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About Me
About Me
My name is Erin McCabe, I am a Secondary Education History Major with a Minor in Psychology. I have ambitions to teach History and Psychology at the High School level after college. My goal is to open up the minds of my students. I want them to not only memorize the information I teach them, but truly understand it, relate to it, and apply it to their every day lives.
Introducing Students to Historiography and Postmodernism
Introducing Students to Historiography and Postmodernism
Big terms like "historiography" and "postmodernism" can seem intimidating to high school history students, as if they belong only in advanced honors courses. But they matter for everyone because historiography is essentially the study of how truth and perspective shape out understanding of the past. As the TEDx Beijing video explains, history is not simply recorded in a neutral way, it is observed, interpreted by the writer, and then interpreted again by the reader. This is the core of postmodernism. Understanding this historiographical process, through which history is continually reconstructed, helps students open their minds to multiple perspectives and recognize that the past is never as straightforward as it may seem. As this TEDx Talk was given to High School students in Beijing, it is appropriate to show history students as an introduction to the curriculum; explaining why it is important to reach for more perspectives.
Most high school US History curriculums consist of teaching students about why America is so great, without adding much persepctive. Khan academy is a very respected resource for many teachers of all subjects and their curriculum only has one unit contributing to slavery in the United States, and it is grouped in with the many subtopics of the Civil War.
Expecting high school students to read full complex books such as "Fugitive Pedagogy" by Jarvis R. Givens would be too big of a task. Watching videos such as Brown Department of Education's "Jarvis Givens, 'Fugitive Life of Black Teaching'" and putting together a poster with quotes provided to them from the book, will demonstrate their knowledge of the history and its importance.
Why is it important for students to learn multiple perspectives?
A study conducted by Stetson University, "A Multiple Perspective Approach to Teaching History in a Modern World", looks at the impact of teaching multiple perspectives of historical events on students' understandings of history. The study found teaching historiography is beneficial for inclusivity and learning. This approach helps recognize biases and "... is beneficial to every single student and combats the ignorance and hate that often plagues our society." (Staszczack-Flavio, 9). Teaching history through multiple perspective sis not just academically valuable but socially transformative.
Pennsylvania State University released a five page analysis on the importance of posters in the classroom called, "The Role of Posters in Teacher Education Programs". This article states, "Posters are inexpensive and useful teaching tools and deserve a place in the collection as well as a place on the wall." (Osa and Musser, 4-5). Having students make their own educational posters and hanging them up in the classroom is a great way to create a more stimulating and inclusive learning environment.
Making posters is also a great way to stimulate critical gthinking, understanding of the topics, and creativity. It allows students to express themselves, letting them take the project in whatever direction best fits their skill set. If they are more writing intensive, they can write, if they are better at drawing, they can draw; the possibilities are endless.
The Secondary English Coffee Shop is a website for ELA teachers to share ideas and resources for middle and high school classrooms. One teacher wrote an article about poster projects and states, "I love how these projects foster critical thinking and collaboration. I also love that these are student-centered projects." (The Secondary English Coffee Shop). This quote is helpful to note that teachers find poster projects to be a great way for students to express themselves within the material they are learning.
Steps To Project:
The first step of the project is the class lesson. Students will be introduced to the concept of historigraphy, what it is, how it works, and why it matters. As part of this lesson, they will watch the TEDx Beijing video, which helps illustrate the value of examining multiple perspectives in history. After the video, the class will engage in an open discussion about what they believe is most important when learning new perspectives. This conversation allows the teacher to assess students' foundational understanding and ensure they are prepared for the next stages of the project.
The second step of the project includes watching Brown Department of Education's "Jarvis Givens, 'Fugitive Life of Black Teaching'" as a class then discussing once more to ensure they understand the basic context of the video. After, there will be a lesson on "Fugtive Pedagogy" by Jarvis Givens. This will give the students a full understanding of the struggle for African Americans to teach their own history.
The next step is explaining the project to the students. They will be given each a quote from the book, picked by the teacher, and they will analyze this quote on a poster board. They can do this through drawings, writing, both, and more. Whatever works best for the student.
The students will be given 2 weeks to complete this project. At the end, they will present each of their posters to the class. Because they each analyze different quotes, this is a great learning lesson for each student to learn different concepts from the lesson.
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