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Re: Teaching Civil Rights
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From: Monica Edinger <monicaedinger_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 11:26:31 -0400
(This just went to Tony yesterday because I hadn't clipped enough of his original query, but I'm resending it to the list because I'm guessing others might be interested too.)
Sadly, I don't think history gets a lot of attention in these days of overfocus on testing for reading and math. And I think it is hard to generalize throughout the country because it really depends on the local situation. I have heard of public school teachers still able to do creative teaching and others who cannot. All depends.
That said I also want to go on my teacher soapbox and suggest that a few things should be kept in mind when considering what children know and how they know it. (I teach fourth grade and wrote a few books for teachers on teaching history.) So even if kids have been exposed to something historical and even exposed to it well they still may not remember it well a few years later. Or even at all. I teach fourth grade in a very good school and teachers are constantly shocked, shocked at what the kids don't know. They may, for example have learned something about Jim Crow (indeed most likely when discussing King or Parks) and forgotten it. Last year I did an assembly for grades 5-6 with a group of students focusing on Betsy Partridge's Marching for Freedom, but that doesn't meant the kids will hold on to it well.
Facts about history be it Jim Crow or the Holocaust or Vietnam or the Middle Ages are tricky. I believe strongly that kids hold on to historical information when they are invested in learning about it. They have to care. And too often they are given it in ways that are not worth caring about (unless you are a fact fiend:). I recently debated with Marc Aronson about the significance of the latest NAEP which focused on history. (My blog post about our debate is here: I took a look at the fourth grade questions and there were so many facts that I bet those teachers just taught to the test and the kids got no depth and no historical understanding.
My suggestion is to just not expect them to know much or anything and take it from there.
Monica
-- Monica Edinger 600 West 111th Street Apt 2A New York NY 10025 educating alice _at_medinger on twitter My Huffington Post Blog
Received on Sat 30 Jul 2011 11:26:31 AM CDT
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 11:26:31 -0400
(This just went to Tony yesterday because I hadn't clipped enough of his original query, but I'm resending it to the list because I'm guessing others might be interested too.)
Sadly, I don't think history gets a lot of attention in these days of overfocus on testing for reading and math. And I think it is hard to generalize throughout the country because it really depends on the local situation. I have heard of public school teachers still able to do creative teaching and others who cannot. All depends.
That said I also want to go on my teacher soapbox and suggest that a few things should be kept in mind when considering what children know and how they know it. (I teach fourth grade and wrote a few books for teachers on teaching history.) So even if kids have been exposed to something historical and even exposed to it well they still may not remember it well a few years later. Or even at all. I teach fourth grade in a very good school and teachers are constantly shocked, shocked at what the kids don't know. They may, for example have learned something about Jim Crow (indeed most likely when discussing King or Parks) and forgotten it. Last year I did an assembly for grades 5-6 with a group of students focusing on Betsy Partridge's Marching for Freedom, but that doesn't meant the kids will hold on to it well.
Facts about history be it Jim Crow or the Holocaust or Vietnam or the Middle Ages are tricky. I believe strongly that kids hold on to historical information when they are invested in learning about it. They have to care. And too often they are given it in ways that are not worth caring about (unless you are a fact fiend:). I recently debated with Marc Aronson about the significance of the latest NAEP which focused on history. (My blog post about our debate is here: I took a look at the fourth grade questions and there were so many facts that I bet those teachers just taught to the test and the kids got no depth and no historical understanding.
My suggestion is to just not expect them to know much or anything and take it from there.
Monica
-- Monica Edinger 600 West 111th Street Apt 2A New York NY 10025 educating alice _at_medinger on twitter My Huffington Post Blog
Received on Sat 30 Jul 2011 11:26:31 AM CDT
