Most Social Studies educators would agree that world history is an important subject that provides an expanded context of history for young students. There is, however, some debate on the proper way to structure a world history class, especially in regards to lesson planning. For example, the sheer size and scope of a world-wide history course presents challenges, such as which content should be covered in-depth, and which content should be sacrificed due to classroom time constraints. Additionally, the way in which a world history teacher should present content is up for debate. Not surprisingly, many methods have been used over the years, some working a macro world-view using chronological order, and some with an emphasis on specific regions …show more content…
World history, perhaps more than any other subject, presents the biggest challenge to curriculum building. For example, the history of America would be far simpler to plan because the subject area is a single nation, from its foundations to its modern era, of which all developments could be easily plotted on a timeline. However, in world history, the entire written record of human civilization falls within its boundaries. Further complicating the situation is that in different regions of the world, different cultures were in different stages of development and at different times. By simply following a timeline, the student would be forced to jump back and forth all over the globe with no fluid evolution of any particular culture. This would lead to erratic lessons, which would be difficult to follow, and knowledge retention by the student would be questionable. Helping to frame this problem is the educational resource website ‘World History For Us All’, which is jointly operated by UCLA and San Diego State University,andprovides three separate ways for teachers to approach this dilemma. “This system has been designed to guide teachers and students in study of the past on a variety of scales, from broad, global changes to developments that occurred within regions, civilizations, or nations .” The website refers to these different approaches respectively …show more content…
While it is easy to acknowledge the difficulties that continue to persist, there has been much progress made over the last few decades. Part of this progress could be viewed as ‘cutting the fat’ from school curriculums and a shifting focus that provides a highlight on fields such as mathematics and the sciences, as they are viewed as having the largest ROI, or return on investment for both the student and the nation. So, in order for ‘World History’ to continue to see funding and support, there needs to be an updating of historical concepts, not the least of which is globalization. The relevance of world history should be found in the understanding of how the world has arrived at its current state, through a process of cultural diffusion and intercontinental economics. Professor Ross E. Dunn speaks on this in The Two World Histories, “On the whole, world history curriculum in public schools lags well behind the research curve, and it fails to pose enough of the key questions that might help young Americans better understand how the fluid, transnational, economically integrated world in which we live got to be the way it is. The state of affairs needs to change .” It is fitting that the subjects of history are antiquated, by their very definition they take a look at the past, but world history classes in particular need to evolve to prove their
In his short article “World History as a Way of Thinking” Eric Lane Martin, “…argue[s] that the most important things the field of world history has to offer the researcher, teacher, student, and general public are the conceptual tools required for understanding complex global processes and problems.” Anyone who follows the evening news or shops at Wal-mart, has encountered the processes and problems Martin speaks of. Our modern society puts pressure on a variety of citizens to grapple with and attempt to understand issues on a scale that moves beyond the local and national. History has long been a tool utilized by scholars, politicians and citizens to help them put current day happenings into context. That context has allowed for a deeper understanding of the present day. In an era when the issues cross national and regional boundaries the need for a different scale of history has become apparent. World history has emerged as a relatively new discipline within academia that is attempting to provide the context for large-scale processes and problems. As the field has grown a variety of authors, some historians, some from other fields, have attempted to write a history of the world. With such a daunting task how can we define success? How can we analyze the history that provides a true global perspective on processes and problems we face? By taking Martin’s two key characteristics of world history, one, it is defined by the kinds of questions it asks and two, it is defined by the problem-solving techniques it uses, we can analyze texts purporting to be world history and access their utility in providing context for the global processes and problems we face today.
History has many examples of these three themes, and to record them all, you would need to write a book. The three themes discussed in this paper have been used to inform and teach young students that history is important; Therefore, it is important to know your history; if you don't learn from history, then you are doomed to repeat
School systems have become the domain of learning about our own cultures; it prescribes what we know and how we engage within the global sphere. By students attending School it is a way to intersect knowledge to the new generations to come. We use textbooks in schools to help facilitate the information that has been passed down through the years of progression. In order to understand ones heritage one needs to understand what occurred and how one came to be. Education has become a fundamental process in which all youths must obtain too in order to develop into a valued functioning member of society. Educators strive to educate youth in the history of their culture but the reality of the truth is that history is a false perception derived from years and year of colonization, white hierarchy. “Textbooks are very influential message senders in the formal kindergarten through 12th grade school systems in the United States. The realities of students reading these textbooks are shaped by the information printed, especially of things that are unfamiliar and unavailable to them” (Clark & Moore, 2004). Textbooks have in turn brought upon a false history and claims to what the truth really is, but whose truth is it, whose truth is dominant, colonial truth is dominant and textbooks within the school system provide false truths of history to back up colonial ways. Colonization is a continuing process within the school system by means of history textbooks; it is this book that claims to speak the truth but only one truth.
