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Deep Dive
3 ways educators can dig deeper in lessons on historical conflicts
Lauren Barack
June 5, 2019
With the 75th anniversary of the World War II D-Day invasion of
Normandy, France, on June 6 and the centennial of the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles, which brought an end to World War I, on June 28,
history educators may be looking for ways to revamp how they teach the
events of these and other historic conflicts to K-12 students.
While many history lessons often rehash the same important details of
past events at each grade level, there are a number of options for
educators looking to deepen engagement across all grade levels. From
sharing artifacts to focusing on the stories of those on the
frontlines, these are a few of the best options.
Source personal narratives
Original sources and first-person accounts allow educators to lift the
history of war and conflict from the printed page. A textbook can
provide facts, but a letter written by someone from the front lines,
for example, can deliver more context and help students better engage
in the material.
Ellen Resnek, who teaches 10th-grade world history and Advanced
Placement European history at Downingtown High School East in Exton,
Pennsylvania, believes using personal narratives with her students not
only helps them connect to a specific moment, but also delivers tools
that “…challenge students to make a difference in the global world of
today,” she told Education Dive by email.
“When we teach about the horror of conflicts, we often miss the
personal narratives, and that makes the subject too distant for our
students to connect with,” said Resnek, also an advisor for the
National Honor Society and member of the National Council for History
Education's Teacher Advisory Group. Through the council's network, she
is also able to source other ideas on lessons, resources and even field
trip suggestions.
“Those who have lived and died, through their recorded attitudes,
actions, and ideas, have left a legacy of experience,” she said.
One place educators can start looking for online documents is The
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the National Archives,
both of which have tens of thousands of resources digitized online. For
example, a handwritten document written by General Dwight D. Eisenhower
before D-Day, apologizing to the troops and meant to be sent in case
the operation failed, is in the National Archives, Gilder Lehrman's
director of education, Tim Bailey, told Education Dive. Using a
document like this can bring more tangible learning to students,
helping them gain context.
“Instead of interpreting what President Franklin Roosevelt was thinking
during the first inaugural address, for example, let’s read the first
inaugural,” Bailey said. “Then we can see what was inside his head and
then step back.”
To help educators develop curriculum specifically around World War I,
the organization is running workshops in 40 cities, designed in
conjunction with the World War I Centennial Commission, said Bailey.
Teachers can sign up and take part in the free two-year program, which
will launch again for the 2019-20 school year. Some lesson plans are
already online for educators' use.
Put artifacts in students' hands
Christian Scott is a big believer in having students actually handle
items that played a role in historic conflicts. As a grades 6-8 social
studies and history teacher at The Patrick Lyndon Pilot School in West
Roxbury, Massachusetts, Scott takes 7th graders on school tours of the
International Museum of World War II in Natick, Massachusetts, each
year, he told Education Dive by email.
There, students can see not just artifacts from the war, but how
soldiers and civilians adapted their lives during that time. Scott said
he has shown students a pair of snow boots made from rope, a child’s
guide to aircraft spotting, and a wedding dress made from a parachute
in occupied France.
“The students have a chance to shoulder rifles and feel their weight,
to lean over Churchill's war room map table, and to see the blood
stained communion set of a military chaplain,” said Scott.
If traveling isn’t possible, the Smithsonian Learning Lab has thousands
of resources that educators can source online, and for free. Among them
are objects soldiers would have used during the conflict, from an
eight-day clock, a flight instrument used by a pilot in a war plane, to
a page from a soldier’s diary as a prisoner of war.
The site allows educators to “… create a personal collection of
resources and make it your own,” Ashley Naranjo, manager of educator
engagement for the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access,
told Education Dive. There are also 19 curated lessons online already
that focus just on D-Day, which teachers can use for free.
Focus on soldiers, not leaders
PBS LearningMedia has a collection, “Life During World War II:
Understanding History Through Artifacts,” that brings stories of
soldiers from all over the world to life. Among them are "a decorated
Soviet female sniper, a heroic (and pregnant!) female French Resistance
fighter and an American female pilot who served as a member of the
[Women Air Force Service Pilots], and seeing the uniforms they wore and
the weapons they carried,” Elizabeth Gardner, a senior project manager
at WGBH, a partner in the free online program, told Education Dive by
email.
Kevin A. Wagner, social studies program chair at Carlisle High School
in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, thinks educators sometimes put too much
emphasis on those in charge — presidents and generals, for example —
and not enough on the people on the ground fighting. That’s one reason,
for the past eight years, Wagner has assigned students a year-long
study on World War II solders buried at the Normandy American Cemetery
overlooking Omaha Beach, creating a web site to honor their “Silent
Hero,” Wagner told Education Dive by email. Wagner has also built
instructional videos, worksheets and plans that other educators can
adopt, as well.
“I believe that the greatest pitfall that history and civics educators
fall into when teaching conflicts and wars is to focus entirely on the
political and military leadership during the war periods,” he said.
“Most of our textbooks tend to focus their attention solely on the
leadership and, in doing so, completely miss that these wars and
conflicts are fought from the average, ordinary man or woman’s
perspective.”
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