We have all heard the words "history is written by the victors," and to some extent that is true, but I think that leads to a fundamental lack of historical context and understanding. A few weeks ago a student of mine said, "Mrs. G. you are so lucky, your country was on the good side of WWII, Japan was on the bad side. Why were we so mean?" This really froze me in my tracks.I think that every country has something in its history that people aren't proud of. Instead of hiding those conflicts from children shouldn't they be explored? Shouldn't we questions why our countries were involved in wars and conflicts on sides that in retrospect seem absurd? Shouldn't the fact that they seem absurd now lead us to question what life was like at the time? What information the common people had access to? What might motivate them to stand where they did?
The more time I spend abroad the more I notice differences in historical understanding between students from different places.Upon reflecting on my experiences learning about history growing up I began to question some of the ways we teach history.
I grew up in Oregon, very close to the end of the Oregon trail. Oregon history, Native American History, and Pioneer History were the cornerstone of my early understanding of history. While starting locally and expanding from there makes sense to me, did I really need to go to the Pioneer School three different times for the day in the life of a pioneer school child field trip? It was a great experience to spend a day in a pioneer school making candles, and seeing what life would have been like, but three times was a bit excessive. As an American I have a pretty basic understanding of American history. We learned about the "fifty nifty United States" and the "thirteen original colonies". We learned about a variety of civil war battles, and a lot about slavery and the abolition of it. I also had Manifest Destiny drilled into me. What I learned is not what I find troubling. What I didn't learn is what bothers me. Why when teaching me about U.S. history did my teachers fail to mention Japanese Internment Camps? Why was I taught about WWII, but it was never mentioned that we stayed out of the war as long as possible, and stepped in only when we feared the war may reach our shores? Why was I never taught to think about the other side of conflicts involving the U.S. and why people would be fighting against my country? Why when we learned what a great melting pot the U.S. is didn't anyone mention Native American Boarding Schools, the fact that people were sterilized and forced to assimilate? Why was I made to feel unpatriotic when I learned of these events and asked questions?
Living in Japan I have been fascinated to hear and see what is taught about World War II, conflicts between Korea and Japan, and history in general. It is a very different story than what I learned. I tend to believe that history is told from multiple perspectives and that we need to have exposure to all of them to really understand all the motivations at play. It is human nature to want to shed a favorable light on a group that you belong to, but when this distorts reality it becomes problematic. The more time I spend abroad and working with kids from all over the world more I think we need to stop teaching history as one set of facts. We need to stop covering all of U.S. history in K-11 and beginning to touch on "World History" (code for British history in my experience) only when kids reach their last year of high school. Yes you need to start with local history and know it somewhat in depth before you can move on to world history, but did I need to learn specifics about so many civil war battles? Does the number of people who died in each battle really matter? Will kids remember it? Learning about your country is important, but what about these kids who are citizens of the world? Who are bi-cultural and living in a foreign country? I think we underestimate what kids are capable of. Wouldn't my time have been better spent learning about a variety of conflicts around the world from a variety of time periods and comparing and contrasting them to what has happened in my country even if that resulted in a more broad understanding of my country's history?
This year through a couple of key projects my students examined different times and places throughout history. One of the projects was a Peacemaker project. Each student named and researched a Peacemaker from history, and learned about what the world was like when they were growing up, what challenges they faced, what outcome they wanted, and how they went about achieving it. Then they had to look at the flip side. Who wanted to stop them from achieving their goals? Why did those people want things to stay the way they were, or to change in a way that went against the Peacemaker they studied? When they had completed their research they shared their learning with the rest of the class. The resulting conversations about the similarities and differences between the peacemakers and what they fought for, as well as the observations that arose regarding the way in which the same types of conflicts keep happening over and over again, far surpassed any of the textbook initiated conversations I have heard. While it is impossible for anyone to learn all of the world's history, I think that it is important that we expose kids to more global history at an earlier age, and encourage them to ask difficult questions about the various perspectives of conflicts.
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