Teaching of history

TEACHING OF HISTORY BHUVANGARG RAJAT PUBLICATIONS NEW DELm - 110 002 (INDIA) RAJAT PUBLICATIONS 4675/21, Ansari Ro...

Author: Bhuvan Garg

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TEACHING OF

HISTORY

BHUVANGARG

RAJAT PUBLICATIONS NEW DELm - 110 002 (INDIA)

RAJAT PUBLICATIONS 4675/21, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

New De!hi - 110002 (India) Phones: 23267924, 22507277 Email: [email protected]

Teaching ofHistory © Reserved First Edition 2007 ISBN 978-81-7880-309-8

[The responsibility for facts stated opinion expressed or conclusions reached and plagiarism if any in this volume is entirely that of the editor. The publisher bears no responsibility for them whatsoever.]

PRINTED IN INDIA Published by Mrs. Seema Wasan for Rajat Publications, New Delhi and Printed at H.S. Offset, Delhi.

Contents

1. 2.

Teaching Primary History History Teaching in Secondary Schools

1 23

3. 4. 5.

Teaching Tools for Local History

47

Teaching World History Teaching Effective World History Teaching Medieval Castles

73 109 133

History Teaching through Reflective Practice Teaching the 20th-Century History Teaching Conflict Resolution

147 151

6. 7.

8.

9. 10. Research-Teaching Relationships

11. Certification of History Teachers 12. Future of Teaching History Research Methods 13. Evaluation of History Teaching 14. Assessments to Improve the Teaching and Learning History 15. Future of Learn and Teach History

Bibliography Illdex

161 205 215 225 237 241 247 263 265

"This page is Intentionally Left Blank"

1 Teaching Primary History Since the 1960s, when the subjects of historical study broadened to include the new "social history," the amount of material that historians have to deal with, and the number of subdisciplines they are studying increased considerably. The following are the teaching methods of primary history: QUESTIONS AND QUESTIONING

Enquiry lies at the heart of history. Understanding the past involves a process of enquiry, where we examine sources about the past, raise questions and debate their meaning. Closed and Open Questions

We can ask children closed or open questions. Closed questions will test recall and understanding and help children to revise what they know. As such, they have a useful place in a teacher's repertoire. The best questions, though, are open questions. Open questions in history focus children's attention, rouse curiosity and interest, drive and shape the investigation, elicit views and stimulate purposeful discussion. Open questions promote higher order thinking and so help children to develop their thinking skills.

Teachi1lg of History

2 Key Questions

Key questions are overarching questions which give any lesson or topic unity and coherence, driving and focusing the investigation. A key question for a topic might be: Why do we learn about the Ancient Greeks? what was special about them? and for a lesson within the topic: Was there a Trojan War? Not all questions are key, or important. It is all too easy to ask trivial questions. Good questions challenge us to investigate a topic and help us to develop our understanding of the past. Children Asking Questions

Learning to ask good questions is a valuable skill to acquire, and our pupils will become good at questioning if we build in opportunities for them to ask their own questions. When teachers invite children to ask questions about a topic, such as the Great Fire of London. Speaking and Listening

Speaking and listening are crucial for practising and embedding new vocabulary and concepts, and as such form the bedrock on which literacy is built. They also form the basis of social interaction, and are skills to be taught, as listening and turn-taking do not come naturally to children. Harassed teachers, too, do not always give children enough time to develop confidence in speaking. Discussion and debate sharpen thinking skills and promote understanding. By teaching history as a process of enquiry, a process that demands the questioning and debating of evidence, we advance oracy, historical literacy and thinking skil1s. We give children opportunities to develop their oracy through: -

Problem-solving and defending conclusions reached.

Teaching Primary History

3

Group discussion to test meaning and refine ideas. Simulation and role play. Asking children to pose questions, to predict, to raise doubts. Explaining their thinking processes and ideas. Evaluating their own learning. Set rules for class discussion and debate together with the children. A key principle is that whoever is speaking has the right to be listened to. A speaker's ring or stone helps to establish such right. Points to consider when planning a debate: The key question or issue (e.g. How should Drake treat mutineers?) The evidence the children will use to support their arguments Setting the scene for the debate (e.g. via story or brainstorming) Promoting orderly thinking and good arguments Follow-up work, e.g. writing, presentations. Reading Books

Reading books is very different from reading documents. Books are more diffuse, and carry many different forms of information and evidence. Good books provide rich sources of knowledge about any given historical period. To help children use books well, we suggest the following approaches. Book Navigation Exercises

These are invaluable for giving children an overview of

4

Teaching of History

the topic and a 'map' of the historical territory. Children do index-searching in pairs. Who are the key people? Key events? Has everyone got the same list? Discussion about relative importance. Look at contents, at the picture on the front cover: What or who does the book's author pick out as significant? Flick through: skim and scan, looking at the signposts in the books to form mental pictures. Then make three statements, and pose three questions. From these build up a class picture of key features, and hold a class quiz. Organise the information in the book into overlapping sets. Write down one or two words/sentences about each significant person or event to start a timeline. This is best done later in the topic, and is good for the more able. Simple Data Capture

For instance, children could draw a chart showing features of daily life (shopping, home life, schools, transport, occupations). The children can help to decide the categories. They then research in their topic books and fill in the chart. Questions and Hypotheses

Children are great copiers, so we need ways to prevent being presented with tthunks of text copied verbatim from topic books. Here are two effective approaches. -

Pose questions which prevent children from copying


5

from the text, such as 'Was Montezuma great?' or 'Were the Romans a good thing for Britain?' Formulate hypotheses for the children to test by evaluating information in their topic books, such as 'All evacuees had a horrible time away from home during the war'. Causes and Consequences

Children could make a Causes list and a Consequences/ Results list of, for instance, the Saxon invasions of Britain, and try to explain how they are linked. Historical Stories and Novels

Let us not forget historical stories and novels. The best open a door into another world and give children insight into past lives. They help children develop a sense of period, extending their knowledge of the world and its people. You can deepen the children's learning in both literacy and history with a well-chosen class reading book, such as Nina Bawden's Carrie's War, simultaneously with the teaching of 'Britain since 1930'. Reading Documents

Historical documents are a boon to teachers. They offer the full range of types and genres of writing, from letters and diaries to official speeches and reports, from narrative accounts to poetry of every kind, from instructions to persuasive arguments and advertisements. As such, they make excellent shared texts for literacy teaching, introducing children to new ideas, vocabulary and forms of language. Crucially, if tied in with the teaching of a history topic, historical documents provide a context that enhances the learning of literacy. The

hi~torical

context connects the children with the

Teaching of History

6

people, society and situation that produced a particular document, engaging them imaginatively in exploring its wider meaning. Reading historical documents includes reading as a technical exercise in comprehension and deconstruction, but goes way beyond this to the higher literacy of understanding meaning, situation and significance. With appropriate teaching approaches and support structures, children can read documents well above their official reading ages. The reading of documents with children can be broken roughly into two stages. Comprehension and Deconstruction

Here are some strategies for reading difficult and challenging texts with children. Initially, read through the document with the children (or play it on an audio tape) to give them a feel for the whole text and its general meaning. Start by asking the children 'just to glance at it' for things they will find easy (such as people's names, dates, places, animals, colours). After scanning the text like this a few times, the children lose any sense of its difficulty and are ready f~r deeper study. Cut up the text into paragraphs, stanzas or even individual sentences for pairs or groups to work on. Later pool the pairs' / groups' contributions. Cut up the text into sections and jumble them up. Give each pair or group one mixed-up text to sequence. Ask the children to give the whole text, and each section or paragraph, a title. Meaning, Situation and Significance

Now we turn to delving deeply into the document, asking ever more searching and complex questions. Here we ask


7

children to develop their critical faculties, their skills of inference, of interpretation. 'In this poem, how do the Vikings describe their world? What situations do they regard as important enough to write about? What do they value? How do their values differ from ours today?' This stage requires much discussion, careful listening by the teacher, and acceptance of all contributions. Text Breaker

We have devised a textbreaker structure to help children make sens.e of difficult and challenging texts. What does textbreaker do? scaffolds the children's learning. helps with comprehension and deconstruction of the text. enables exploration of the layers of meaning in the text. Textbreaker can take several forms, from the simple to the complicated, and includes at least some of layers A? in the list below. General Structure of Text

outlines. features. Words and Phrases

concrete nouns. abstract nouns. adjectives. verbs. adverbs.

Teaching of History

8

pronouns, etc. Ideas

main ideas. sequence of ideas. hierarchy of ideas. Genre and Register

author's intent. language used: tone, conventions. Audience. Historical and other Concepts

time: dates, periods, sequence. terminology: war, Reformation, valour. cause/consequence: reasons, situations, significance, results. interpretations. evidence and enquiry. With textbreaker we usually provide a glossary of hard words for instant reference. Chidren Writing

How can we help children to write well, to do justice to their abilities through the written word? The first step is to use verbal approaches to enable children to clarify concepts, explore appropriate vocabulary, and think about the form or genre in which they will write - here good examples to analyse are crucial. This will involve much raising of questions, discussion and


9

debate, brainstorming words on the board, role play and teacher modelling. Through such activities children gain confidence in their power to control and deploy language. The Nuffield Exeter Extending Literacy project (EXEL) and the National Literacy Strategy have provided useful frameworks for helping children to write effectively, particularly through the use of writing frames and the explicit teaching of different writing genres. Writing Frames

A writing frame provides a skeleton outline, a template, of key words and phrases (starters, connectives, sentence modifiers) to give children a structure within which they can communicate what they want to say in an appropriate form. Devise your own writing frames to suit your purpose. Here are some examples Writing frames from David Wray, Effective Writing

To produce an effective piece of writing, children need to take into account three elements:

the author: are children writing as themselves, or as an historical character? the form or genre: such as letter, diary, report, argument the audience: who is the writing for - teacher, friend, the public, or a historical character? Most importantly, we need to give children a real purpose for writing and we need to praise their efforts, acknowledging good work publicly. Pictorial Note-taking

Children practise pictorial note-taking in How the Tudors came to power.

Teaching of History

10

Learning about Time

History is concerned with lives, ev~nts, situations and developments in time and through tjme, so chronology is central to its understanding. A class timeline is an essential element of any history unit. It gives the children a framework for understanding and 'organising the historical period: when it all happened, what happened at that time (the key events), how things developed or stayed the same (change and continuity) and the sequence of events. We never use ready-made timelines, but engage the children in constructing timelines of lives, events, periods. The timelines can take the form of string-and-peg sequences, wall or artefact displays or chronicle and diary writing. We utilise numbers, pictures, artefacts, and the written word (captions, labels, explanations, accounts). Some useful chronological activities for children to engage in: Sequencing pictures or artefacts (such as for local history, buildings according to period built; for Britain since 1930, fashions or inventions) Comparing now and then (how did people travel to school or work then, and how do they travel now; or how many hours a day did children in the mines work compared with children's work at school today). Comparing the features of different decades within a period. Building up class timelines (such as incrementally over the course of a unit; or selecting key events from topic books to place on a skeleton timeline showing decades). Selecting key events (or headlines) of the decade (or year).


11

Writing logs, chronicles or diaries of ev-ents suc1"! as Viking raids, the course of the Spanish Armada, the Jarrow march, the Great, Fire of London. Compiling personal life timelines (for themselves, or for key historical characters such as 'Henry VIII: This is Your Life'). The Visual Image

TopfotoVisual images are powerful teaching and learning tools, providing windows into the past. We need to teach visual skills to children, and that means treating pictures as sources of information. Pictures can be read as texts in their own right, not as mere illustrations. Although children are surrounded by visual images, particularly on television, they often cannot comment on or remember what they have seen - they have not engaged with the images, have not 'read' them. For that they need to look deeply, to enter imaginatively into the picture, to question, to hypothesise. Here are some strategies for engaging children in reading pictures. Play 'I spy with my little eye'. Quick flash of the picture: What did you see? Another flash: Look for something someone else saw, and another new item. Counting: How many pearls is Queen Elizabeth wearing? How many people are wearing brown? How many children are there? What do you think were the artist's favourite four colours? Put a photocopy of the picture in the middle of a sheet of paper.

Teaching of History

12

Write down three things it tells us, and three questions you want to ask about it. Or, list all the feelings this picture arouses in you., Or, list the colours, the people, the objects, and so on. What are the people in the picture saying? Draw and fill in speech bubbles. Picture as video: What happened before the scene depicted? After? We then move on to consider the meaning of the image, its purpose, its context, what it meant to people at the time, what we can learn about the past from it. Objects

As survivals from history, objects offer us an unrivalled way of touching past lives. Objects as humble as coins or old bottles can yield rich information and learning. They carry with them messages about the people who made, owned and used them, and about the places they came from and passed through. Introducing and using Objects

Wrap them up so the children have to try to guess what they are from the shape. Practical archaeology: bury objects (or fragments) in layers of sand in an old fish tank for the children to dig up and record using a grid. Object carousel: place objects on sugar paper on desks around the classroom. Groups of children spend 5 minutes with each object, recording their observations and questions on the sugar paper before moving on to the next object. Then pool knowledge and questions.


13

Children observe, describe and draw an object in detail. Raise What, Where, How, When and Why questions about an object. Word games: pass an object round; each child must say something about it, or think of an adjective to describe it. Bring in a dustbin bag or old suitcase containing objects that give clues about the owner/so Storytelling: incorporate an object into a story about the past. This will give the object special significance. Ask the children to bring in objects for a classroom museum (opportunities for sorting, categorising, labelling, layout). Use a collection of historical objects to write an Argos catalogue for the past. Ask the children to enact the object in use, or tell its story. Maps and Plans

This is where history makes full use of geography, for all past events occur in place, as well as in time. Maps, like timelines, are essential reference points for all history units - they help children to develop an awareness of place. We want to help children to understand the physical world in which past people lived, as well as their beliefs, attitudes and experiences. Maps and plans are especially important for visual learners, as they provide a spatial and visual way of investigating historical questions and recording findings. Maps and plans are a splendid resource for teaching about change and origins, about distance and journeys,

14

Teaching of History

about the spaces in which people lived. Use good atlases that show not only countries, but also physical features. For journeys or voyages into Terra Incognita, we want children to use the maps - or travelling instructions - that people at the time would have used, so that they are working with the world as people knew or imagined it then. Physical Maps

To understand journeys we need maps showing contours, rivers, mountains, heights - and we also need to understand climate. If we are to appreciate the trials of soldiers marching with, say, Alexander the Great, it is vital to know where the deserts and mountains are and how long it might be until the army reaches the next source of fresh food and water. A mileometer is useful in such journey plottings, as is knowledge of the average speeds of: a person walking; a horse walking, trotting or cantering; a coach pulled by four horses; a sailing ship. These bring home to children just how long it took our ancestors to travel to their destinations. For voyages, maps showing prevailing winds and currents help us understand why Columbus sailed at a particular latitude, or why Drake was becalmed in the tropics. Plans

Plans help us to understand the layout of houses, monasteries, castles, churches, fields, estates, archaeological digs. When we do archaeological simulations in the classroom, we chart on a plan the progress of the dig and the finds uncovered. Using the plans of homes and other buildings, children can place cut-outs of the contents in the appropriate places on the plan. They can also people the rooms and chart the inhabitants' movements as they go about their daily lives, then conduct guided tours of


15

the building or site. Making of Maps

As well as using plans, children can also create them, that is from pictures or written descriptions. Local Maps

Local record offices will have detailed Ordnance Survey maps for your area, going back over 150 years. You can usually obtain copies for a small fee. Alternatively, use the internet. If, for example, you type: "victorian+ordnance+survey+maps" into Google or a similar search engine, you will bring up pages of links to historical maps. Just five maps of your area spread over 100 years will make the basis of some excellent work. The children can spot when buildings disappear, or change their use or name, and when new buildings appear. Similarly, place name investigations give us valuable insights into the nature and pattern of settlement by the Roman, Saxon, Viking and Norman invaders of Britain. Investigating the origins of place names on our modern maps is both fun and enlightening. Story-telling

Here we are talking about history stories created by the teacher and told - not read - to children. In telling stories to children we speak directly from the past, we use the power of eye contact, of gesture and movement, and of the voices of different characters. Through stories we can carry children in a metaphorical Tardis to different worlds in space and time. When telling stories we find a key to unlock the children's imagination and make the past intelligible to them. For example, the story of Victorian children working down the mines, our modern children can identify with the heroine being scared of the dark,

16

Teaching of History

and so they enter her world. The purpose of stories, then, is to: Convey information, ideas, and technical language through engaging children's imagination Create a context, providing a mental map and a visualisation of a past situation Serve the need for wonder Help children to understand human situations and the human condition, and thus connect the past to the present. Create Stories

Choose a topic, and find out as much detail as you can - you will be conveying information through painting word pictures. Identify a problem and its solution - this gives the story its shape. Build your descriptions, flesh out your characters and the context they lived in. How did they think, look, feel and act? What motivated them? Rehearse the story to yourself - run a mental video of the story unfolding. Tell the story to the children, living and acting it by using appropriate voices and gestures and moving round the room. Drama and Role Play

Roman market in 21st-century Exeter © Jacqlli Dean Drama can playa spontaneous part in lessons, be a focal element in part of the course, or take the central role in a topic. It can be done by groups or the whole class.


