Children and Education
My desire to teach historical narratives about children and education in the social studies classroom as a means to achieve engagement, stems from the inherent relatability of these narratives to students. Having recently graduated out of childhood and into a period of extended childhood, adolescents have the tools to readily access the stage of “childhood” as an identity. Adolescents harbor troves of fresh memories of their own childhood experiences they can employ to connect with other childhoods across time and space. Though slightly more narrow in scope, education is an even more applicable narrative to engage high school students in social studies learning. By the time an adolescent reaches high school in the United States, he or she will have likely spend approximately seven hours a day, five days a week, for the better part of nine years in a formal educational setting – perhaps to their chagrin. At fourteen or fifteen years old, school has been the defining experience of a young person’s life. By law, adolescents are engaged in a formal education, be it enthusiastically or reluctantly. School is a subject about which students can communicate with the authority of experience, making it a platform perfectly situated to facilitate students’ exploration and deeper understanding of other civilizations and societies.
While the scholarship has yet to catch up with what I believe is a powerful tool for engagement in social studies, Jon Hunner’s research about teaching local historical narratives relates to the narratives of childhood and education because they both readily integrate with students’ identities. In his 2011 publication, “Historic Environment Education: Using Nearby History in Classrooms and Museums,” Hunner advocates for a focus on local pasts and people in social studies classrooms to enable students to incorporate themselves and their communities into historical narratives taught in school. Hunner’s article details several schools that utilize local oral histories, heritage preservation, and archeology in the classroom to great effect. This active engagement with primary sources from students’ local environments provides an effective entry-point for student engagement with the past (Hunner, 2011). In the same vain, among students’ “local environments” is the environment of the school. Just as the history of a student’s hometown provides an entry-point for engagement in social studies, histories of education and school experiences allow students to assimilate their identities into classroom learning.
On this page you will find class materials, student work, and analyses related to my experiments in incorporating narratives of childhood and education into my ninth grade World History classroom. Use the following links or the menu bar to navigate the Childhood and Education page:
Byzantine Education
Humanist Education and the Renaissance Man
While the scholarship has yet to catch up with what I believe is a powerful tool for engagement in social studies, Jon Hunner’s research about teaching local historical narratives relates to the narratives of childhood and education because they both readily integrate with students’ identities. In his 2011 publication, “Historic Environment Education: Using Nearby History in Classrooms and Museums,” Hunner advocates for a focus on local pasts and people in social studies classrooms to enable students to incorporate themselves and their communities into historical narratives taught in school. Hunner’s article details several schools that utilize local oral histories, heritage preservation, and archeology in the classroom to great effect. This active engagement with primary sources from students’ local environments provides an effective entry-point for student engagement with the past (Hunner, 2011). In the same vain, among students’ “local environments” is the environment of the school. Just as the history of a student’s hometown provides an entry-point for engagement in social studies, histories of education and school experiences allow students to assimilate their identities into classroom learning.
On this page you will find class materials, student work, and analyses related to my experiments in incorporating narratives of childhood and education into my ninth grade World History classroom. Use the following links or the menu bar to navigate the Childhood and Education page:
Byzantine Education
Humanist Education and the Renaissance Man