, the American consul in France, arrived in Morocco in 1786 and negotiated the “Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship”. The agreement was signed later that year in Europe by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and ratified by Congress in July 1787. Thomas Ogot, in General History of Africa, concludes that the treaty “has withstood transatlantic stresses and strains for more than 220 years, making it the keystone of the longest unbroken treaty relationship in United States history.”

b) 1796 US Treaty with Tripoli: An obscure treaty that addressed US naval and trade relations across the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean.  Article 11, below, is an interesting statement to research and discuss:  “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

It is important to contextualize President Adams’ 1797 Treaty. Article 11 is especially ripe for debate. Click here for President Obama’s reference to it.

c)Muslim Slaves: Gordon Wood in his 2009 work Empire of Liberty states “He (George Washington) expressed toleration for all religions, including the religion of Muslims and Jews… there were not many Muslims in America a the time of Washington’s inauguration – perhaps only a small community of Moroccans in Charleston, SC.” A report by the Arab American National Museum  in Dearborn, MI writes: According to some estimates, between the 1600s and the mid-1800s, 30% of African American slaves were Muslim and many spoke Arabic.

d) The Tripolitan War:  The young American navy fought the Ottoman Empire’s outlying regions Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis.  But the American Marines who landed on “the shores of Tripoli”  also allied themselves with Muslim factions that opposed the ruling class and leadership. Historian Max Boot, displaying great historical relativism, writes: “It is tempting to compare the Barbary States to  modern Islamist states that preach jihad…it is a temptation best resisted. The rulers of the Ottoman Empire and its North Africa tributaries were not particularly xenophobic nor especially fundamentalist… they were uncommonly cosmopolitan and tolerant… offering more protection than did many European states to flourishing Jewish communities.” The Savage Wars of Peace

e) King Andrew’s Foreign Policy: Known for his Indian Removal, rugged individual democracy, and broadening Presidential power, US History survey courses routinely overlook Jackson’s greatest foreign policy accomplishment. His 1830 treaty with the Ottoman Empire elevated American prestige in the eyes of the Turks to the level held by Europe.  The Treaty of Navigation and Commerce  allowed the US to trade in the Black Sea, deal arms to the Ottoman Empire, sell Lowell, MA cotton in Damascus, and led to profitable trade on the Arabian Peninsula. An American port in Istanbul constructed the world’s largest battleship at the time, the 934 ton Mahmud.  Overall, the treaty is considered to be a major turning point in American global power and influence.

Complicating accepted framework regarding US – Muslim relations, or any accepted categories of thought, is a powerful enterprise.  This can be accomplished in the most unlikely of places, the history of early American Republic. I hope this listing helps and if all else fails, read Orientalism , Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, and Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present.