17

Drama works best if it is set in a specific historical context. There are three strands involved: the identity/roles of the people involved in the situation; the time and place of the events; a focus or issue that concerned the people involved. Before you begin, decide what sort of historical learning you hope to achieve. An histori.:al resource such as a story, document, picture or artefact can provide a good starting focus for drama. Some Drama Strategies

Teacher in role. Hot-seating. Making maps or plans. Still image. Overheard conversations. Forum theatre. Counsellors giving advice Meetings. Simulations and Games

Simulations and games can recreate in children's minds almost any situation that faced people in the past. They are infinitely flexible tools, providing richness and variety in the classroom, with pupils' emotions and intellects actively engaged as the past is brought to life. Simulations and games are closely linked. They are highly structured and controlled kinds of drama - the children stay in their seats as they work through them. Both deal with real

Teachillg of History

18

problems and their development. The pupils take on the roles of historical characters and react to the problems these characters face. The difference is that in games chance decides what happens, whereas in simulations the children make the decisions.

In a simulation the activity has been pre-designed, based on, say, Drake's circumnavigation of the world, with key decisions to be made at various points along the way. When the ship lodges on a reef, should Drake jettison food stores or captured treasure to lighten the ship? When his ship is becalmed in the Doldrums and the sailors become mutinous, how should he react? . Each simulation can be broken into two elements: The historical situation (the place, the people, their problems, decisions they have to make). Decide the structure beforehand. What problems and decision points will face the pupils? What will be the consequences of each decision taken? The roles of the participants. You need to develop each role in enough detail for the player to make realistic decisions. They must be clear about their aims. Expressive Movement and Freeze Frames

Children need help if they are to understand and sympathise with the feelings of people in history - their life experiences and knowledge are not as great as ours. However, their youth also means that they bring a sense of wonder, freshness and excitement to new situations. Freeze frames and expressive movement tap into this sense of wonder. This teaching approach offers a way for children to work creatively, within a clear structure. Like drama and dance, freeze frames and expressive movement open the door to understanding the thoughts,


19

feelings and actions of past people. Participants express action, motivation and emotion through the language of the face and body. They communicate through gesture, movement, and their relationship to other performers. Both freeze frames and expressive movement ask pupils to depict a sequence of events through a series of scenes or tableaux, telling a story enactively. With freeze frames, children move only as they change from one still frame or tableau to the next. When doing expressive movement children also move within each frame. Like drama, expressive movement incorporates words. These express the meaning of a situation for the participants, to provoke a response from them, or to convey a mood. The end result is a performance in which the whole class takes part enactively. The children can communicate their knowledge and understanding with deep engagement and feeling. Organising Freeze Frames and Expressive Movement

Freeze frames and expressive movement need careful thought and preparation if children are to understand past situations and emotions from the inside. Here is a teaching sequence when using this approach. Tell the story, including detail to help the children imagine the scenes they will be creating. We usually tell only the first part of the narrative. The remainder is kept back to build up suspense. Select the first scene. Break it up into parts for different groups of children to enact, using their own interpretations. Groups of children work on freeze frames of the initial scene. Time must be strictly limited - 'You have three minutes to create a tableau showing your reaction to

20

Teachillg of Histonj

the death of the king.' Each group presents its tableau to the rest of the class. The children work on two further scenes, repeating steps 2 and 3. Sequencing: the children enact the three scenes in sequence. Either you or a child makes a short statement to mark each sequence. Tell the final part of the story. Discuss with the class how the work is to continue. The class work on the final scene or scenes, as for points 3 and 4. Finally, the narrative is enacted, scene by scene. Adding music or poetry can heighten the mood and meaning of the story. Sites and the Environment

Visits outside school open up new worlds. Historic sites are stimulating, rea1, three-dimensional; they give a sense of scale and texture. Whether you are visiting an archaeological site, a stately home, museum, castle, abbey, local street or church, the principles are the same for all. Preparation

The temptation is to plan too ambitiously, to try to cram in too much; but this will only exhaust both the children and yourself. You could try some of the following. Choose a specific focus or theme, such as 'When we arrive at the castle, we'll be the attacking army - we're going to work out how to breach its defences'. Split up the planned on-site tasks. You could appoint 'expert' groups who will be reporting on an aspect of


21

the site: one room each, or a group each for furniture, paintings, and clothing; or give each child a previously-taken photograph of one feature for them to identify, examine and report back on during the visit. Tell a story in class beforehand. This is a powerful way of bringing imaginatively to life an old building or ruined site. A story engages children emotionally, and provides a visualisation, a mental model, which will help them to see the site as vibrant with past life. The Visit

The most important principle here is to resist the urge to do all the talking, to tell the children what you want them to see. It is they who must do the looking, and your role is to find way:YfO help them. Send them off to find, to observe, thP( gather them together to tell you what they have seen: This generates valuable discussion which helps the children develop their thoughts. Tasks

Set tasks to/fnake the children stop, question, investigate, ponder and reconstruct. For instance, in an art collection: 'Who\,is the owner's favourite artist?' For a particular painting: 'What were the artist's favourite four colours?' Obse'Y0tion

Close looking is difficult for children, so ask them to sketch particular items, partly as a record, but mainly to make them look hard ('looking through the end of a pencil'). So, in a cathedral, send them to find and sketch the most interesting carving they can find, either face, animal, plant or figure. Explicitly develop the five senses: encourage the children to look, touch, smell, feel and even taste.

22

Teaching of History

Tools

Leave the worksheets behind. Instead give the children torches for dark corners, magnifying glasses for detailed looking, pencils and sketch pads and cameras to record key features - ration the number of shots - this will make the children focus on what is important. History Investigations

These computer-based investigations offer a vehicle for the purposeful use of ICT in history. They are like textual jigsaws, with each piece of the jigsaw being a discrete text file (pictures can also be included). Cast in the role of history detectives, children drive each investigation, following up clues in their search for explanations. In their progress through the history mysteries, the pupils develop a range of investigative skills of the historian, as they put forward hypotheses, argue points with one another, use logical deduction, assess evidence, and draw conclusions. Pupils are in control of their own learning in an open-ended, challenging and motivating context. Through pursuing history investigations, children gain an insight into the processes of planning and executing an historical investigation. Once they understand how each textual jigsaw is put together they, and their teachers, can create their own history mysteries. The need to create a working, logically-linked investigation vastly extends each pupil's awareness of evidence, causation and motivation and how they interconnect.

2 History Teaching in Secondary Schools Often the new forms of historical study are also interdisciplinary in nature. Another vital shift in content and conceptualisation involves the expansion of world history courses in secondary schools. To be sure, colleges that train future teachers are increasingly likely to have an introductory world history course that at least discusses issues that must be faced when dealing with the breadth of world history content in the schools. But for secondary teachers, conceptualising the world history course remains a challenge, all the more so when they have had limited courses beyond introductory presentations. When high school students or undergraduates enter a history class, they often have little background in history and almost none in its methodology. History teachers at all levels have to confront this lacuna, especially when teaching survey courses. This is where students begin to ;r, develop their ideas about the subject, or lose interest completely, and also where history departments encourage talented students to select the field. Interesting solutions to this problem are being tried at both the school and the college level. In programmes that students find challenging

24

Teaching of Histo'~1

and rewarding, teachers and college faculty are making more use of primary sources, technology in presentations and research, textual analysis, and interdisciplinary courses that link English and history or anthropology and sociology. The traditional lecture and traditional assessment are 'increasingly regarded as major obstacles to good history teaching whether in a school or at a college. Research studies indicate that the traditional lecture is not the most effective method for the diverse learners in today's classrooms, either for fostering retention of knowledge or for teaching Critical analysis. Research also shows that teaching primarily through lectures in college history classes impinges directly upon what happens in the K-12 classroom. If lectures are the primary method of transmitting the ideas, theories, and data of historical inquiry to students, they will then perceive this method to be the only appropriate one when they themselves become teachers. Increasingly, college as well as high school teachers are acknowledging that they need to explore methods that include active discussion and exercises that involve the use of historical materials and historical analysis.

Similarly, the content and structure of college history courses and the related modes of evaluation will shape the methods of assessing history learning adopted by future teachers. For example, if rote memorisation is heavily tested in college survey courses, the next generation of secondary school teachers will also resort to r the same practice. Education courses (in pedagogy and assessment, for instance) will, no doubt, provide instruction on innovative testing methods; but it is the direct, practical experience of history courses and their evaluation methods that will linger in the students' minds,

History Teaching in Secondary Schools

25

to be implemented when they become teachers. Unquestionably, assessment, and authentic assessment (reflecting actual practice in history) in particular, will become an increasingly important concern in testing history in schools. Authentic assessment measures learning by asking students to evaluate a document or develop an argument based on data, not just answer questions that simply require recall of information. An imaginative and varied array of exercises in college history classrooms and the research on their effectiveness can contribute directly to future applications of this type of assessment. In required history survey courses, a balance must be struck between the need for content and the need for the development of critical thinking, writing, and historical research skills. The need for this balance is a focal point for discussion among those who teach survey courses. Some suggested solutions have encouraged different thinking about teaching and learning, resulting in an examination of varying curriculum and presentation models. History departments that are training teachers need to emphasize the transferable habits of mind, from document assessment to evaluation of change and causation, as well as providing appropriate basic content. By the same token, history-social studies teaching standards developed in some states include a growing emphasis on discipline-specific analytical skills. This emphasis may provide context for some rethinking of curricular emphases and reading assignments in the history major, so that future teachers gain repeated experience in developing historical habits of mind (that is, developing perspectives and making reasoned historical judgments) in order to incorporate them in their own

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Teaching of History

subsequent teaching efforts. The content of history is increasingly in the public sphere. In US, the national debate over standards has moved the content of K-12 and college history curriculums onto the public agenda even though such basic questions as what information is important and how it is presented should be concerns primarily of history faculty at all levels. New questions continue to be raised about who receives schooling in the country and what is required in that schooling. The focus on what students know about history reinforces the need for more (and certainly not less) history in K-12 classrooms. If one implements the recommendations of the Bradley Commission, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Report Card, or National Standards documents, the need for increased history content learning becomes paramount. Often history is perceived to be a story of who we are. Many individuals and groups not directly involved in history research or teaching have taken an interest in what the "story" of America and the world conveys about and to Americans. The outpouring of national feeling after the attacks of September 11, 2001, has increased the discussion about what kind of history is taught in schools and made those questions all the more relevant. As conversations on campuses in recent years have often centered on the "canon" of history, those who know about history from research, teaching, and writing are now more often, and appropriately so, pulled into the public debate. Books that focus on this debate about what students should know and what they do not know in history have been on bestseller lists. This public evaluation of what history courses should contain should attract the attention of all historians, not just the secondary-school teachers who must respond to state standards, textbook


27

selection committees, and their students' parents. College, university, and secondary school history faculties have similar objectives, but they offer varying depth and breadth of knowledge, use multiple techniques, and teach disparate 'student populations. Because one took a college course in history one is not a historian; because one attended high school one is not an effective teacher. In fact, university historians and secondary-school history teachers have the potential to create a productive symbiotic relationship that would benefit all instructors as well as the students they teach. Most educators have little opportunity for direct experience with what goes on in other sectors. Secondary school teachers have little time to pursue academic research, and university historians have no time to sit in secondary classrooms. But the increasing number of collaborations shows that even without direct experience, it is possible to increase awareness by meeting on common ground and thereby understanding better the important issues in each other's work. HISTORY TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

It is still too soon perhaps to accurately assess the

burgeoning collaborations around the country. But the items below will give an outline of what seem to be some of the principal trends related to partnerships between historians at schools and colleges. History Standards Movement

Following the release of the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, the general public began to become more concerned about what was being learned in schools. Nationwide tests in the late 1980s indicated that U.S. students were far behind their counterparts in almost every other industrialised country in the world. The resulting political fallout led to

28

Teaching of History

the Educate America Act of 1994, which set national goals for student learning. The "goal" that had a special impact upon the K-12 curriculums stipulated that students should "leave grades 4, 8, [and] 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subjects including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography." In the process of developing state and local history standards, many of the issues that had emerged within the history profession over the past several decades resurfaced. The "new" social history applied well to the changing needs of increasingly diverse schools and students, but it also brought to the forefront the debate over what historical "truth" is and what our young people should know to meet the standards of the National Goals. Multiculturalism raised a debate between particularists and pluralists, and between "traditional" and "new" historians. The proposal to include new kinds of historical research within history texts and curricula had its critics, since it meant that other "important" material had to be left out. This debate continues to engage educators (and the public) as curriculum teams, often using funds from the Educate America Act, develop state history standards and assessments. State and Local Curriculum Goals

Standards have been available for u.S. and world history since 1994, and states have used them to develop their own state or local standards. At the secondary level, the history curriculums in many schools closely follow the state created standards and benchmarks or "essential learnings" in order to address tests mandated by the state. The recently passed No Child Left Behind Act (Public Law 107-110, 2001) mandates testing of students in all grades for competency in reading and mathematics. Most states


29

also have high-stakes tests at the secondary level history.

in

Each state is responsible for its own measure, but, given the high stakes nature of the test, more and more teachers experience pressure to "teach to the test." Students who do not pass the test may not graduate; schools that do not have a certain average passing score for their students may be labeled as "failing," with funding consequences. The emphasis on reading and mathematics has also led to concerns that teachers may focus less on history / social studies, believing that they need to concentrate on what is tested. State standards have been evaluated by various organisations and are ranked publicly, most notably by the Fordham Foundation in The State of State Standards. Each state is given a grade based on criteria defined by the foundation. Most states (Oregon, Kentucky, or Virginia, for example) publish their standards on their state's Department of Education web sites. A recently completed comprehensive survey, History Education in the United States: A Survey of 'reacher Certification and State-based Standards and Assessments for Teachers and Students by Sarah Drake Brown and John J. Patrick, provides an analytical overview of some aspects of the current situation. It is worth noting that state standards bodies-which often include neither teachers nor historians-are increasingly focusing on the high-stakes tests and their results. This trend has made history courses more formal, confining teaching to a set curriculum or "essential content." While the history profession has in general expanded its areas of study, current trends in secondary education are leading to a narrowing of the content and are inhibiting teacher creativity.