James Loewen’s, Lies My Teacher Told Me, criticizes the shortcomings of American education that is associated with inaccurate histories in textbooks. First, the fact that students do not have high regards when it comes to American history textbooks, proves how unreliable the education system is. In addition, textbooks are often to blame, because they are too dull, and are rather—boring (Loewen 384), which is why it has become a requirement for students to read books, because no one wants to read those uninteresting books. Even history textbooks, they cover redundant materials which make the subject more and more uninteresting to the students. It makes the students less motivated to learn. Moreover, he also argues that the problematic issues lie within the bureaucracy. They make the decisions on what the students will learn or which textbooks they will be reading. So far, they have not done a good job. At times, history textbooks were often censored and handpicked. It may even be completely different from the rest of the [history] textbooks. These censored textbooks, often keep the students in the dark when the controversial issues are removed (Loewen 389). It really undermines the freedom of speech and emphasizes that, often, key pieces are left out that is critical to the historical event, such as exemplifying that many of his college students have never even
I walked out of sophomore AP world history and human geography not only with greater historical awareness, but also the ability to utilize that awareness to engage with other disciplines. In pushing beyond mere identification and recall, APWH challenged me to shift away from passively accepting information at face-value, to understand how context and rhetoric framed knowledge. In constantly deconstructing the nature of historical and empirical evidence and the lenses in which objects of scrutiny are extracted-- especially those defined by conflict and transformations--, I learned to be conscientious of how authors’ material conditions and interests shaped the presentation of given narratives. In-class emphasis of making historical connections while reading became ingrained into my
Zinn, H. (2007). Why Students Should Study History. In W. e. Au, Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1 (pp. 179-181). Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools.
What is world history? Bruce Mazlish contends that "world" history, as opposed to "global" history, is the study of systemic processes of interaction among diverse peoples, best typified by the work of William H. McNeill. By contrast, "global" history is the history of globalization, a process that Mazlish argues did not begin to occur on a significant scale until at least the 1950s, and, more plausibly, the 1970s. Citing prominent economic historians, Nicholas Kristof asserts that globalization actually started in the second half of the 19th Century, when steamships, the telegraph, the railroad, and European, North American, and Japanese empire-builders brought humankind into a single densely interwoven community of trade, investment, culture, and political rivalry for the first time. One of the founders of world-system theory, Immanuel Wallerstein, traces the invention of capitalism and the beginnings of what he calls the "Modern World-System" to the late 15th and 16th Centuries. His co-founder and worthy competitor Andre Gunder Frank argues that capitalism originated some five thousand years ago and that at least the Afro-Eurasian ecumene has been in continuous interactive existence ever since. As that ancient forerunner of postmodernist relativism, the Roman playwright Terence, once said, Quot homines, tot sententiae: "as many men, so many opinions." [1]
Ellis, Elizabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History: The Modern Era. Boston: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.
Between the 1960s and the 1980s, an entirely new form of history developed. The previously, largely Eurocentric and nationalistic approach, limited the field of history in many ways. The aim of ‘new world history’ is to eradicate the subjective, narrow-minded projection of history through introducing this new concept of interconnected, cross-cultural history. This approach is concentrated on looking at the overlapping and linking of various systems and networks across different societies’ boarders; an approach that focuses on collective experiences rather than an individual ones. In order for a form of history like this to ‘genuinely’
He argues that world history should not be viewed as separate, unconnected cultures of east and west, but rather that they were all connected in multitudes of ways and must be studied as such. Pointing out the inadequate ideal of separating the world into two sections which are not equal in geography, culture, population, or history itself, he instead poses a solution to the world history viewpoint: Studying the world through its interrelations between cultures and geographical locations. Hodgson’s proposed view of large scale history not only makes sense theoretically, but logically as it proves through the pages that the history or the world cannot simply be divided, but must be studied as a whole to be truly
World history is commonly understood as spanning the major geopolitical developments of about five millennia, from the first civilizations to the present.
History is very important for everyone, and everyone should learn about history. Learning History can help to learn about people situation and life from the past. It also helps to know about many events and even some fact from the past. When people want to learn history, they should search about any subject or event from the past and tries to learn the both side of the subject. They also need to try to find what is hidden from that subject, so they can learn more about it. They also need to find out who wrote the subject that they learn about, for not all the historian show the bad side of the event, and they just show the good side. When people know they both side the can have a good judgment about the event. For example, before taking the
Beck, Roger B. Modern World History: Patterns of Interaction. Student text and teacher’s ed. Orlando: Houghton, 2012. Print.
Though the past may bring "a revival and restoration of the misery"(Limerick 473), I believe it is necessary to know and study our past. Through this essay I shall explain how knowledge of the past helps improve the quality of future output, satisfy our human thirst for knowledge, and understand certain polices and regulations.
History is a story told over time. It is a way of recreating the past so it can be studied in the present and re-interpreted for future generations. Since humans are the sole beneficiaries of history, it is important for us to know what the purpose of history is and how historians include their own perspective concerning historical events. The purpose and perspective of history is vital in order for individuals to realise how it would be almost impossible for us to live out our lives effectively if we had no knowledge of the past. Also, in order to gain a sound knowledge of the past, we have to understand the political, social and cultural aspects of the times we are studying.