and
"Teaching Unsung Heroes" by Bill Bigelow
Rethinking School Reform, pg. 33-44
Note: My assigned periodical is Rethinking Schools. It happens that the book we are using for this class, Rethinking School Reform, is a compilation of articles from that magazine. Because we are only doing one of those articles for this week's facilitation, I decided to read a few others in the section that interested me-- and to use them for this blog review. Today's is a twofer.
Unsung Heroes
Summary: Howard Zinn, author of the incredible A People's History of the United States and a lifelong social activist, uses this short piece to answer a question that ties in nicely with the responses to the Helen Keller article review. Simply put, he offers up a dozen alternatives to the common canon of American heroes, each of them mapped nicely to the figure that they might replace so that those who worship him or her are not left lacking.
Audience: social studies teachers, general public
Key Points:
- many of the figures that are offered up as heroes when discussing the history of this country have pretty despicable personal traits and beliefs, revealed when the lens is pulled back from the extreme close-up required to see them as heroes
- there are plenty of figures in American history to whom we might turn for inspiration in place of them
Relevance: One of the things that came up a few times in the above-linked Helen Keller article discussion was something like "Well, what's the alternative?" I thought the same thing! Because we have all been educated in a system that tends to prefer breadth to depth, and appreciates a shallow and close-up focus on a person's life, not many of us have had the opportunity to explore alternatives. Zinn offers these alternatives, and suggests some starting points for each of the heroes in his list.
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Teaching Unsung Heroes
Summary: Bigelow gives a step-by-step lesson plan based on two things: 1) his frustration with students' predictable, "Encyclopedia-like" presentations of famous figures in American history, and 2) his desire to integrate some of the unsung heroes of the previous article. The students react to the novel lesson positively, and he feels that it went very well.
Audience: social studies teachers, general teachers, general public interested in education
Key Points:
- a key engagement technique was bringing the figures to life; students presented from a first-person perspective
- Bigelow demonstrated expectations by using a prior example of a successful project
- this lesson allowed him to integrate social justice and expanded, constructivist thinking into the classroom without being a ranting "sage on the stage"
Relevance: Now that the question of "What's the alternative?" has been answered, we can move on to answering the question of "Okay, so how do I teach it?" Bigelow offers a detailed description and analysis of one way to craft a successful lesson to teach about unsung heroes, and does it in a way that is readable and engaging for us, his audience. Future social studies teacher Jeff, you in particular might be interested in this one if you haven't read it yet! That's why I tagged you on this post.
Thanks for tagging me here. I think that any one who has been paying attention knows how I feel about the discipline of history and how it should be taught. I've been a big fan of Howard Zinn since a professor at the UofO turned me on to him.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem with how we teach American history is that we teach it as myth. George Washington knelt and prayed on the banks of the river right? No, that was made up by a later "biographer." Well, at least the county was founded as a Christian Nation, right. Again, not at all so simple. Benjamin Franklin said, "Light Houses are more useful than churches." Washington and Jefferson were both deists. Well, Thomas Edison was really cool, right? Well, Edison was a rent-seeker, using patents to stifle the creativity of others (the reason the movie industry moved to Hollywood--to get away from Edison so that they could use and improve upon his patents). He also made Tesla work digging ditches for him. For lack of a better set of words, all accounts point to Edison having the personality of the lawyer ass that no one can stand to be around. He electrocuted an elephant at a fair to prove that his way of electricity was safer!
Our "great Americans" are portrayed as marble gods frozen in time, beyond reproach, ten feet tall with abs of steel (Washington statue as Zeus).
I appreciated what these articles have to say. To be honest, I don't think that we even need to replace our "heroes" with others. We should just work to portray a complete and accurate representation of our founders and others as real life human beings. We are complex. We all have faults. After all, the purpose of history should be to illuminate the present. Teaching that a bunch of Greek Gods ran around creating the land of milk and honey does little to ameliorate our understanding of the human condition.
That's an interesting idea, not replacing heroes but portraying people as people, fallible beings who often have as many faults as virtues. If there were a way to truly spiral the curriculum, I think that would work out wonderfully; as it is, though, it feels like younger students are seen as needing role models, so we put these American-made gods in their hands but seldom revisit them to revise the image in a truthful, accurate way.
ReplyDeleteIs there a way to teach the kind of complexity that is needed to fully represent the "heroes" in, say, 4th grade, so that the students can understand both the good and the bad, and know that they can look up to one while taking the other as an example not to be repeated? Maybe so...
Awesome comments, guys! The only item I will add is when my kids were young, I would boil down describing someone or something to the lowest common denominator so they could understand. As they got older, I would add little bits and pieces to my explanation so they could get the whole picture. When they would ask me why I had not said the new information to them before, I would say that I did not lie about what I had told them earlier, but I had left stuff out as they were not ready for it then. They usually realized they would not have been able to understand what I had left out and were OK about it.
ReplyDeleteGiving children false information about historical figures is like saying there is a Santa Claus and then telling them there never was one.
I think you have just described the perfect spiraled curriculum, Paul! And the perfect "student" audience to engage with it.
ReplyDeletei'm curious as to why we feel the need to have to have perfect heroes or perfect anything for that matter? it's like those fairy tales we all grew up with where "they all lived happily ever after." as adults we seem to want to protect our kids and only show them the pretty side of things. fair enough, the world can be an awful depressing place, but sometimes i wonder if we might not be doing them a disservice, even setting them up for disillusionment.
ReplyDeletedont get me wrong, like paul, i believe in developmentally appropriate - that kids may not be ready for the full unabridged version. but there's a difference between giving them as much as they are ready for and essentially lying.
right from the start, kids grow up in a world where they see lots of adults - often their own parents - possessing good qualities and bad qualities. we put people up on pedestals then get so disappointed when they turn out to be just plain 'human' [in some cases we even put them up there only to enjoy dragging them down].
isnt the point to help kids develop the critical tools and abilities to deal with life's complexities? cant we just be honest and say, hey here were some figures that did some great things but also some not so great things, let's unpack that and look at what some of the reasons for that might be?