30

Teaching of History

Teacher Involvement in Standards

A study found that "nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of all secondary teachers do not have even a college minor in their main teaching field." Many history teachers also were trained outside the field of history. A 1990 survey of 257 history teachers found that 13 percent had never taken a college history course, and only 40 percent had r B.A. or M.A. in history. This lack of disciplinary training has limited their involvement in the definition of standards. Without the information or training base with which to decide about what to teach, reliance on published texts remains a primary source for course development and delivery, leaving decisions about broader issues of standards to others. Moreover, with fewer teachers now available to fill classrooms in urban and rural schools, teachers are more often teaching "out of content." In social studies departments, which frequently include the many varied courses required by the shifting needs of schools, teachers may be as far from their field of training as to be teaching peer counseling rather than world history. Alarming as this situation is, it also points to the increasing need for university historians to collaborate with the more than 40 percent of secondary-school history teachers who did receive training in history and thus have good knowledge of content and are eager to strengthen history education in secondary schools. They need to be supported not only by contributing to the development of standards but also by encouraging them to be mentors of others who lack current history knowledge. CHANGING TEACHING STRATEGIES

An increasing number of schools have moved to change the basic way they deliver schooling. This has been done


31

to accommodate the changing requirements placed on schools by a society that wants schools to address such social problems as violent youth, dropouts, or illiterate graduates Following the lead of such educators as Theodore Sizer, Robert Slavin, D. W. Johnson, and Roger T. Johnson, and Edyth Johnson Holubec, schools are restructuring curriculums and the way they are organised. Much of this change has focused on middle schools because they provide the transition between the more flexible world of elementary schools and the very structured, subject-centered world of high schools. In the middle school model a group of 80-120 students, grades 6-8 generally, are placed with a team of teachers who are responsible for all of their academic subjects. In this model, history teachers may work with English, math or science teachers to create themes around which several subjects may be taught. Themes might be selected based on the content standards in history or geography. Middle school teacher teams are encouraged to think in interdisciplinary terms, as classes may be combined into nontraditional 90- or 100-minute time blocks. In the best cases, this scheduling format has encouraged history teachers to engage in cooperative planning and to use cooperative learning for students. The model also may facilitate placing history in a context that is logically integrated with other academic subjects. Also at the middle school level many experiments have been conducted on authentic learning and assessment. Teaching methods such as inquiry (long a staple of science labs) and concept formation and concept attainment (which focus on hands-on learning strategies) are more readily tried. These methods have also been encouraged by some of the national standards documents, notably in mathematics and science and by the Historical Thinking Standards of the National History Standards. A

32

Teaching of History

significant result of experimentation at the middle-school level is that some of the leadership for professional development of faculty has come from middle school teachers. The renaming of the "junior high school" as the "middle school" has not been simply a matter of changing the inclusive grades, from 7-9 to 6-8. It has often amounted to a wholesale restructuring of the goals and orientation of schools, which has made it much easier to plan workshops or seminars that address new learning theories in general. Because teachers work in teams, each teacher is expected to be responsible for the content of his or her own teaching fields. The professional training they receive then, has typically focused on how students' learn, what keeps students in school, or how students can better work together, not on what students are learning. Rather, content learning will more likely occur at the high school level, where the emphasis has been most focused on academic content. HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHING

Although some high schools incorporate some of the new structure and methods of the middle school model, most have found the ideas of cooperative learning and alternative assessments to be too difficult to implement in a system that has as its measure of success high scores on the state mandated tests or SATs and college admissions. Many university faculty have been linked with high school teachers in the development of advanced-placement courses and preparation for gifted and talented programmes, where it is recognised that the teacher's content knowledge is essential. Teachers-especially those who have been required by the nature of their assignments to teach out of their field


33

of study-willing to think in different ways, to provide students with the newest research in content as well as in methodology, require additional information and training. Many school systems, some state education departments, and the Department of Education at the federal level recognise the need for in-service training or professional development for teachers. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for many years has supported summer institutes for teachers in content specialties. These efforts, where they have been funded, have provided a valuable service to teachers and students. Additional education for teachers in secondary schools remains a sipnificant concern, however. Frequently, it is a systemwide decision or a state mandate that governs professional development content for teachers. Even in a system in which the decisions about what is presented in the classroom are made at the school (usually department) level, suggestions or guidelines are provided from school systems, state organisations or professional organisations. In history, the AHA, in collaboration with OAH and NeSS, has just released its "Benchmarks for Professional Development in Teaching of History as a Discipline." More teacher input into the subject and direction of their own pre-service and inservice training would logically lead to more teacher commitment to new knowledge. Education and History Departments

It is a truism that university departments of education and

history exist in separate worlds. Pedagogy and content are assumed to be entirely distinct, intellectually or institutionally. But an increasing number of historians, and in some cases history departments, are becoming closely involved in teacher licensure or teacher outreach programmes with their colleagues in ed uca tion

34

Teaching of History

departments. By the same token, within schools of education there is ongoing discussion about how to balance methodology with content, or about how to provide pre-service teachers with current and relevant history knowledge. If anything, content has been gaining in importance in licensing programmes nationally. As early as 1965 the State of California, responding to concern that content has been sacrificed for method, ended all education degrees for the Bachelor of Arts and required that all students concentrate in a disciplinary field. Other states have followed this approach. Many states have also required a fifth year for licensing, in some cases deferring education courses until that time. In other areas universities have been considering dramatically downsizing education schools into departments or programmes or moving to graduate degrees only (which include licensure requirements).

Schools of education are now becoming much more closely linked to academic departments through the requirements of their certifying bodies, namely the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), to which schools of education may choose to belong, and the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC), which governs requirements for teacher licensure within each state and the District of Columbia. When each body evaluates teacher preparation programmes, it considers a set of guidelines that an education school must meet. It used to be the case that only the pedagogical programmes for teacher preparation were reviewed, but as of 2000, NeATE directed a lead organisation within each discipline to conduct evaluation of the programmes by which future teachers learn their subject.


35

In the case of history, that is being done by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), and the great majority of history departments will have to be involved at least to some degree. Universities and colleges seeking accreditation for their teacher preparation programmes in secondary History ISocial Studies must prepare a portfolio demonstrating that the course work required of their graduates has successfully taught historical items that relate specifically to the standards of the NCSS. The portfolios are reviewed by teams of historians and history educators. The AHA has developed a document to advise departments how to undertake the review. Since 1989 another standards body has been in place that attempts to set a specially elevated standard for individual teachers. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) invites teachers to demonstrate their ability to meet standards that reflect exceptional teaching based upon a deep knowledge of their subject. It uses a model for requirements and testing related to that of the medical profession. This voluntary process is attracting participation by teachers in numerous states, many of which offer increased salary and recertification points to teachers for successful completion of the process. The National Board currently offers certification in Early Adolescence Social Studies-History (students aged 11-15) and in Adolescence and Young Adulthood Social Studies-History (students aged 14-18+). The programme is focused upon five core principles that have been adapted by NCATE for inclusion in its evaluation of teacher preparation ptogrammes: -

Teachers are committed to students and their learning.

36

Teaching of History

Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach the subject to students. Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning. Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience. Teachers are members of learning communities. The Int.erstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) is attempting to use these standards as a basis upon which to unify guidelines for teacher training institutions all around the country. History departments might usefully take into account these guideline statements in considering the relevance of their curriculums for teacher training. Right now, with some important exceptions, the task of specifically evaluating teacher preparation is left to education departments. Yet schools of education can only do so much without the collaboration of university history departments and school history-social studies departments. It appears that different constituencies hold pieces of the whole picture. A 1995 study of 400 history departments by John W. Lamer of Indiana University of Pennsylvania found that in most higher education institutions, the work of training history teachers is done outside history departments. The greatest amount of collaboration (35 percent) occurs in advising education students, while as few as 8 percent shared responsibility for teaching the history-social studies methods course. Since that study, the AHA has taken a leading role in encouraging these K-16 collaborations and reporting them on their web site. Stronger collaboration in just this one area could potentially create a stronger


37

teacher, a better prepared student, more effective research, and a better place for history in academic institutions in the future. Learning Theory and Teaching History

Just as the demographics of the student population in our schools and the range of historical research have changed, so too should our notions about effective learning of content. There are innovative programmes and individuals at the secondary and university levels that are endeavoring to integrate the new history with the latest learning theories. From learning theorists such as John Dewey and Jean Piaget to historians such as James Banks and Geneva Gay who write about history teachers in the secondary schools, the idea of involving learners in the process (of "doing history") has been a constant. Inquiry learning, advocated by Edwin Fenton in the late 1960s and early 1970s-from which so much of what is being done today in history education has evolved-has been reinforced by James Banks and others in the 1990s. For many years, theorist Jerome Bruner has advocated inquiry as a strong method of engaging students in learning. Students are encouraged to go "beyond the information given" and to ask their own questions and construct their own understanding. Tom Holt, in his essay, Thinking Historically, advocates the integration of thinking skills into the teaching of history, and not developed as a separate skill. The National History Standards of 1994 and 1996, which continue to be highly influential in history education, include a section called "Standards in Historical Thinking" that defines how historical thinking is best applied to teaching. Some programmes are under way that illustrate this

38

Teaching of History

trend. Research in the area of second-language learning and learners suggests a method that combines reading, writing, and analysis skills with content to accomplish the "outcome goals" (what students know and what they are able to do) of the new standards found in many states. The large numbers of immigrant children entering our schools in recent decades have called attention to questions about learning that had traditionally been addressed differently with English-speaking students. Because school personnel today generally place newly admitted students in classes based on age rather than English ability, limited English proficiency (LEP) students are often placed in secondary-school classes, where they must acquire both language ability and content knowledge in order to pass proficiency tests in history or government. Teaching LEP students to succeed in this academic setting involves the use of more hands-on presentation, group learning, and alternative assessment. The vocabulary and concepts so important to second-language learners are equally crucial to all history learners; the methods effective with LEP students are also found to work for all history learners. Increasing numbers of LEP students entering colleges make this information about teaching methods relevant to university teachers as well. Innovative pedagogic methods are emerging also from the increasing computer use for research and presentation in secondary schools. Once exclusively the province of advanced placement and gifted and talented classes, computers have been routinely discovered to intrigue "regular" and special-needs students as well. Again, involving students in their own learning enhances the learning for almost all students, the only additional problem being that with computer applications, teachers often need training along with the students to become

History Teaching ill Secondary Schools

39

more comfortable with the possibilities for classroom use. Research on history learning also generates opportunities for mutual discussion and experimentation by history teachers at both school and college levels. The research is not yet well connected to actual teaching practice, but the potential is significant. Researchers have examined, for example, ways in which students handle source materials, with implications for generating more rapid acquisition of relevant analytical skills. A lot of similar research is going on in Europe on this subject. The International Society of History Didactics provides a forum where educators from a great variety of countries-the United States included-and diverse academic constituencies share their work. When all is said and done, all of the researchers who examine history learning have similar approaches: one way or another, one must involve the students. It is the "how" of this approach that often stops secondary school and college and university faculty from proceeding to make the changes they, too, believe benefit their students. Active learning is the key, but this does not have to mean that one should never lecture or never convey to students the knowledge one has gained as a historian. Rather, it means pulling the students into that process so that they learn from and with the teacher. The renewed interest among history teachers in using documents to supplement textbooks is one important response to this challenge, although the practice remains limited. A related technique that has been effective is to provide students with small parts of the story on which they can "put their own stamp." Using artifacts from an era under study has been particularly successful. Students at all levels can answer questions about "real" pieces of history (a document in its author's original hand available

40

Teachi1lg of History

from the National Archives or a local historical museum or an object such as an early coffee grinder, a massproduced skillet, or a piece of art from Central Africa). The object introduces the time period or the theme. Students answer questions about the object's use, its maker, or the object itself. Their answers give the teacher useful information about the students' knowledge of the topic and provide direction for the instruction that follows. By first asking students to hypothesize about the subject they are exploring, the instructor involves them in the process of thinking historically. Teaching in this way demands that the instructor continue to work on the craft of teaching through professional contexts. The idea of professional development originated in the public schools and has affected how schools of education work with K-12 schools. Increasingly that has led to collaboration with museums and college and university history departments. Collaborative Efforts

There are an increasing number of collaborative efforts to enhance history learning in all parts of the country. Just how a collaborative effort becomes successful is a complex problem, but there are plenty of examples of projects that have found solutions to it. They basically provide diverse professional groups strong common links by which to work together, thus strengthening the place of history in the schools and in colleges and universities collectively. The movement of college-school partnerships goes back to National History Day of the 1970s and the History Teaching Alliance of the 1980s; the National History Education Network (NHEN) in the 1990s was sponsored by the AHA, the Organisation of American Historians (OAH), and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).


41

Yet the key to collaborations lies in local effort, and for that reason this discussion can only skim the surface of the subject by outlining national programmes that encourage such efforts. In general, school-college collaboratives tend to offer one or more possible types of programme: an annual day of panels either on content or pedagogy; on-going study groups or courses for teachers; and college participation in teacher preparation. One of the oldest, still existing collaborative programmes takes place within the Advanced Placement Test programme of the Educational Testing Service. It gathers together teachers and college faculty every summer to mark the AP exams, and in so doing has established an extremely important link between faculty in the two sectors of education. The accelerating growth in the number of students taking the history exams has brought about a need for more rep~esentatives from colleges and universities. National History Day has established by far the most widespread and permanent programme of local collaboratives. Founded by David Van Tassel in Cleveland in 1974, it provides a platform for historians and teachers to interact with public school students about history. The process of creating a project for the annual National History Day provides an opportunity for students to do the historical inquiry that historians value and wish to instill in students. At all levels (local, state, and national) historians can be involved with schools and students in grades 6-12 (as resource persons, judges, or supporters) through the National History Day summer institutes for teachers or at the national competition, held annually in June at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. The Council for Basic Education (CBE) has sponsored

42

Teaching of History

annual conferences that bring to the nation's capital faculty in education and the liberal arts who are active in partnerships. It works closely with a variety of organisations concerned with teacher preparation; in June 2000, for example, its conference was devoted to the PRAXIS II examination designed to assess the content knowledge of students working for teaching credentials. The CBE focuses its work on consortia of colleges with particular areas of interest in different parts of the country. A particularly active sponsor of collaboration, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute, has grown up in the last five years. It sponsors or lends assistance to a wide variety of programmes for history teachers, chiefly but not exclusively on the East Coast. Of particular interest is its leadership in developing the "history high school," the programme by which a school makes history the focus of its curriculum to a particular degree. The National Council for History Education sponsors a variety of programmes of collaboration between teachers and professors. Its annual meeting is the main regular gathering devoted to discussion of history teaching between people in colleges, universities and the schools. Members of the organisation lead programmes within Teaching American History grants as well as other projects. The leadership of the NCHE includes prominent historians and public school history teachers. Historians also work with projects supporting the teaching of civics or government. For example, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), in collaboration with Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center, has developed a First Amendment Schools Project. It involves schools, communities, and experts in content and curriculum development in reframing how schools model and teach democratic


43

principles of the first amendment. Leadership has also been very important at the regional or state level. For example, the Ohio Academy of History, currently housed at the University of Akron, is a professional society bringing together teachers, scholars, public historians, and students interested in all fields of history. It seeks to promote high standards of historical scholarship and teaching and the development and dissemination of historical knowledge in the state's schools and colleges. The Academy issues awards for outstanding publication, teaching, service, dissertations, and public history. It also monitors and comments on the dissemination of historical knowledge in Ohio's schools. Areas of New Opportunity Computer Technology and Collaborative Learning

Technology is affecting the historian's way of doing business, and it is an integral part of the discussion on learning. More and more is available in the education market in the way of electronic media for teacher and student use. Some of these provide access to vast databases; some use data to create programmes for student use. Although some advertise their value by emphasizing how they involve students in history, they often provide nothing more than a pre-set list of choices that move students through a prescribed cause and effect process to arrive at a previously decided end pOint. There are a number of very significant issues involved in the use of technology, especially computers, in K-Grad classrooms that involve decisions about validity of approach and value of content. In this case, evaluation of effective materials could be an area of collaboration. Partnerships with organisations, both in other schools and outside school walls, may also advantage resource

44

Teaching of History

poor schools with training and collaborative development of effective lessons that can maximise the technology resources they have. Joint seminars or learning opportunities that expand computer knowledge and at the same time develop teaching ideas for students could be another base for significant school university collaboration. Off-Site Study

Resources outside the classroom are underused at all levels of teaching history. Every community has something within its boundaries that reflects a time in our past and in many cases communities support local museums or historical societies. If there is a partnership with a local college or university, historians and their students can work with secondary students to research, analyse, and write from documentary, photographic, or oral sources. In so doing, students can build a relationship with their own community and its people in ways a text, a lecture, or a computer can not provide. Classroom Connections between History and Education

There has long been a disconnect between the practice of historians teaching in the classroom and the research and theory about teaching history. In liberal-arts institutions there is an ideal opportunity to combine new historical knowledge with new research about learning. Mary Crystal Cage, for example, has written about a programme in which students majoring in the liberal arts may also learn about teaching. The course focuses upon the special skills required for effective teaching. Moreover, some universities are linking upper-level history courses with students who are working toward a teaching credential. This has happened, for example, at George Washington University between the Schools of Education and Arts and Sciences . The approach increases the content knowledge of college students who are planning to teach and at the


45

same time increases the knowledge of all history majors and faculty in the varied teaching methods applied to history. Development of Content Core

History has a lot to gain from the growth of public interest in standards as a central principle of public education. The efforts on the part of many states to develop their own history standards indicate that they value the knowledge and ways of thinking about and analysing material that students gain by studying history. The basis exists to reemphasize the significant role of history in the curriculums of public secondary schools. This could not be more effectively illustrated than with the recognition of the frequency with which history and historians were called upon to provide context for discussion and action as it relates to current events. Secondary school teachers value the support of university historians in processing the historical debates, updating their learning, and gaining confidence in the message they bring to their students. At the same time, if the collaboration is to be completely effective, university history teachers need to address the learning issues of their students; to add the new knowledge gained by learning theorists, museum educators, and other applied historians that expands the reach of their teaching. History Curriculums and Teacher Training

Since the great majority of colleges train future history teachers, commitment to a strong history major, and possibly a related minor, constitutes the most important basic requirement needed for contribution to this training. At the same time, some programmes might profitably reevaluate elements of their offerings in light of the teacher training role to make sure that appropriate range,

46

Teaching of History

exposure to analytical skills, guidance in coordinated interdisciplinary work, and imaginative assessment mechanisms are available-along with consideration of relevant opportunities to interact with existing history teachers. Departments training history teachers must not only indicate that students have taken certain history courses, but that students can demonstrate and apply the knowledge gained in the course work. This requirement should provide an opportunity for history departments to collaborate in teacher training, if only to provide information about their content courses. Two-year colleges also playa strong role in the development of the historical knowledge of potential teachers.

