During high school when I studied history, I never got further than World War I, if at all. I certainly do not remember about anything prior to 1900 that I was taught. Now consider today almost 50 years later and how much information must be added to all of the history that I wasn’t taught. Add to that the Standards that the States impose on teachers and you have a very limited amount of teaching and learning about history that can be accomplished.
Sometimes when I’m sleeping, I get my best ideas. How to teach history and other subjects that fall into “there is a lot to teach these kids in one year” has been tweaking my brain for answers these past few days. I think I’ve come up with a plan. Teach the students how to research and present data not just the data.
Here’s my plan:
Starting in kindergarten teach students the various ways that they can share information. I would probably start with storytelling. A lot of classes do that informally when they have morning meetings and show and tell. Do it more often. In addition to free sharing, give students specific things to share about. In the primary grades it could be simple things like tell us about how you fixed something. Share one of your favorite trips. Teach us something you just learned about. We used to do a program called, “Magic Circle” that allowed students to share on a daily basis and replay back what others had told them. It was an awesome program. That’s what kid’s today need more of.
Teach your kids how to tell stories. They could be totally non-fiction stories or fictional folktales or fairy tales or inventions of their own. Get the students comfortable with telling stories to others – in pairs, to small groups, to large assemblies.
As they get older show them different ways to share. Have them use props, pictures and videos. The more they are involved in the choosing and making of those props, pictures and videos, the more vested they will be in what they are sharing about.
Bring in technology. Have them do non-linear presentations using stand alone and online software. I’ve always used PowerPoint to make non-linear, reader controlled, menu driven presentations. Now you can use Google Apps, and specific Apps, like Prezi, Canva, Voice Thread, Zaption, ThingLink, etc. Get your students to think about presentations as an important part of their education. And don’t make all of these presentations solo acts. Do a lot of collaborative work both in the design of these products and the revisions of these products.
That’s where the focus should be. Not the content. When your students, children, you can visualize the world as a place where we share what we discover through as many creative venues as possible then the knowledge they need to gain will flow.
Throughout all of this make sure you are teaching them how to gather information too. How to research the Web, books, newspapers, first hand accounts and be able to separate the fact from the fiction. How to choose what is important to share and what just fills space.
As an example – if they are about to learn about a historical topic such as the Civil War. Break out the sections you would normally teach yourself (Causes, North vs. South, Timelines, Aftermath, etc.) and give these topics to the students as research projects to discover answers to and share. Your job as teacher is to feed and guide some of the groups information that will help them present what is important. As they are creating their projects and learning what you want everyone to know, help them with their presentations so that that knowledge does get passed on. Feel free to fill in the gaps after each presentation and hold the other groups accountable for what is learned. If those presentations can be made public in your room, on the web, wherever, then do it. Let others learn from them and relearn if they miss what might have been shared. I used to make study guides with missing information that the students had to fill in from the posters and projects displayed in the room and in the hall.
Build it from your kids, not for your kids. I think in this way you may be able to teach more topics than you originally had the time to do. The kids will be vested in what they are doing, and I’d bet they would look forward to doing more.
And don’t limit this to only history. Sharing and collaborating is not only a social studies vehicle. Try it with writing, science, the Arts and even math problem solving.
I’m not in the classroom anymore as a regular teacher. I know that all of the present day Common Core standards would probably create a challenge for me to do what I had done in the past. I think what I’ve described here would allow you do more than you are able to do now and have fun doing it at the same time. And as I once read, “if you’re having fun with what you are doing, you never have to work a day in your life.”
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