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History can help students guide through trouble
Through the analysis of primary documents (pictures, statistics, quotes, passages, art, music, artifacts) I would expect my students to construct their own idea of American/human identity. As the David McCoullough quote stated earlier in the proposal “…history is a guide through perilous times” if students can make the connection from the past to the present then they can use history as a tool to predict what may happen in the future. This is a powerful instrument aiding citizens with decision making that is a key part in the democratic process for which school is preparing them.
The main goal with the class structure is very difficult because it takes a very high level of thought to make a connection between historical content to a student’s current life. Students often arrive in class with the idea that history is a useless subject that requires mostly factual recollection for tests. Whenever I give my first exam or students are preparing for a district common assessment, several express feelings of being overwhelmed because there is so much to “know.” Students that perhaps know the definitions the best may do poorly on the exam. The reason for this is because in the questions that I ask students require the application of information not basic recollection. They fail to see how the activities have encouraged them to logically think through a problem as opposed to memorize how someone dealt with a problem. While studying, the students completely neglected to think about the class activity that asked the students to apply the information. The students knew the information but they did not fully understand it. My goal is not to teach every fact but to encourage students to study the idea of process so that they can use historical generalizations to logically think through the problem. Previous Page Next Page |