3 Teaching Tools for Local History BUILDINGS AND NEIGHBOURHOODS

A neighborhood is a community of houses, streets and landscape that has a unique character and is part of a larger community. It is a good size for a study of community functions, for developing a self-guiding trail, or for a study of architectural styles. Few students take the time to notice the individual structures in their neighbourhoods or to even wonder what they might have been before. Slowing students down to take a longer look at the community in which they live can provide them with tangible context for larger historical themes. For example in US, when teaching industrialisation, the immediate reaction is to take students to the Lowell National Historic Park and Tsongas Industrial History Center, each of which provides superb models for learning and teaching. At the same time, many of the smaller towns in which students live were built on the Lowell model and provide historical context within the familiar. When students begin to see the patterns of, for example, land use in relation to residences vs. industry, owners vs. workers, environmental impact in their own towns, they are better able to see them in whatever industrial towns they may encounter in the future.

Teaching of History

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Teaching Tips

In older cities in particular, many of the buildings that remain are those of wealthier individuals who used to live in the community. It is easy to assume from that physical evidence that everyone lived the way that the individuals who peopled those houses did. Likely, very few did. When presented with a historic neighborhood or building, it is essential to ask the students to figure out what else would have existed. Have all the buildings of workers been torn down? What have they been replaced with? Why do those buildings that exist still remain? Basic Questions

What makes a neighborhood? Define the neighborhood you are studying: its boundaries, location on a map, numbers of houses, streets. What is typical about this neighborhood? Unusual? What are the types of land use in your neighborhood? Residential Houses? Business/Stores? Industry? Open Space? How do neighbours travel to work? What kinds of transportation are available? What is the oldest house date? Are any houses on the National Register? Newest? What is the origin of neighborhood street names? (How would you find out? Town or city hall? Neighbours? Library research? What role has this neighborhood played in the larger community? What issues are of concern to thE. neighborhood now?


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Critical Thinking Questions

In neighbourhoods that housed the wealthier segments of the population, who are the people you don't see? Who were the people who made life comfortable for residents who lived in those areas? Where did they live? Is there any record left of their contributions to the quality of life in that area?

Interview members of the community to determine past neighborhood conc.erns and how the neighborhood has changed. Develop a walking tour of the neighborhood as a tourist brochure. Why would anyone not living there want to take the tour? Do an inventory of house styles in the neighborhood. Research changing styles. Compare the built and natural environments of your neighborhood (percent of each, quality and character and how they rei a te to each other. Students can make a display showing old and new pictures of their neighborhood. Exhibit class pictures from different neighbourhoods and tie this in with map studies of the neighbourhoods CEMETERIES

Using cemeteries to teach local history provide many opportunities to provide local context for national topics. Everything from the location of the cemetery in relation to the larger town to the art of the gravestones provides invaluable information about how members of that community viewed death and life. How a cemetery is used in the classroom is largely determined by what it is that is being studied. Are you looking to see the impact of

Teaching of History

50

disease or mortality on the make-up of the town? Do a survey of individual stones to see what patterns develop. Are you looking at wealth distribution and social status? Compare the complexity of stones within the same 10-20 year period. If you are looking to see how the community's perspective on death has evolved over time, than take a look at several sections of the cemetery and chart the changes in iconography, structure and location of gravestones. Teaching Tips

Provide information on the Cemetery you will visit with students: its location, who owns it, runs it, role in community. Check it out ahead of time so that you are comfortable leading the trip and your activities are relevant. If you use the sheets on gravestone symbols the students' will locate, be sure there are good examples to find. If you are dividing up the cemetery in sections so that detailed work can be done on a specific area, find similar-sized areas that allow comparisons. Modify the templates to the specifications of your cemetery. Gravestone Rubbing

For many years, students and enthusiasts of gravestone art have taken "rubbings" of favourite stones. While this seems like an easy project to do with students, it is, in fact, quite controversial.. Repeated rubbings degrade the stones and can cause damage if done improperly. The following is an excerpt from the Association for Gravestone Studies' guide on the Dos and Don'ts of Gravestone Rubbings: Please Do

Check (with cemetery superintendent, cemetery commissioners, town clerk, historical society, whoever


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is in charge) to see if rubbing is allowed in the cemetery. Get permission and/or a permit as required.

Rub only solid stones in good condition. Check for any cracks, evidence of previous breaks and adhesive repairs, defoliating stone with air pockets behind the face of the stone that will collapse under pressure of rubbing, etc Become educated; learn how to rub responsibly. Use a soft brush and plain water to do any necessary stone cleaning. Make certain that your paper covers the entire face of the stone; secure with masking tape. Use the correct combination of paper and waxes or inks; avoid magic marker-type pens or other permanent color materials. Test paper and color before working on stone to be certain that no color bleeds through. Rub gently, carefully. Leave the stone in better condition than you found it. Take all trash with you; replace any grave site materials that you may have disturbed. Please Don't

Don't attempt to rub deteriorating marble or sandstone, or any unsound or weakened stone (for example, a stone that sounds hollow when gently tapped or a stone that is flaking, splitting, blistered, cracked, or unstable on its base).

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Teaching of History

Don't use detergents, soaps, vinegar, bleach, or any other cleaning solutions on the stone, no matter how mild! Don't use shaving cream, chalk, graphite, dirt, or other concoctions in an attempt to read worn inscriptions. Using a large mirror to direct bright sunlight diagonally across the face of a grave marker casts shadows in indentations and makes inscriptions more visible. Don't use stiff-bristled or wire brushes, putty knives, nail files, or any metal object to clean or to remove lichen from the stone; Soft natural bristled brushes, whisk brooms, or wooden sticks are usually OK if used gently and carefully Don't attempt to remove stubborn lichen. Soft lichen may be thoroughly soaked with plain water and then loosened with a gum eraser or a wooden popsicle stick. Be gentle. Stop if lichen does not come off easily. Don't use spray adhesives, scotch tape, or duct tape. Use masking tape. Don't use aay rubbing method that you have not actually practiced under supervision. Don't leave masking tape, wastepaper, colors, etc., at the grave site Basic Questions

What is the name of this cemetery? In what community is it located? Locate the cemetery on town map. Describe its location, size and immediate neighbours. Why do you. think this site was selected? What does the location of the cemetery tell you about the relationship between life and death in the community?


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Who is buried here? Look for names that are found throughout town (names of schools, streets, ponds, etc.). What years are covered in this cemetery? List oldest and most recent you find. Identify the oldest and newest stones in the cemetery. How have they changed over time? What kinds of gravestone shapes do you find and what symbols are on them? Find several gravestones that look very similar and might be carved by the same carver. What were his favourite symbols and inscriptions? List the name of the carver if found on the gravestones. Read several epitaphs and write out your favourite. Critical Thinking Questions

Can you determine when new ethnic groups arrive and are their life expectancy rates different from community contemporaries? Do you find causes of death specific to that group? (Quarry worker, e.g.) Read poetry or literature that relates to graveyards, death and dying and write an epitaph for a poets or authors you are reading. Or if you are studying the community, write epitaphs for leading townsmen and women. Identify stones representing different levels of wealth and status in the community. How do these stones reflect the economics of the community? Do a survey of gravestones that have natural and human damage. They might be broken, knocked over (human), eroded from rain, wind or be affected by plant material, lichen (natural). Consider the kind of

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stone used and determine which kind is most, least durable. Comment on the different methods of writing inscriptions on the stone and effectiveness. Do a statistical study of life expectancies during a particular period of time and note causes of death. Make comparisons between different periods. Look for evidence of infant mortality, wars, epidemics etc. What are the differences between male and female life expectancy? What might account for this? community. How do these stones reflect the economics of the community? Do a survey of gravestones that have natural and human damage. They might be broken, knocked over (human), eroded from rain, wind or be affected by plant material, lichen (natural). Consider the kind of stone used and determine which kind is most, least durable. Comment on the different methods of writing inscriptions on the stone and effectiveness. Do a statistical study of life expectancies during a particular period of time and note causes of death. Make comparisons between different periods. Look for evidence of infant mortality, wars, epidemics etc. What are the differences between male and female life expectancy? What might account for this? CENSUS RECORDS

Census records are invaluable sources for investigating population changes, family structures, immigration and economic patterns. Students can use them in conjunction with old maps to gain a clearer picture of the texture of past life. Many primary source documents that have been preserved over time, like diaries, letters and other traditional historical sources, document the lives of


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extraordinary or privileged people. In contrast, source materials like the census, track "ordinary" as well as "extraordinary" individuals. Examining such records allows us to begin to construct a more interestingly inclusive view of history. Population schedules can be used to study immigration, ethnicity, families, health, work and economic trends, among numerous other topics. The U.S. has counted its population every 10 years since 1790, in order to apportion seats in the House of Representatives. Thus, in each census, Americans from the famous to the unsung and the infamous appear, including local residents, villains, and favourite figures of literature, politics and the arts. As with any historical document, there are gaps in the coverage of the population schedules. The US Census between 1790 and 1840 is a fairly simple list of the heads of households, with combined numbers indicating others in the household. The census did not enumerate American Indians until the late nineteenth century. The 1890 U.S. Census was destroyed by fire in 1921. By law, the records from the federal population censuses are confidential for 72 years. Thus, April 2012 is the scheduled date for the National Archives to open the 1940 records to public use. In Massachusetts the population was counted every ten years from 1855 to 1945, but only the original population schedules for the 1855 and 1865 census still exist. All other Massachusetts State census years are lost or destroyed. The originals, as well as microfilmed copies, are located at the Massachusetts State Archives. Teaching Tips

Because they are "tabular data", census records can be typed into a spreadsheet or database programme and then

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sorted, sifted, categorised and analysed by students to determine demographic trends. Historical, artistic and literary figures can be searched for and found in census records, as well as individuals who lived and worked in the local community. Online census indices and scanned census documents can make the process of searching easy. Basic Questions

What year was this census taken? Where was this census taken (Street(s), Enumeration District, Town, County, State) What is the identification or page number of this census sheet? Does there seem to be more than one page numbering system in place? What is the name of the person who wrote down the census information (canvasser)? How many family groups are listed on this sheet? How can you tell? Who is the oldest person on the sheet? Who is the youngest person on the sheet? Critical Thinking Questions

What was the average age and range of ages of residents on this sheet or in this town? Compare the percentage of residents that were male or female. What percentage of residents are foreign born? What percentages of residents come from which countries? What is the literacy rate among adults on this sheet or in this town?


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What is the most common occupation? (Look up any unfamiliar occupations). What is the apparent average life span in this town in 1910? What is the typical family structure in this town? List families by type of work (farming, specific trade, merchant, etc.). Examine the kinds of occupations for men and women. Are they sex-typed? Compare with modern family structure and gender roles. Tally the number of families and of household structures. Often the families exceed the number of homes, and in addition, many homes had only one bedroom. Let the students think about what those numbers mean and discuss questions of personal privacy, family groupings, homelessness, and comparisons with today. DOCUMENTS

History comes alive when students are engaged with primary source materials. Original documents, whether public or private, help to provide context for historical events because they were created by people who participated in or witnessed the events of the past. For the purposes of this template, primary source documents include local first person accounts (e.g. diaries, memoirs, correspondence) and public documents (e.g. correspondence, treaties, laws, speeches.) Using primary source documents helps students develop cognitive skills including analysis, interpretation, perspective, empathy and self-knowledge. Teaching Tips

Because of preservation concerns, there are often

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limitations on how much, or whether, original documents can be handled by students. Digitised copies of original documents can serve as working versions for examination, transcription, etc., and have the added benefit of being enlargable, printable and annotatable. However, whenever possible, arrange for students to see the original up dose at least once. So much of modem life is in facsimile that it can be important for students to viscerally understand that historic documents are real artifacts related to real peoples' lives. Town derks, local librarians and historical society staff are sometimes able and willing to collaborate with schools in digitising select documents for educational use. Scanned documents can be posted on a local website for many classes to use. Although younger students may have difficulty reading primary source documents, they can sometimes participate in the excitement of "decoding" old handwriting by working in pairs on a small portion of a document. Using an alphabet chart to help decipher just a few words, each team contributes decoded phrases to the whole. Basic Questions

Is this document a primary or secondary source? How do you know? Who wrote this document and why? What do you know about this author/creator? When was it written? If no date is listed, what clues are there that could help date it? Where was it written and where is the document now found? (owner, repository) What is the document about? (title/subject)


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Who was the intended audience? Was the document meant to be public or private? What tools were used to write it and what is its appearance? (handwritten with quill, pen, pencil? Typewritten? Printed? What type of paper was used? Critical Thinking Questions

For whom was the document created? What sorts of information does the document supply? Under what circumstances was the document created? What did the creator hope to accomplish by creating this document? How would this influence the content of the source? What were the opinions, motivations, or interests of the creator? How does his or her point of view compare to other writers of the period? What kind of impact would this have on the content of the source? How reliable is this document for historical accuracy? What criteria can you use to determine historical accuracy? Can you trust the source's content at face value? Did the creator wish to inform, persuade, or deceive his or her audience? What did you already know about the subject of this document and how did this knowledge affect the way you read it? What additional information is needed to help you understand the subject more fully?

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What questions would you like to address the author of this document? How can you find out more about the context of this document? VISUAL IMAGES

Human beings process visual (non-textual) information better than textual or numeric information. Through the use of visual images students can develop a sense of both place and time. Visual images from drawn from students' current or historical surroundings can elicit creative thinking and writing in the classroom. Teaching Tips

Paper-based ("low tech") images and digital images can both be used effectively in the classroom. Original or paper images have the advantage of immediacy, while digital images can be printed, enlarged, projected and annotated. In addition, images can be saved to disk, then copied into folders and saved on classroom computers or onto school websites. Basic Questions

When was this image created? What is the image type or format (drawing, cartoon, painting, photograph) Is this a primary or a secondary source? How can you tell? When was this image created? If there is no obvious date, what clues can help you date the image? Where is the original image stored?


