I Know, It's Only Historical Debate,But I Like It

History is the world’s first social science. As such, it exemplifies this academic area’s ambiguity,open -endedness, and dual nature. Like the hard sciences, history relies on meticulous research, empirical evidence (usually in the form of primary sources), and no small amount of focus and concentration on a given topic. But history, also relies upon several disciplines that are crucial to the arts. Historians must be able to creatively interpret data, empathize with their subjects, and at specific times, make intuitive leaps. One must not forget that many of the original thinkers behind the Post-Modern movement within the arts were historians. In many ways this duality exemplifies(at least in spirit) Cornell West’s statement that as historians “we have got to keep two ideas in our minds at the same time. The achievements as well as the downfalls. The grand contributions and the vicious crimes.” (Reprinted in Levstik and Barton, 1998)
Frans Doppen’s article Teaching and Learning Multiple Perspectives: The Atomic Bomb, exemplifies the letter of West’s original statement, which is concerned with the teaching of history. West argues we must acknowledge one of the Enlightenment’s most significant contributions to global civilization, the idea and ideal that humanity is a race of equals. In doing so however, we must also acknowledge the Western World’s role in the countless instances of imperialism, genocide, and subjection that Europe and North America has enacted over the centuries. When reading Doppen’s essay through this lens, we can see a clear, thoughtful and intelligent response to this pedagogical imperative that should drive the teaching of history.
Doppen’s study shows that students must be allowed to approach history through a multiple perspectives, and insists that the field should no longer be written by just the victors. Doppen chronicles how a unit that focused on the Atomic Bomb was taught to a group of high school children. The lessons were designed around the reading of primary and secondary source documents culled from both the Allies and the Japanese. The students were encouraged, but not guided to make their own decisions on these sources. They were also asked to create a “museum display” that focused on the events in question. By doing so the students gained an empathy for both sides, and were able to do something crucial in the field of history; they were empowered to the point were they were able to take ownership of the facts.
Melinda Fine’s article, “You Can’t Just Say The the Only Ones Who Can Speak Are Those Who Agree with Your Position”: Political Discourse in the Classroom illustrates how no matter how fine ideals seem on paper, they still depend on mere, flawed, mortals for their transmission. Fine observes how the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum was enacted in a particular classroom in Cambridge, MA. Although Fine is generally supports and is enthusiastic with this particular curriculum’s methods and execution within this classroom, she also brings up a the fact that the teacher in this study also actively suppressed the views, and more importantly the conclusions that her students made that did not fit within her own value system. Granted, the students views were controversial to say the least, including the speculation on the validity of the Global Jewish Conspiracy theory and calling Israel to task on the abuses it perpetuated upon the Palestinians; the conclusions that these children made definitely raise a whole slew of questions that this blog has neither the space nor the time, nor the teaching experience to answer, but Fine shows that the teacher made these opinions into straw men, and allowed herself, and her students who held a more conventional view of history to knock them down. In short, Fine shows that although it is easy to pay lip service to the ideals of open discourse and student ownership of information, and that history is indeed a subject that is comprised of multiple perspectives, it is much harder to actually implement those ideas in the classroom.