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Critical Thinking Questions

Why was the image created? What is the point of view of the image? Whose story is it telling? What interest do you think the photographer has in this subject? What is the creator's point of view? Does this tell you why the image was created? What does the image reveal about its subject? What did you already know about this subject before viewing the picture that might have affected the way you read it? What is the setting of the image? What sorts of details does it include or emphasize? What sorts of details does it exclude? What are the underlying messages of the image and motives of the image's creator? How long after the event was the image created? How does this influence the image's content or perspective? Why do you think the image was taken or drawn at this particular moment in time? What questions would you like to ask the photographer or artist to find out more about the subject of the image? What questions would you like to ask a person(s) in the image? How could you do further research on this subject? MAPS

A map is a visual representation of a place on a flat surface. Maps can help us understand our community's

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location in space and time. In addition to teaching geographic understanding, maps can: illustrate change over time, personalise history by giving evidence of familiar landmarks in the setting of the past, and by demonstrating the attitudes of people and their beliefs about the area they live in, as well as the political policies of past eras. Exploring and creating maps can hone students' abilities to analyse, think and learn. Maps have traditionally been limited to paper media, which could be difficult to obtain for local areas. Digital solutions provide a range of new choices for searci-.1ng, manipulating, viewing and analysing maps, although paper maps can still be used very effectively in the classroom when available. Teaching Tips

In general, try to select maps which are not too complicated, or 'noisy' for students to comfortably explore. Experiment with map websites and CD-ROMs before students use them to be sure you are familiar with navigating, zooming in and out, saving and printing maps. Some map sites require special browser plugins, for instance the "MrSid" plugin for Library of Congress maps, to make best use of their maps. Most maps have a title, which often includes informatior. about the time period that the map illustrates. Maps have orientation, which includes compass direction and geographic relationships within an established area. Maps have a source, or author, which often gives insight about its intended purpose and reason for creation. Maps may have a legend explaining the symbols used and a scale showing how distance is represented. Many maps use grids to show lines of latitude and longitude.

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Types of Maps:

Political maps represent the political units of the world, showing names of localities and boundary lines.

Physical maps use shaded or painted relief to illustrate a region's major landforms, including mountain ranges, deserts, glaciers, rivers, valleys, etc.

Topographic maps are general reference maps showing coastlines, cities, and rivers that use contour lines to show elevation differences. Such maps are helpful to hikers because they can show elevation changes along a trail. Atlas maps can show anything about anywhere. An atlas can contain collections of political, physical, satellite, and thematic maps. Countries, states, towns have produced atlases that describe all aspects of that locality.

Historical maps can be maps created in the past, reproductions of past maps, or modem-day creations illustrating past events or places. Basic Questions

What is the title/subject of this map? Who was the cartographer (creator)? What do you know about this cartographer/creator? When was it prepared? If no date is listed, what dues are there that could help date the map? Where was this map originally produced and where is the map now found? (owner, repository) What was the purpose of the map and its intended audience?

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What tools were used to prepare it and what is its appearance? (Black and white, hand drawn with pen etc, or printed in colors, etc., type of paper or print?) Describe what you find on this map: spe.cific information and symbols. Critical Thinking Questions

How can yo~ tell if this map is accurate? What sources would you use to verify it? What do you think was the intent of the map creator and why it was written? What is stressed and what is omitted? Do you think any bias was shown in its creation? What additional information is needed to help you understand the map information more fully? What questions would you like to address to the creator of this map? What would you like to learn more about to better understand the context of this map and how would you get this information? Compare maps of town in past and present. Draw a map illustrating the town in the future. Use a Venn Diagram to explore similarities and differences between the three illustrations. What things remained the same? What things changed? What things do people have control over (e.g., transportation, housing style), and what things cannot be easily changed, barring unforeseen technological breakthroughs (e.g., climate, soil, natural resources)? How realistic do you think your future map is? MATERIAL CULTURE

Material Culture is a fancy way of saying "stuff". Often


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when referring to objects used and created by people, students are taught to call them "artifacts". Historians use the terms "artifacts" and "material culture" interchangeably. There are as many ways to use objects in the classroom, as there are objects to use. The most essential part of using objects in a classroom setting is in invoking their storytelling power. Objects can tell many tales and are subject to diverse and divergent interpreta tions. Teaching Tips

The use of objects as teaching tool is particularly profound when trying to elicit non-linear responses or stories. For example, when doing oral histories with grandparents, students should ask their subjects to tell them about objects that are on the piano or by their bedsides rather than asking a straight list of "Where were you when ... " questions. Objects bring up emotional responses and memories easier than linear questions. Additionally, when teaching in the history classroom, objects have the power to tell tales and link students to the history of other time periods. For example, if students are studying several eras in history, consider linking them together by telling the story of one type of item that across time would be used daily (ex. Shoes, kitchen goods, etc.) Watching how these items changed, including their use and production, provides students with a concrete representation of the abstract changes in society. All of the information here is designed to help teachers integrate some form of material culture into their classroom, so there is no one set of questions that will effectively cover all the possible angles that a teacher could use with a particular object. Depending on the article you choose, you may need to find questions in other templates

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that better lead your discussion of the object in question. The essentials for teaching with an object are simply knowing the story you want that object to tell and asking the questions that will help them uncover it. Being comfortable with Socratic questioning is one of the best prerequisites for teaching with material culture. Basic Questions

What is it? What is it made of? What is it used for? Who would use it? How would they use it? How do you know that? What symbols or markings does it contain? What does this tell you about the person/people who used it? What aspect of society does this relate to: work, home, religion, etc.? Critical Thinking Questions

In order for this object to exist, what else needs to exist within the society that created it? What does this object say about the people who made it? What do they value? What emotions or reactions does this object inspire in you? Would every generation have the same reaction to it? Why or why not? What does this object tell you about the social rank, status or class of the individual that used it? What does it say in general about people of that rank, status or class?


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What other objects from this society would you like to see in order to confirm or refute your theories about this object? News and Cartoons

Newspapers, whether recent or historic, can be very useful teaching tools. They can bring the past alive by adding a human dimension, historical context, drama and a sense of immediacy to textbook accounts of events. Teaching Tips

Some topics are better suited than others for newspaper research. The best topics are those which can be connected to specific events, while the least suitable topics are those which show up not in events but in trends, long-term developments, or social movements. Local political, government and military issues, public works projects, labour union strikes, natural disasters, eyewitness accounts of landmark events, local personalities, advertisements (including personal advertisements) are just some of the topics that can be readily researched in local and regional newspapers. In addition, political cartoons illustrating local social and political issues can be good sources for exploration and analysis. Commercial advertisements, classified and personal ads, social pages and obituaries are also fertile sources for local history research in newspapers. As with any primary source, newspapers, broadsides and cartoons invite students to hone their critical thinking skills, to determine the objectivity and accuracy of a given source. In the case of newspapers, partisanship, boosterism and the possibility of heightened controversy for circulation reasons must all be considered as factors that influence the content and tone of the news.

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Basic Questions

What is the topic of the article or cartoon? Who wrote it (author/creator/artist)? What do you know about this author/creator? If the creator is unknown, are there clues to help identify him or her? How reliable is this article or cartoon for historical accuracy? What biases can writers, artists and other_s bring to their work? When was it created? If no date is listed, what clues are there that could help date it? Where was it written and where is the article or cartoon now found? Who was the intended audience? Critical Thinking Questions

What were the opinions, motivations, or interests of the creator? What did the creator hope to accomplish by creating this article or cartoon? Is the creator of this document deliberately anonymous? If so, what factors might have contributed to its being published anonymously? Did the creator wish to inform, persuade, or deceive his or her audience? How does the creator's point of view compare to other writers and artists of the period? What kind of impact would the artistic context of the era have on the content of the source? What questions would you like to address the author of this article or cartoon?


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For whom was the article or cartoon created? What sorts of information does the article or cartoon supply? What did you already know about the subject of this article or cartoon and how did this knowledge affect the way you viewed or read it? Can you trust the document's content at face value? What additional information is needed to help you understand the subject more fully?

Advertisements and Broadsides: What is being promoted by this ad or broadside? What information does this ad or broadside contain? Describe any claims of fact, reality or results the document makes. Who is the target reader? How has advocacy for this product changed over time? What social changes are reflected by changes in presentation of this product or issue? TIMELINES

A timeline is an ordered representation of events, generally displayed on a time scale. Many teachers have discovered the value of using timelines to help put curriculum in perspective. Timelines are efficient graphic organisers that provide a tool for studying periods of time ranging from a day, a year, a century, or the span of an individual's life or of era.

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Teaching Tips

Researching and creating timelines appeals to students' visual, mathematic, and kinesthetic intelligences. Timelines can organise research materials in a variety of ways, from storing primary source data about a topic over time to documenting the time frame of a novel or the span of an individual's life gleaned from an oral history interview. Completed timelines can include multimedia elements and can be effectively displayed in a variety of formats, from wall hangings, to 3-dimensional"clothesline timelines", to computer slideshows. Basic Questions

What is the purpose of this timeline? What is the basic unit of measurement for this timeline - hour, day, month, year, century? What local events were occurring during the period represented by this timeline? Critical Thinking Questions (for older students)

What trends, or changes over time does this timeline suggest? Would the trends look different if the scale, or unit of measurement, were changed? Select 2 events on the timeline and explain what they do and do not have in common. How were events selected for this timeline? What was left out? Would missing elements change the timeline's representation of this time period? Which events on this timeline "caused" other events to occur? Explain.


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TOWN AND CITY RECORDS

Most Massachusetts residents and organisations left a paper trail documenting their existence. In most cities and towns, the local library, historical groups, preservation societies, and museums serve as excellent starting points for locating documentary materials about local communities. On the state level, historical societies, archives, and museums are valuable depositories for useful primary materials. Many of these agencies offer specific programmes for students, and many would welcome suggestions for joint projects. Teaching Tips

Make sure that the historic records you select to use are readable and age appropriate for your class. Be sure the record content is long enough to provide the information you want your class to absorb, but not so long that it overwhelms them. Select materials and activities that are likely to motivate and inspire your students, that are related to current events, anniversaries, their own interests and hobbies. Basic Questions

Is this document a primary or secondary source? How do you know? How reliable is this document for historical accuracy?? When was it written? If no date is listed, what clues are there that could help date it? Where was it written and where is the document now found? (owner, repository) What tools were used to write it and what is its appearance? (handwritten with quill, pen, pencil? Typewritten? Printed? A filled-in form?

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What type"of paper was used? Critical Thinking Questions

Whose names are on this document? What are their roles? What were the opinions, motivations, or interests of each person related to this document? Why was this document created? How can you find out more about the context of this document? What sorts of information does the document supply? Under what circumstances was the document created? What were the results, benefits, disadvantages of this document being created?? Can you trust this document's content at face value? What evidence is there that this is an "official" document? What does this document tell us about life in this community? Does this type of document still exist? How is it the same or different?

4 Teaching World History World history stretches beyond the boundaries of nationstates or civilisations to form a macro history of the human story. Just as the history of the United States is more than the history of 50 individual states, world history is the study of the global human experience and changes in that experience through time. World historians study global forces and large historical themes such as climatic change, the spread of religions, and the expansion of the market economy. For example, Columbus in world history is not simply the story of Columbus discovering a "new world." Instead it is the "Columbian exchange," a story of human migrations, transatlantic trade, and the exchange of plants, animals, diseases, art, and technology between the eastern and western hemispheres. World history enables us to improve our understanding of how humans have interacted with each other and the planet in the past to shape the present. World history became an established field of study with the founding by historians and educators of the World History Association in 1982. This field is in its infancy. Scholarship in world history, as in biological research, is expanding rapidly because of international,

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collaborative research via the Internet; the increasing number of resources available to world historians; and cross-disciplinary studies with anthropologists, archaeologists, geographers, and others in the social sciences. Globalisation of the market economy and the development of the international "pop" culture with its bewildering amalgam of many cultural traditions have increased the demand for world history. Yet much remains to be learned. And that is the excitement of world history. When world history class becomes a laboratory where teachers and students form a partnership to investigate what is known to question the unknown, the study of the human story escalates from passive memorisation to inquiry and discovery. WORLD HISTORY IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Each age writes its own history. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries were periods of Western influence in politics, economics, and culture. The twenty-first century, however, will belong to world politics, economics, and culture. Consequently, a new history of the world and its people is being written. Why should this new story be told? Why should it be at the core of the school curriculum? There are many reasons, which pertain to:

citizenship -- creating a body of informed citizens capable of making global decisions for the world body politic at large; business -- understanding the economiG, cultural, and political environment of many countries in order to participate more fully and effectively in the global market place;

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humanity -- thinking more deeply and broadly about the whole human experience rather than its provincial parts as a means of deeper and broader human interconnection; patterns of thought -- developing historical thinking skills; and basic knowledge -- understanding who we are, how we got that way, and where we are going. In the interconnected world, the need to share a common history as well as a particular one is a global phenomenon that involves us all. A history of the world experience, as well as the national and local experience, can provide a forum through which, aided by the study of world history, we develop common ideas that transcend cultural and political boundaries. Teaching and Learning World History

Certain universal historical themes shape the common human experience. Bound by neither time nor space, they appear broadly across the globe and centuries. These themes form the basis of world history. They include: manipulating and changing the physical environment; developing tools and technology; peopling the globe; diffusing and exchanging ideas, tools, and other facets of culture; ending old frontiers and developing new ones; and creating increasingly more complex systems of politics, economics, and social interactions. The study of world history develops certain habits of mind needed by individuals to function in a twenty-first century

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world of interaction, diversity, and rapid change. These habits of mind include: seeing the big picture; discerning the common phenomena; identify41.g the spread, exchange, and acceptance or rejection of new ideas; making sound historical comparisons; and collaborative testing of an historical hypothesis from multiple points of view. Teacher Preparation and Instructional Strategies

Teacher preparation in world history must involve strategies to expand both teacher expertise as well as the knowledge base of students. Given the lack of world history preparation of most students (secondary and postsecondary) and the narrow focus of world history in most teacher preparation programmes, exploring a comprehensive world history requires research and reflection by instructors and students alike. Redefining the relationship of teachers and students as a partnership facilitates this educational process. Most social studies teachers started their teaching careers with course work in Western civilisation or area studies. Teaching a global world history , however, requires reconceptualisation of the subject. Together the class can examine both common themes and the uniqueness of societies within a chronological framework constructed for the course. A study of .world history must encompass both breadth and depth. Most courses focus either narrowly and deeply or broadly and shallowly. A cross section of the two is possible through class lectures and discussions

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around broad social, political, economic, or cultural themes integrated with focus groups in which students can examine various regions of the world in depth to learn how themes have unfolded during specified eras. This preserves a sense of chronology of events and movements over time, yet also allows for comparisons of societies in different eras or in different regions as the course proceeds. Inquiry is grounded in historical knowledge placed in a broader context. This structure serves several purposes. First, it makes the overwhelming subject of world history more manageable for students and teachers, particularly with the limitations of time restraints in any course. Second, it reduces the chance of a "one fact after another" approach where students are challenged merely to recall isolated facts covered in the textbook and the teacher lectures without a clear sense of what those facts mean. Third, it promotes critical thinking, a necessity in a democratic system. Discerning fact from opinion and identifying multiple perspectives in cross-cultural encounters are desirable outcomes of instruction in our increasingly interconnected world. Fourth, themes provide a framework for reading for meaning and for the relevance of historical topics. Learning information simply because it is in the textbook does not motivate today's s~dents to become competent, or even interested, in world history. Fifth, the approach can incorporate the wealth of resources available through technology. Using these resources can greatly enhance textbook information, but students must be taught simultaneously how to discriminate between reliable and unreliable resources. Acquainting students with human history is a daunting task. The overwhelming assignment can be made

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more manageable, however, if one provides for in-depth regional studies set in the context of a wider realm of human experience. This de-centered approach promotes comparative studies, multiple perspectives including voices of women and minorities, and a more comprehensive understanding of human and environmental events. Analysing the effects of the past on contemporary life and recognising the problems of present-minded thinking and the limits of our own perspectives will promote competency in historical thinking. AN INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORK

Since English is the medium of instruction for world history in both the United States and Australia, one would expect a fair degree of portability. By allowing both Australian and American course content to be set in international play in a controlled electronic environment, both can be tested and enhanced according to crosscultural applicability. We envisaged that a "virtual forum" of American and Australian students would facilitate the internationalisation of the unit content through mutual feedback and cross-fertilisation between identical reading material and responses to facilitator questions. An international framework might illuminate diverse responses to the same world history texts depending upon the cultural location of the students involved, and that it might lead to new cross-cultural understandings of the material through listening to alternative and divergent opinions and interpretations. For teaching material dealing with the Atlantic world, this seemed particularly interesting. Atlantic world history courses have a long genealogy in the United States due to their "home-grown" status as regional histories of cultural exchange and interaction where the U.S. is positioned in a broader global paradigm. Hence, this area of world


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history teaching has straddled both the national curriculum and the need for studies that place America in a wider world. However, this sense of familiarity cannot be extended to Australia. The teaching of the Atlantic world in Australia is a relatively recent phenomenon, with no sense of physical or cultural proximity involved and, indeed, few "overlaps" with national interests or studies of Australia's place in its own region. Hence, one can assume that studies of the Atlantic world in the U.S. and in Australia serve different ends and have been grounded in different pedagogical frameworks. While in the u.s. studies of the Atlantic world emerged from a re-evaluation and broadening of the national history paradigm, in Australia such studies are interwoven in the broader emergence and popularity of world and global histories per se. What happens when these two perspectives meet? Even if identical scholarly books and articles are used, are they read in the same way and with the same sets of cultural assumptions and investments? Related to this desire to test the international portability of world history curriculum was our desire to encourage our respective sets of students to tackle the world history syllabus not only from the perspective as "Americans" or as "Australians" but also from the "bird'seye" perspective of perceiving themselves as world historians. While world history students in their respective countries must learn the skills that enable them to compete and thrive in a local environment, there also remains a need to prepare our students with transnational skills that equip them with the necessary competencies to be citizens of the world. Hence, the creation of an international learning environment which facilitates the transfer of general skills in reading, writing, and the comprehension of historical processes on a global scale is the first step

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towards providing the framework for training in crosscultural understanding. Due to the sheer physical distance of Australia from the main centers of world history pedagogy in Europe and the U.S., physical exchanges with foreign countries have been the traditional modes by which Australian students acquire these cross-cultural skills. Exchange agreements and travel opportunities to other centers where world history is taught enable Australian students to feel as if they are a part of the global pedagogical scene. However, due to the relative expense of air travel, the highly competitive entry criteria for student exchange programmes, and the time needed for the proper planning and execution of overseas travel, the tyranny of distance often hinders the full participation of Australian students in global learning initiatives. While international world history programmes seem well-placed to respond to the contemporary demands of creating the environment needed for the internationalisation of general skills, only a few world history students are given the opportunity to study abroad on exchange programmes. Even then, the cost is high. Thus there remains a real urgency to make the internationalisation of world history teaching and learning both accessible and more economically feasible. Globalisation of Education

In theory, online units of study promote information exchange and mutual support amongst students and enable skills to be updated and transferred to vocational settings. In countries such as Australia, sympathetic commentators on the viability of online learning say that it addresses educational disadvantage by widening educational opportunities to a broader and more diverse


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body of students while simultaneously addressing social isolation due to the sheer scale of physical distances. In the United States, online distance education courses have multiplied significantly in recent years with campuses making significant advances in the area of e-Iearning strategies to increase student numbers and reach students in rural areas. Likewise, in Australia, the promotion of external units of study to students who work during the day or who live in remote areas has resulted in the growth and sustainability of the Open Universities Australia (OUA) network. The University of Southern Queensland has pioneered the use of online learning as a means to offer courses to students living in remote areas of the Australian outback.

Spain's Salamanca University, the University of Porto in Portugal, and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have all been noted in the literature for their borderless e-Iearning environments that maximise the transfer of resources through unit content portability. However, the specific teaching and learning needs of world history require students to think and act in a global context due to the cross-cultural nature of the subject material, while current e-Iearning solutions often remain linked to local and national contexts. In this sense, the internet allows for the seamless delivery of information and seems to be well-placed (in theory) to offer world history teaching solutions in an environment that addresses the equity issues of international student exchange. It also provides a context for testing the portability and flexibility of world history programmes. On the one hand, the internet creates an international framework for the cross-cultural transfer of general skills and, hence, heralds an exciting new phase in the potential internationalisation of world history curricula. As John

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Field argues, "as borders open up across the globe to traffic of almost every kind, so distance open learning flows increasingly across national frontiers." Robin Mason from the Open University in the U.K. goes further with his celebratory view: At its most visionary, the ideal of global education is one of a movement away from the bounded classroom, seen as a haven from the world, to a dynamic synergy of teachers, computer-mediated instructional devices and students collaborating to create a window on the world. On the other hand, the promise that world history can be taught in a global utopia that widens international participation and enhances equity is contingent upon the premise that the historical move from localised and nationalised centers of learning to the "global virtual university" is a good one and is, indeed, historically inevitable. There are cognitive, educational and social arguments for caution to be displayed in the laisseZ-faire argument that the globalisation of world history curricula based on American, European or Australian models will somehow widen participation and erase disadvantage. In his book, Digital Diploma Mills, for example, David Noble provides a sharp critique of the intention of online learning programmes which are interwoven into the logic of the expansion of global capital where the unrestrained commodification of education for the pursuit of profit looms large. While online learning and teaching courses have multiplied across the world, as previously noted, they have done so in tandem with the privatisation and corporatisation of higher education per se. College campuses have often emphasized the "democratisation" of education in order to justify the increase in online


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learning programmes when their real intention is to tap into a lucrative international education market and reduce overall labour costs. The casualisation of online teaching, questions concerning quality control, and the overall lack of standards has led Noble to draw parallels between these new learning "innovations" in the twenty-first century to the mechanisation processes that accompanied the first phase of industrial capitalism in the West. The question of equity is a very important one. Do all of the world's college students have access to the internet in order to engage in a "global" learning environment? Do we want world history to become the "internationalised" preserve of the privileged? The challenges faced by students in the developing world as well as the question of the feasibility of internet classrooms for the socially and economically disadvantaged are very real in a global society where the gulf between the "information rich" and the "information poor" is widening at an ever-increasing rate. In this sense, the enthusiastic embrace of the "global virtual university" and "democratisation" has serious socio-economic and sociopolitical implications. GLOBALISED TEACHING WORLD HISTORY

In social terms, the homogenisation of world history teaching could lead either to the weakening of studies of cultural specificity and local perspectives or, indeed, to the erasure of the important role of a national perspective on education in postcolonial contexts where there is a real urgency to shake off imperial legacies. While the above problems are very real, we nevertheless maintain that the internet can provide an effective environment for conducting innovative crosscultural teaching methods in world history that require

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us to think beyond the old binary of "national" versus "global" and to engage in a significant pedagogical network which brings local communities of world history students from different parts of the globe into dialogue with one another. This may lead, as Mason suggests, to a relativist comprehension of world history approaches that are not static or unitary, but multiple, contested and based on how one sees the world at a given place, time and context depending on where one is standing. Indeed, living with twenty-first century technology requires students to think and act in terms of both national and transnational identities. Furthermore, through a process of cross-cultural contact and interaction, online environments have the potential to create international spaces where the subject content will be interpreted in fresh and innovative ways. To be sure, on-line world history teaching across national boundaries through this type of virtual interaction has some viable and exciting outcomes which can be adapted and built upon by practitioners in the field. Whether to do so, however, at the expense of commodifying world history learning in an era where the "virtual classroom" is under greater scrutiny as a multinational commercial enterprise rather than as a global pedagogical tool is the more urgent question at hand. Geyer and Bright's prognosis that world history needs to be anchored in the "actually existing" world of the contemporary age sounds good enough in terms of fostering transnational interactions of the kind fostered in this experiment. H,owever, the issues of cultural homogenisation and the corporatisation of higher education learning, and where world history programmes should fit into this new virtual order, needs more sustained debate from practitioners in the field. Without


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careful consideration of the historical and economic context of late capitalism and its relationship to new online teaching collaborations, the project of globalisation itself could risk being glorified in clearly unintentional ways. Geyer and Bright rightly predicted that lithe central challenge of a renewed world history at the end of the twentieth century is to narrate the world's pasts in an age of globality," but it seems that the new challenge for the twenty-first century is to find a way of fostering global interactions in our world history teaching while retaining a commitment to fostering educational standards, widening social access, and observing cross-cultural ethics. What is World History? Ask this question of a group of researchers, educators or students and it is unlikely that you will be given a unified response. Their disagreement may stem from terminology, with some insisting on a 'global' approach, and others arguing for 'world systems.' They may even argue for a 'new' to be placed in front of 'global' or for a hyphen to be inserted between 'world' and 'systems.' But more fundamentally, they may hold different understandings of the spatial and temporal parameters of the field, and of the phenomena it seeks to explain. One person may associate world history with the study of the movements of one person across an ocean, another may encourage us to go back and reflect on human population growth and even the origins of the universe 13.7 billion years ago. Lack of agreement about the nature of world history can be exasperating for both those familiar with, and those new to the field alike. Doesn't all of this disagreement, it might be asked, come at the expense of productivity? If we cannot agree on the meaning of world history, then how can we design syllabuses or textbooks or engage in collaborative research projects? For those of us interested

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in historiography, however, disagreements like these signal the potential of world history as a teaching and research field. Historiographers study the nature and purpose of histories. Quite often, historiography is treated as an addon or as an ancillary to historical studies. It is assumed to be the preserve of advanced undergraduate or graduate students, or something that precedes or follows historical research. Sometimes, historiography is even treated as an impediment to research, undercutting the findings of those who labour long and hard with primary archival materials. These views of historiography as supplementary are mistaken, because every activity undertaken in the course of historical research or teaching is shaped by assumptions about what history is and what it is for. Some of these assumptions vary widely across time and space, and others appear to be universal and beyond question. All of these assumptions are open to question, whether they are debated or held widely. Bringing assumptions about history to light is no easy matter, but it is worth undertaking for at least three reasons. First the assumptions historians make or affirm have ethical implications: that is, they privilege certain peoples and activities over others and overlook some phenomena altogether. Historiography can bring these patterns of privilege and exclusion to light and prompt us to address them in research and teaching. Second, it gives us the opportunity to clarify and explain our understanding of the field to others. Third, the historiographical analysis of world histories has broad social significance because world histories inform public culture. World histories are used in a variety of ways, such as supporting or promoting visions of community and environment, guiding economic programmes, or enhancing


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feelings of social security or disorder. Exploring what is expected of world histories, when, and by whom, may help to cast critical light on contemporary geopolitical discourses such as that on the health and clash of civilisations. As Patrick Manning has noted, it is hard to call to mind any particular methods or materials that distinguish world history from other fields. Indeed the range of works covered in his Navigating World History is so wide that it is difficult to detect where the territory of world history ends and other approaches to historical research (eg. transnational, imperial, regional, and diasporic) begin. Is this a problem just for world historians? People in many times and cultures have made histories of their 'world': a realm or domain taken for an entire meaningful system of existence or activity. Those 'worlds' may correspond to the globe as we view it, or to one part of it, such as the shores of the Mediterranean or the north of Australia. It is also important to note that world histories have been made with a variety of media, from print to pictures to dances and songs. People use a variety of labels to describe those histories, including 'holistic history,' 'universal history,' 'general history,' 'ecumenical history,' 'regional history,' 'comparative history,' 'world systems history,' 'macrohistory,' 'transnational history,' 'big history' and the 'new world' and 'new global' histories. Histories of world-history making traditionally begin with 'universal' history.' 'Universal history' has in ancient and modem contexts denoted, first, the production of a comprehensive and perhaps also unified history of the known world or universe; second, a history that illuminates truths, ideals or principles that are thought to belong to the whole world; third, a history of the world

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unified by the workings of a single mind; and fourth, a history of the world that has passed down through an unbroken line of transmission. Ephorus is generally cited as the first universal historian, and the rise of the genre is linked to the cosmopolitanism fostered by the conquests of Alexander of Macedon. Universal histories, however, are not simply a Western imperial product imposed upon the rest of the world: they probably have a relationship with the creation stories told by peoples around the world. Ancient universal history making flourished after cultural interactions, military campaigns, the advent of standardised systems of chronology and the spread of monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam. Universal history became one of a number of competing visions of 'world history' in the twentieth century, and persists today in philosophies of history and the sub-field of big history. Of particular interest was the fate of Western civilisation, which was given an optimistic appraisal in modernisation works such as E. L. Jones' The European Miracle. Neo-Marxist dependency and worldsystem scholars such as Andre Gunder Frank took issue with this assessment, noting that European activities often fostered states of economic dependency in 'periphery' states. Positive achievements in the 'West,' it was argued, came at the price of achievements in other parts of the world. Postcolonial and feminist scholars like Michael Adas and Judith Zinsser added to these criticisms, arguing that the language, concepts, periodisation and structure of world histories can minimise and even mask the historical activities of those 'outside' of the masculine West. Dependency, world-system, and postcolonial world histories formed part of the wider shift in the twentieth


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century towards the study of relations between peoples across the globe. This shift is epitomised in the scholarship of W. H. McNeill, who is widely acknowledged as one of the architects of present-day world history research. Human interaction on the largest scale-over the globewas also the subject of global (and new global) historical studies. Transnational, comparative, new imperial, and new world historians were also interested in human interaction, but on a smaller scale. There is no single culture, method or purpose that has shaped the making of world history. Nor do academic historians alone produce it. The Macquarie Programme

Since the mid-1990s, world history education at Macquarie University has opened with not one, but two surveys that work on different scales and with different methods and materials. The first, HIST112: An Introduction to World History is the unit that launched big history. Described first in an article for The Journal of World History called 'The Case for "Big History",' David Christian set out his arguments for the use of world history education to tell the biggest story"of all, that of the origins and evolution of human beings, life, earth, and the universe some 13.7 billion years ago. The course today still offers 'thirteen billion years in thirteen weeks.' A number of the students who take HISTl12 are puzzled and even shaken by their first encounter with big history. They come to university with expectations about what history is, with little recent experience in the study of science, and sometimes with firm religious beliefs. 'This is not history as I know it' is a common comment offered in the first weeks of semester. This is to be expected, because Christian's approach, as Alfred Crosby has noted, is an act of provocation.