Idenity in the Global Age

Globalization has changed the world in a number of ways. It has interlocked individual nation states’ economies together. It has created a variety of subcultures that have been able to transmit their values via the internet. Globalization has also moved a lot of people around, sending wave after wave of immigrants over national boarders.
For some countries, these sudden swells of new populations are a relatively new phenomena. Europe, once a stronghold for homogenization, a bulwark of a continent comprised of single national identities is now being slowly transformed. Pockets of diversity have sprung up in areas where once a single language had been spoken. There are now neighborhoods in France, England, Germany, and Italy, where the native language has been replaced by Arabic, Afro-Caribbean patois, and African dialects. Customs once observed in Maroco, Senegal, and Haiti, are now seen in Paris, Liverpool, and Frankfurt, with an increasing amount of frequency and proliferation. These countries who have for so long been largely unified by language and shared history are now trying to find ways to accommodate and incorporate new workforces from various social-ecconomic backgrounds, and new pupils in the classroom who do not have the same cultural background as the students that have been filling classrooms for centuries.
The United States, once a beacon for the world’s tired and poor huddled masses yearning to be free, is also facing these new challenges brought about by globalization. But the face of America’s attitude towards immigrants, and the faces of the immigrants themselves have changed. When America first became the Great Melting Pot, the aliens who had settled our shores were mostly European. Even with the particular cultural bias of different time periods (whether the dominant culture was set against the Germans, Irish, Italians, or Jews), these migrants coming to our shores would be nearly fully assimilated within a generation or two. This is no longer the case. Today’s American immigrant can trace his/her roots to South America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. By the very virtue of the color of their skin, their facial features, they are indelibly stamped with the designation of “other.” These new cogs found within the Jeffersonian Great Machine of Democracy, face a cultural limbo; where they are simultaneously are and are not seen as American.
In her chapter, for the book entitled Globalization, Culture and Education in the New Millennium, Carola Suarez-Orozco raises the issues that are facing the children of this new crop of Americans. She points out that one of the largest challenges that children of immigrants now face are the cultural attributes that are ascribed to them. Racism in the United States has never been a secret. Expectations of people of color, whether they are of Latino, African, or Afr0-Caribbean descent have traditionally been low. As Marshall McClune has pointed out, the medium is the message in a postindustrial age. Children who are expected to do poorly, will. What is more distressing as C. Suarez-Orozco points out, is that in this environment of over-determined failure, a subculture forms. Academic achievement becomes a sign of cultural betrayal for many second and third generation Americans. Terms like “coconut,” “banana,” and “Oreo,” are now freely ascribed to ethnic minority children who succeed in school by their own communities. We are now living in a country where large portions of our population now see learning as a curse, a rejection, where children face the choice of being successful within the context of the larger society, or being accepted within their home communities.

Think Globally, Teach Globally

During the past decade or so, globalization and international studies has rightfully ascended to “hot button” topic status within the academic and pedagogical communities. With the advent of an almost universally accessible internet and satellite technology the field of communications has grown at an exponential rate. A person in Hong Kong can almost instantaneously share information with someone living in Brussels or New York. National economies are now indelibly tied to one another. The rise of the EU and the Euro is concrete proof of this. Immigration trends have also shifted. Once nearly homogenized societies found in Europe and Asia are now facing record influxes of migrants who are, looking for jobs and hoping to start a new and more prosperous life for themselves; these immigrants also hold onto their mother culture, and can now communicate with those they have left behind at will. While some countries struggle with the idea (and ideal) of the “Melting Pot,” America has once again, become polarized by the issue. Conservatives of all stripes work to close boarders, of both a physical and intellectual nature. Others see these shifts as a cause of excitement, and wish to understand, and help others understand this new, and in my opinion, vital world milieux.
In their introduction to Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium, M. Suarez-Orozco and D. Qin-Hillard go to great lengths to trace the above mentioned trends and tie them to the classroom. They argue, quite convincingly, for the need to teach our children how to adopt a global perspective. They report on how the concepts of national and personal identity, cultural mores, and personal communication has shifted in this neoteric, wireless age. They preach the gospel of globalization because they see international boarders being redefined, regional populations in a constant state of flux, and new cultures incubated within the fluid motions of interracial and intercultural marriage. From their pulpit, M. Suarez-Orozco and D. Qin-Hillard call for a radical reconception on how we teach social studies. The changes that they ask for seem daunting, but they are, at this point in our history, absolutely necessary.
The teaching and learning concepts put forth by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), seem to be a good start as far as how to address the issues that M. Suarez-Orozco and D. Qin-Hillard have raised. However I feel that there needs to be a bit more depth added to them. Concepts such as “there are problems as well as benefits related to globalization” (pg. 6) can be ideological minefields for the new teacher. It would help if these concepts could be modeled for educators by the NCSS. More troubling however, is that although the NCSS constructs a logical platform as to why we need to teach social studies, they do not argue for it; there is little that could answer critics in their proposal. In our day and age, it can be vital to ask ourselves “What Would Diane Ravitch and E.D. Hirsch Do?” (W.W.D.R.E.D.H.D) in order to gird ourselves for the inevitable attack, and to let ourselves do the exact opposite.