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Contemporary historiography asks to be wary of coherent or even large stories in world history, portraying them as 'metanarratives' that legitimate some views and gloss over others. Further, few historians would see the territory of their discipline extending back before the appearance of writing, let alone before Homo' sapiens sapiens. That, however, is the point of Christian's work, for he wants us think carefully about our commitment to models of world history and history making that in his view make little use of the many scales of view that are available to historians, underplay the interactions between humans and the biosphere, and give short shrift to people who are not literate or who do not reside tidily within the boundaries of particular empires or nation states. HISTl12 is akin to a roller coaster ride, and not all students are initially happy about having their beliefs about history shaken. All but a few hang on, though, and their reward for persistence is an expanded view of science, history, world history and their own critical thinking skills. And while the majority of students start out worried about big history, they tend to end the unit very firmly in favour of its J.rguments and methods. On the one hand, this might be considered an educational success. On the other hand, the treatment of HIST112 as a sufficient treatment of world history masks the existence of other world histories. To address this problem, staff and students work to put HISTl12 in' context. Perhaps the most important factor in encouraging students to see big history as one of a number of competing approaches to world history is a second survey, HIST114: The World Since 1945 from an Australian Perspective. With its comparatively tiny timescale and use of a national frame, this unit provides a strong contrast to big history. It clearly announces


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through its title that it is not a continuation of, and does not use the same approaches and ideas as, HISTl12. In combination, these surveys embody the 'play of scales'the combined use of large and small scale analysis-thaIcan show students the possibilities of world history writing and research. The combined use of two surveys also highlights the pliable form of world histories, and shows students that they are constructed worlds. Drawing connections across units of study and highlighting differences in focus and method continues in upper level units that focus on the 'Atlantic world' after 1492, war and peace in the ancient and modern world, travellers and travel writing from the eighteenth century, and the spread of Indian ideas and practices in South-East Asia. Macquarie resembles many other universities in Australia and abroad in its use of thematic frames for upper level world history education. How it differs from other programmes, though, is that these thematic studies are not the end of world history study. At the highest level of undergraduate study and in the Masters programme, historiographical and historical questions relevant to the field come to the fore as focus shifts from 'world history' to 'world histories.' The undergraduate and MA unit, 'World Histories', offers students the chance to uncover and reflect on the shapes of world history making in many different social and historical contexts. Working through chronologically arranged lectures and thematic tutorial (class) and online discussions held in conjunction with the global studies programme at Leipzig University, students discuss labels such as 'global history' and 'universal history,' methodologies, scales of research and writing, where scholars begin and end their world histories, approaches to gender, and debates on

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postmodernist and postcolonialist world histories. They also study the relationships between the makers, distributors and readers and auditors of world histories. One of the major aims of the unit is to show that current historiographical surveys of the field rely too heavily on a limited body of works by European writers, and that they may be revised and expanded in at least five ways, through the extended consideration of world histories made before 14006; through world histories made outside of university settings by male and female writers for adult and child audiences; through traditions of world history making in China and Islamic centres; through world histories made by social and natural scientists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; and through 'holistic' histories of indigenous groups such as Aboriginal Australians. This expanded view helps to highlight the decisions made by historiographers about how world history is to be understood and shows us that European and North American world histories are thus only some among many ways of world making. In HIST 359/MHPG912, students are encouraged to see that historiographers of world history, as well as world historians, make worlds. But more importantly, they begin to reflect on their own potential contribution to world history making. Students design their own research project and fashion critical questions in response to the classes and readings. Further, they hear a series of mini-lectures by postgraduate students working in the field of world history. Far from being an ancillary or purely abstract pursuit, historiography can show students that world history is manageable, topical, and something that connects with cultures around the world. At Macquarie, research and teaching in world history go hand in hand. Research students lecture, findings are


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taken to classes, and student questions become the basis for smaller and larger research projects. And the programme continues to grow. While the emphasis has been on offering a complete programme for undergraduate and graduate students, it has now shifted to historiographical internationalisation. That is being addressed through internationally collaborative research on the history of world history making and the provision of opportunities for students at Macquarie and overseas to discuss ideas via online teaching and study abroad exchanges. Much work remains to be done, though, if the cultural and historical scope of research and teaching in the historiography of world history is to match that of world history itself. Macquarie University's undergraduate and postgraduate programme in world history is open to students in Australia and around the world. Single units may be taken on a 'Non Award' basis and studied on campus or externally via the web, or students can study at Macquarie for a semester as part of its 'Study Abroad' programme. Australian and international students are welcome to undertake degree programmes. Students with outstanding honours or Masters results are welcome to apply for PhD scholarships and PhD graduates with strong publication records are welcome to inquire about Postdoctoral fellowships. Teaching Global and Local History

This section explores ways in which the global is also local. It raises the question of whether a course in World History is truly such if it fails to incorporate our students'

hometown connections to persons, places, objects, activities, or events that reflect the emergence and growth of North America as one hub of the new, modem world system. Teachers and textbook authors, of course, are

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mindful of the highly visible, broad strokes of revolutionary change that everywhere signify modernity, but no single one of them can possibly deal with the multiple ways in which these changes were locally realised or experienced. To convey this sort of history in the classroom, it is necessary to examine the pasts of the localities in which our students reside, with an eye toward connecting their lives and those places with the rest of the world. Indeed, China and India, especially, were the "center of gravity" at the time of the modern hub's emergence, and their influence will loom large in our students' economic futures. Africa and Native America constitute two other axes of crucial importance to local and regional developments. Teachers must therefore subvert the institutionalised divisions that exist between national histories, grade levels, and even disciplines. Such categories and habits of mind, still deeply entrenched, only instill and reinforce students' perceptions of a false disconnect between their own worlds and those of people far away or long ago. Over twenty years ago, a professional historian and Berlin town resident wrote that "historically, in other than a local context, Berlin has no great significance," and that indeed, "no stirring events" had ever occurred there. From a conventional perspective, this is undoubtedly true, but from an anthropological perspective, it is precisely the mundane and the ordinary that constitute one of the unifying, core subjects of world history. In his classic examination of the material culture of early American life, In Small Things Forgotten, archaeologist James Deetz showed how even the most un-noteworthy of everyday objects, including ceramic ware, could be made to reveal how people of the past viewed themselves and their world.


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Along these lines, the relatively widespread diffusion of North America's first tin-plated pots, pans, and other utensils, and the development of a unique mercantile system for distributing them, can be traced to an event that occurred in what is now the town of Berlin. This was the decision, made around 1740 by the Scotch-Irish immigrant Edward Pattison, to manufacture tinware there instead of farming for a living. Since the English colonies were commercial ventures connected to the triangular webs of the Atlantic economy almost from the very start, Pattison's idea to make money by going into business for himself was hardly revolutionary. Having learned the relatively new trade in his native England, from which a good supply of the otherwise rare metal could be mined and exported, Pattison went from house to house in the Berlin area selling his stock. After some years, other town residents followed his example, with the result that soon "most of the homes [in Berlin] had a trained tinsmith and his apprentices." Individuals in neighbouring towns soon also established shops, but it was Berlin that earned a reputation as the most noisy "bang-all" place to live. By the early 19th century, "so much tinware was being produced that it became necessary to dispose of it beyond the local market," and it was thus that Berlin became the home of the original "Yankee Peddler," whose ubiquity in the early 19th century can perhaps be seen as a precursor to Wal-Mart. The new technology, products, machinery, and distribution system that gradually emerged had a significant impact on the domestic economy of both rural and urban-dwelling American families, replacing utensils made of iron, pewter, and wood. Enshrined today on Berlin's town seal and laying the foundation fur a manufacturing network and distribution

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system "that enabled them to re-supply their stock at warehouses and Connecticut-managed workshops from Ohio to Georgia," the early tinsmiths, blacksmiths, peddlers (and eventually, the manufacturers of tools and machinery for making tinware), it could be argued, established Berlin as one harbinger of New England's transformation from a rural to an industrial landscape. Simeon North, originally a farmer, turned an old sawmill into a forge where he started making tools and eventually pistols under United States' government contract. Eli Whitney may be better known for the first "assembly line," and Hartford's Samuel Colt for firearms, but it was North who invented a milling machine for the shaping of metal that made interchangeable parts and mass production possible. Eventually new turnpikes for wagon transport, canals for river freight, and finally railroads widened the market for these entrepreneurs' products, which remained vigorous until the late 19 th century when competition from Malaysian mines and cheap Chinese labour negatively impacted the industry. For a long time, until only recently with the publication of research dealing with "the myth of northern innocence," Connecticut's tales of tinplate bangers, blacksmiths, peddlers, and inventors formed part of the "American" self-image propagated by New Englanders who vaunted their own values of industriousness and entrepreneurship as superior to those prevalent in the slave-holding and foundationally racist South. Some native buyers, not knowing how to extract the spice, apparently thought that Connecticut peddlers cheated them by selling them nutmegs made of wood rather than the genuine article. Indeed, the story of nutmeg makes for a fascinating tale in world history, but apart from the manufacture of tin nutmeg grinders, there isn't much of local significance that can be hung onto it. Central


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Connecticut, however, does have deeper, less well-known ties to persons and events that reflect four major topics relevant to the world's transformations in both early modern and more recent periods: genocide, slavery, civil wars heralding the decline of one empire (China) and the rise of another (the U.S.), and the long-distance migration of large numbers of people. It is to these that I now turn. Genocide

Whether or not Jared Diamond's conclusions about the causes of world inequality as presented in Guns, Germs, and Steel are accepted, the course of modern world history has everywhere involved the domination of the have-nots by the haves, and often the outright immiseration of indigenous populations by more powerful newcomers. Because of its associated cultural genocide and species depletion, extinction, and exchange, the rise of the West entailed uses of political and economic power that differed substantially from how these were deployed in either the so-called simpler societies or the civilisations that were, before 1500, at about equal levels of technological development. After this date a New World environment was in the making socially as well as geographically, as the growth of the Atlantic economy created boundless opportunities for self-made men "to rival the old landed elites in wealth." These forces are evident in even the earliest colonial history of Connecticut, when treaties stipulating land cession after both the Pequot War (1636-37) and King Philip War (1675-76) removed the inconveniently located Indians (estimated to have been fewer than 5000 in number) outside the zone of English settlement, despite -initially "friendly" encounters and the apparent desire of the local Indians to have English settlers nearby as a buffer aga~nst their Mohawk and Pequot foes. The first Dutch

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and English inhabitants of Connecticut possessed precisely the advantages over Native Americans that Diamond identifies as crucial to the making of the modern world's asymmetries: firearms that changed completely the nature of warfare and hunting, bacterial immunities that changed completely the region's demography, and the metal tools and specie that transformed the meaning and distribution of wealth. While the Dutch at Hartford in the 1620s and 1630s sought mainly to trade, English settlement in the Connecticut River Valley followed the pattern established earlier in the Massachusetts Bay, where as early as 1620 (Plymouth's founding), "the thriving, populous agricultural villages [of natives] that [were earlier] seen were empty and deserted," replaced by a new communal and economic enterprise. Throughout southern New England, the Indians' adoption of a more nomadic lifestyle corresponded with an increase in the number of beaver pelts demanded by the foreign traders, and the settlers' introduction of new livestock and seeds on the most desirable lands. The net result after contact was to make them dependent upon the manufactured goods that trade with Europeans brought, which were then incorporated into indigenous systems of cultural meaning as they "began to participate in the systematic slaughter of animal populations with which they had formerly cultivated symbiotic and spiritual relationships." Southern New England's fur resources would, in the end, prove limited compared to those that could be hunted elsewhere, and even those larger quantities of beaver pelts proved only secondarily important to the accumulation of European capital. Timber and fish would soon replace it as the colony's first cash-producing commodities. Yet, in Connecticut they were briefly the focus of an intense confliCt between Holland's mainly commercial pursuits


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and the desire of the English United Colonies to remove the natives entirely. By 1667 the Dutch forfeited their claims in North America, but the role played by Native American hunters in adorning, if not actually creating the Netherlands' "embarrassment of riches" is noteworthy. At the very least, upon being shown a Vermeer or perhaps some other Dutch genre painting from its Golden Age, a student could be led to inquire if a woman's fur collar or the felt for the hat worn by some "merry cavalier" came originally from an amphibious rodent that may have once lodged not far from his or her own home! Indian defeats cleared the way for the Connecticut colony to take its part, albeit much smaller than that of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, in the Atlantic Triangular Trade. Bloody conflicts early established the abusive pattern of treatment that expanding American government eventually would apply to all Native Americans. The Pequot War demonstrated English military superiority to the Indians and dispersed those it did not kill. There was some lingering resistance, evidenced by the imposition of a fine by the colony's General Court of a half fathom of wampum upon "whatsoever Indean shall medle with or handle any Englisheman's weapens of any sorte," and eventually it was forbidden to trade any items made of metal to the Indians who "growe insolent and combyne themselves together, being suspected to prepare for war." Yet by the late 1660's, "the independent and roving existence of the Indians had ceased ... they were little more than the subjects and tenants of the white men." Among "the little sagamores [who] sold land and performed other acts of sovereignty on their own authority" at that time was a certain Terramuggus, "chief of the Mattabesett," a clan of the Wangunks, from whom

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militia Sergeant Richard Beckley (today deemed the first settler of what would later be Berlin) "purchased" a tract of some 300 acres around 1660 (an act which nevertheless did not free him from the danger of theft). Fear of Indians remained widespread, and in 1687 militia Captain Richard Seymour built, for the inhabitants of "The Great Swamp Settlement" of Christian Lane (Le., the church society of Kensington, now part of Berlin), a fort of palisades sixteen feet high as "protection against sudden attack from Indians

or wild animals." Travel to worship under armed guard also kept parishioners safe. Gradually, however, as they did everywhere throughout New England, the Indians in central Connecticut "settled into anonymity, constructing brooms, bottoming chairs, weaving woodsplint baskets, and carving pudding spoons that they traded in Yankee towns." In Berlin, Indian men might occasionally be seen well into the 19th century, "begging for cider" or for food and a night's lodging in the barn, and being given it, for "people were careful not to offend [them] .. , with their long memories and revengeful dispositions, one never knew when the blow might fall." As for females, "a lone Indian woman, probably one of the last of the Mattabesett tribe" was known to inhabit a grove along the Sebethe River, where "her occupation must have been stringing beads and making baskets" for sale to the whites. Other Indians in Berlin are known to have made baskets which they "sold ... in Hartford for rum and when they returned the squaws used to go and stay with Mrs. Goodrich until the braves were peacef~l again." Though anecdotal, such references to itinerant and "disappearing Indians" were common in the early 19th century. It is known that in the 18th century, Indian servitude survived in Connecticut "as a curious relic," probably as the result of a law requiring that the indigent


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"be disposed into service." All such data evince the modern, globally-visible pattern of indigenous reduction, impoverishment, and socio-cultural if not entirely physical disappearance as a result of conquest by more powerful outsiders. Slavery

After agriculture, shipbuilding was one of Connecticut's largest industries in the lSth and 19th centuries. Shipyards located in the ports of Mystic and London and at various locations along the Connecticut River specialised in making "cotton packets" of 700-1000 tons that sailed to the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Norris Peck, a Berlin selectman, farmer, and merchant with ties to Alabama cotton growers and thus to African slaves and their African-American descendants, was but one of the many Connecticut investors in the cotton packet trade. Other local merchants conducted business with counterparts in North Carolina, including members of the Wilcox family, who would later play a leading role in turning the town of Meriden, next to Berlin, into a center of "International Silver." Such ties were neither new nor distasteful to early Puritan or later Congregationalist minds, for West Indian cotton was available for spinning by New Englanders as early as the 1640's. It is possible that the first cotton thread to be made in America was hand-loomed in a Berlin shop owned by one of Pattison's sons. Much later, in what is now called East Berlin, Elishama Brandegee (whose father had sailed the seas and brought back" a little negro boy from Guinea" ) established a large spool cotton and thread ,mill that "gave employment to forty girls" and is the 1fubject of a rustic factory landscape painted by Charles Doratt in 1840. It,

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too, was but one of the many textile or textile-related factories that proliferated throughout Connecticut in the early 19th century and that owed their existence to "the millions of pounds of slave-grown cotton they imported from the Southern states." Still another connection to the larger Atlantic world is suggested by one of the several other nicknames for Connecticut besides "The Nutmeg State," one which is not as well-known or remembered. Despite the collapse of the American economy during the revolutionary war, farmers in Connecticut supplied substantial foodstuffs for the Continental Army, which made it "The Provision State." However, another meaning can be attributed to this name, less enshrined in the public's awareness of identity and history. Again, although Connecticut's share of shipping was small compared to that of other colonies/states, its navigable rivers put at least some of the products of its fields and forests into the larger webs of the Triangular Trade. Indeed, apart from domestic subsistence, some production for the local market, and the production of flaxseed for export to Ireland, it was the West Indies that were for a long time "the one main market" in farmers' minds. Connecticut's urban merchants, like so many others throughout New England, thrived at least partly because they traded the foodstuffs and forest products of the rural areas to England's "sugar islands" of the West Indies, without which the slave plantation economies could not have survived. Local farmers produced com and kiln-dried it, while mills in Kensington and East Berlin ground it into flour. Some quantity of that meal was sent by teams to Middletown or further south to New Haven, and then shipped to the Caribbean where, along with dairy products and preserved fish, it was used to feed slaves.


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A local historian who was active in the early 20th century, and who was descended from a sea captain who later owned a store that "ran vessels from Rocky Hill to the West Indies," informs us that "com was ground [in Berlin] and meal dried and shipped to the West Indies ... great trunks of trees were sawed into lumber," but it is impossible to know how much. However, "shipping Irecords indicate that farms were feeding West Indian slaves by the tens of thousands," while forested areas throughout central Connecticut were cleared in order to provide the shingles, barrel staves, and casks in which the corn meal was stored. New England Puritans had actually begun trading for slaves with the West Indies in 1638 and initiated direct trade for slaves in Africa as early as 1644. At first, Indian slaves were imported from other colonies, but they were difficult to control and the practice was soon abandoned in favor of Africans, who "had no place to run to, no tribe to assist them in a rebellion, and ... seemed more able to adapt to European ways." Special recent supplements to the Hartford Courant and a newly-published book have been devoted to what has been, until now, the utterly neglected topic of slave-holding and the economics of slavery in Connecticut. And despite its small part in the trade, Connecticut had the largest number of slaves (6,464) in New England on the eve of the Revolution. Twenty-two Africans were officially counted as living in Berlin in 1801. Exactly what they did and who they did it for cannot be known without further research, but their work was undoubtedly servile and some were most likely owned by traders or merchants. It is known that about a half-century earlier, "as far as possible from the pulpit," seating was reserved in one church "for the negro servants [sic] ... not because [it was] thought they had any

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souls worth saving but because [their owners] did not like to leave them at home." Even after the American Civil War, fortunes were made in the state on the backs of the countless African slaves who carried ivory tusks to Zanzibar, from where they were transported to factories on the Connecticut River that turned them into piano keys, combs, and brush handles. It might be added that without West Indian molasses, spices, and rum, and the risks associated with its importation, Hartford would not have become "The Insurance Capital" of America. But those are other places and other stories, and do not fit within the scope of this article. Civil Wars

As is well known, the British went to war twice against China in the first half of the 19th century because of an unfavorable balance of trade and the Qing Emperor's refusal to allow Canton's merchants to continue exchanging beneficial products (silk, tea, porcelain, human labour) for harmful ones (opium and life as a "coolie" in the Americas). Demand for silk was so great that attempts were made during the late 18th and early 19th centuries to replicate Chinese success in the American colonies. Americans in large numbers started planting mulberry. trees, breeding silkworms, and spooling the silk. Ezra Stiles, president of nearby Yale College, was one enthusiastic promoter of silk production, and among the notable results of his efforts was the formation, in 1788 in the town of Mansfield, of the first U.S. corporation devoted to manufacturing. The 1820's and 1830's, in particular, witnessed a sericulture "craze" that prompted dreams of fast riches through home production throughout New England.

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In the Berlin/New Britain area, Elijah Tinsdale had a mulberry orchard and a silkhouse that was, following a pattern common since King James' command that silk be produced in Virginia, promoted and partly subsidised by state government. The mother of Elishama Brandegee, the aforementioned factory owner whose other business interests were in the West Indies, not only ran the family general store but raised silkworms and tended a mulberry orchard on Worthington Street while doing so, exemplifying both the adoption of Chinese technology and the tendency, at this time, of New England women of all social classes to "[define] their lives through work." But once again, as with the tin industry, local enterprise was thwarted by conditions prevailing far away, and colonial silk production reached a dead end: "The hitch appeared when it became clear that, even with the cost of freight ... factored in, New Englanders would not perform the delicate work of unwinding cocoons for rates that could compete with Chinese wages." The one major Connecticut success story was that of the Cheney Brothers, who turned Manchester into a company town with a silk mill that remained active until the early 20th century. America's maritime Clipper Age coincides with the defeat and humiliation of the Chinese "Celestial Court" by the British, and the onset of a long period of foreign intrusion and civil war in China. Connecticut shipyards built many of the vessels that sailed out of New York, and many sea captains of the China trade came from Connecticut families. The town of Berlin plays a part in one profoundly American and virtually unknown story from that period. In 1852, one year after the founding of the rebel Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace and somewhere along the endemically hungry, flooded, people-exporting coast of southern China, a Chinese boy of about ten years old was sold to Captain Amos Peck,

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son of the aforementioned Norris Peck. On the return voyage round the Hom, the cabin boy was named "Joe" by the ship's crew, and was brought back to Berlin along with whatever goods Amos purchased as his father's agent. Joe was raised together with Amos Peck's younger siblings in his parents' home (an 181h century central chimney house that is still standing). Joe attended school with them, but instead of taking the Peck family name he was given the surname "Pierce," after the President then in office. Years later, family members would tell conflicting versions of why, where, and even for how much Joe was purchased. But Connecticut had officially abolished slavery in 1848, the Pecks were-at least in principle-locally known to be against it, and Joe was neither thought of nor treated as a slave during the years he spent in town. Pierce grew to manhood in Berlin, and, following President Lincoln's call in 1863 for "300,000 more," enlisted in the 14th Connecticut Volunteers. Manchurian pigtail tucked under his blue Union kepi, he saw action at Gettysburg and elsewhere, ultimately witnessing Lee's surrender at Appomattox. After the war, he married into and lived entirely within central Connecticut's white American society, eventually finding employment (undoubtedly through Peck family connections with the Wilcoxes) at the nearby Meriden Brittania Company. Besides teapots and spice boxes, Meriden Brittania made all kinds of vessels and utensils for the burgeoning railroad, steamship, restaurant, and hotel industries whose development corresponds with increasingly tightening webs of modem world interconnectedness. As a highly-skilled engraver of Britannia and silverplated holloware, Pierce's custom work differed vastly from the labour of virtually all the other Chinese who


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labored bitterly as mere coolies in the United States in the decades prior to and during the infamous years of official Chinese Exclusion. Still, despite his wartime service and his adoption of Yankee identity, he could not become a citizen, nor is it likely that other Americans allowed him to forget that he was "yellow." Pierce died in 1916, leaving a wife and two sons, but apparently no trail other than documents related to his residence, employment, and military service. Migration

Finally, evidence of more recent connections between the near and the far may be seen up and down the Berlin Turnpike, which prior to the completion of the federal interstate highway system in the 1960's was part of the main route connecting New York, Bridgeport, New Haven, Middletown, Meriden and Hartford. Decades of commercial decline along this highway ended with the influx, since the late 1970's, of what is now a significant bloc of local commercial property owners and tax-payers. Families from western India's Gujarat state (mainly the areas around Surat and Ahmedabad), with centuries of experience in property ownership and crosscultural trade, are today the proprietors of motels, filling stations, convenience stores, and "Gandhi Plazas" virtually everywhere. This demographic pattern has been replicated along secondary roads throughout the United States. Elsewhere throughout the area (and through much of New England) small Chinese take-outs, owned and run by families from Fujian Province, have become ubiquitous. In 2004, more persons of Asian Pacific race/ethnicity re&ided in Berlin than the total of Native Americans and African-Americans combined, and these are mainly South Asian Hindus and

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Muslims. Because of its central location in the state, Berlin is also the home of Connecticut's largest mosque. It is too early to tell what future trends may connect local realities to Asia even further, but at least one local multiplex now features regular screenings of "Bollywood" films, while perhaps as many as two hundred thousand Connecticut jobs in both low-tech (manufacturing) and high-tech (information) sectors have been outsourced to Asia. It is estimated that by 2008, U.S. corporate involvement in India alone will involve 1.2 million workers and $23 billion in revenues. One hint of things to come may be seen in the recent growth of the Chinese population in the town of Norwich.

Relocated to New York City's Chinatown from Fujian, and then to eastern Connecticut after the devastating impact of the events of September 11 th, 2001 on businesses in lower Manhattan, their main source of livelihood now lies in the casino, resort, and entertainment industries developed over the past fifteen years or so by Pequots and Mohegans. If the past is prologue, this particular confluence of people and economic opportunity is truly mind-boggling. Yet Connecticut's connections to India specifically did not begin with the emergence of what is jokingly called the "Patel Motel Cartel." Though it may seem tenuous, without a link to South Asia there would have been no such thing as a Yale education-legal, divinity, or otherwisefor many central Connecticut luminaries of the 18th and 19th centuries. Born in the New Haven Colony in 1648, Elihu Yale's gift to a school that was at first located in the town of Saybrook included 1/25 pieces of garlic (a kind of cloth), 18 pieces of calico, 17 pieces of worsted goods, 12 pieces of Spanish poplin, 5 pieces of plain muslin, and 2 pieces of black and white silk crepe," which, when sold, raised 562 English pounds for the construction of the new CoJJege Ln Nt>w Haven."

5 Teaching Effective World History World History has developed as a teaching programme, mainly through survey courses at both high school and first-year college level, a number of objections have been raised in US. Many area studies specialists have worried about the feasibility of such a vast subject, and particularly about the distortions and simplifications a world history programme might entail in their specialty. Here was one source of the resistance to world history in Ivy League and comparable institutions. Sheer routine posed another set of barriers, long compounded by the lack of specific training possibilities for world history teachers. Many high school teachers were and are intimidated by world history and also remain attached to subject matter they have long taught and have come to love. The agonies, for example, about what to do with the beloved Italian Renaissance, when prodded to convert from European history to world history, form a case in point. But it is the cultural resistance to world history that has been most interesting and probably, in the long run, most telling in its curricular impact, sometimes compounded of course by sheer routine-mindedness.

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A number of educators, and even more patrons and observers of education, are convinced that world history threatens the values and knowledge they find central to a well-conceived history programme. For them, the two central pillars of such a programme involve, first, a special emphasis on American history, usually conceived (at least implicitly) along lines of American exceptionalism, and second, an appropriate dose of Western civilisation. An educated person, according to this argument, must know a daunting number of facts about both fields-1,200 or so in U.S. history, and over 1,000 for Western civ, according to conservative education guru Chester Finn. More broadly, American citizens generally should have a unifying exposure to some common stories about the West and about American history, and a fairly explicit sense of the superiority of these traditions over (usually unnamed) alternatives.

These attitudes reflect, first, a national establishment that has had no reason-in obvious contrast to current counterparts in the European Union-to rethink the importance of specifically nationalist frameworks for history curricula. Recent federal legislation promoting the teaching of strictly American history and proposing mandatory training on topicS such as the U.S. constitution show the continued vitality of state-serving national history. And while increasing numbers of professional historians are eager to "internationalise" the American history survey to make it more compatible with companion world history courses, there is little official sponsorship for these efforts. The widespread attachment to Western civ, the more direct competitor to world history, is less self-evident, for obviously the programme here is not strictly national. Western civ courses became curricular staples, first at

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prestigious universities headed by Columbia, then by reflection as European history survey courses in many high schools, from the 1920s onward. They reflected a successful campaign by many historians of Europe, headed by James Harvey Robinson, to urge Western civ as an essential backdrop and legitimizer to what was, after all, a rather brief, strictly national, experience. The United States was also seen in terms of maintaining the European cultural and political tradition at a time, between the world wars, when Europe itself seemed unable to do the job. Here again was a reassuring assignment for an upstart transatlantic republic. Western. values-and the emphasis in the Western civ tradition rested on intellectual and very general political heritage, not messy details-were fundamental to American development, and the United States had its additional role as preserver as well as heir. S=urricular history itself, then, explains much of the conservative attachment to Western Civ and resentment of world history as interloper. Because world history necessarily reduces the space available to the West and treats the Western tradition as one among several major and valid civilisational experiences, it is inherently suspect. Add the not-inconsiderable dose of West-bashing associated with some world history efforts, designed to trim the West down to size, and the conflict escalates. Indeed, something of a vicious circle is often established, with world historians all the more eager to point out flaws in the West given their opponents' adamant insistence that West is best. History curricula, then, become one of the battlegrounds in the notorious American culture wars, between defenders of a clear tradition, eager to maintain established landmarks for assessing the knowledge of an

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educated student, and the advocates of the greater breadth and considerable relativism of world history. Conflict is all the more acute given the relationship between history curricula and two of the major forces impinging on the contemporary United States. First, there is the unprecedented flow and diversity in the immigrant population. For many world historians, an increasingly diverse student body has been a vital asset, providing voices insisting on historical treatment of traditions besides that of the West. But for their opponents, this same mixture makes. it all the more imperative that students be exposed to standard single stories about the national and the Western traditions-history is designed to Americanise, and world history distracts from and possibly subverts this task. The same divergence applies to growing complexities in the United States' world role in a post-Cold War environment. To world historians, national involvement in global rather than predominantly European interactions dictates world history as essential perspective. But for their opponents, this same complexity requires an even fiercer emphasis on the certainties and superiorities of Western values. This clash gained additional illustration immediately after 9/11: while most people saw the attacks as a reason for new curricular attention to Islam and to central Asia, conservatives like Lynn Cheney explicitly argued that America besieged required ever-stricter emphasis on the Western verities, without the dilution involved in dealing with the larger world. The wars continue. Several features of world history, as a teaching programme, have complicated the disputes. Despite some previous research pedigree, world history long developed in the United States primarily as a teaching field, not


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buttressed by major research claims. Even the achievements of the field, in significantly revising our understanding of historical developments particularly between about 600 C.E. and the 19 th century, have not always been highlighted. This may generate unfavourable contrast with the more familiar research pedigree of Western civ-beginning with scholars like Robinson himself. Again in contrast to Western civ., world history programmes took earliest and widest root in state colleges and public high schools, rather than the most prestigious universities that clung to well-established Western civ offerings. Again, some potential clout was lost as a result. These features are transitory, already being amended; the recent move in the Ivy League toward formal world history programmes, though a belated response rather than a leadership gesture, is a striking case in point. And research credentials advance steadily as well, along with, more haltingly, available training programmes. The central question, of course, is how much the ongoing culture wars over world history have mattered. On the surface, despite the rhetorical storms, surprisingly little. Worries that official condemnation in 1994 would dampen the world history surge proved largely groundless. The Standards document itself continued to be widely referenced by secondary school teachers, at least for several years. Two other developments were particularly noteworthy. First, in the wake of the partial collapse of the national standards movement, a variety of states issued standards statements of their own, sometimes with assessment mechanisms attached. Distressingly (though perhaps understandably given the Standards controversy) professional historians were relatively rarely involved in developing these materials.

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Nevertheless, most state standards referenced world history, not European history. The state of Texas, perhaps surprisingly, so emphasized world history that the opportunity to teach strictly European history in high school programmes withered; a somewhat similar situation prevailed in California. And many individual school districts, for example in Maryland, Virginia, and Massachusetts, opted strongly for world history goals under the umbrella of a slightly vaguer state mandate. The second development, still more recent, involves the installation and rapid success, numerically at least, of the Advanced Placement World History course. The course was launched four years ago, to the largest student audience of any AP programme at roughly 20,000; it has grown massively, with roughly triple the original number of students involved in the programme this year. This growth has challenged many teachers, some of whom have doubtless been hastily chosen-in some cases, the least experienced teachers were dragooned-or incompletely trained. But teacher response to training opportunities has been impressive as well. Finally, though numerical data are less firm here, college programmes have continued to spread as well. Despite the culture wars, in other words, world history curricula have advanced. Programmes like the AP effort and many college courses have been progressively refined, so that there are many illustrations of careful periodisation, calibrated balance among comparative approaches, emphasis on contacts, and focus on global forces-moving well away from the parade of one society after another that remained common just a decade ago. Diligent efforts by world historians themselves, at both college and secondary levels; awareness of exciting issues in research and teaching in the field; the need to respond to the increasing diversity of the student body; and above


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all the overwhelming imperative to provide historical perspective on the complex network of global relationships with which American students will be engaged, as citizens certainly and often as workers-all these factors have promoted the world history programme even as the culture wars continue to distract. This is not to say, however, that cultural dispute and other retardant factors have lost their force. Several distortions remain significant. First, obviously, world history surveys have not spread as widely as would have occurred with less opposition, particularly at the introductory college level. While European surveys had never been ubiquitous, and while they varied far more than Western civ proponents sometimes acknowledged, it remains true that world history has yet to achieve the standard place that European surveys could boast two decades ago. More importantly, and here particularly at the secondary sch

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