Great comments. I really believe that studying local/state history is an important first step in teaching students the concrete value of the study of history. For too many people, "history" is either an abstraction of no real meaning, or at best a frivolous exercise in talking about past events which no longer matter. By focusing on the history of the very place where a student lives, there is greater opportunity to make connections between the history being studied and the contemporary reality the student inhabits.
I also believe that history education would be stronger if there was a requirement, perhaps in middle school, for all students to spend one semester doing a collaborative local history project--one in which they would be 'doing' history rather than merely 'studying' it.
Kirk Johnson
Serials Manager
Prince William Public Library System
13083 Chinn Park Drive
Prince William, VA 22192-5073
(703) 792-4883
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-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hardwick, Kevin R - hardwikr
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 10:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Teaching history, social science creates informed citizenry
I want to piggy-back on Jim's comment, below. A quick perusal of the revised AP US history shows, for the period I teach at JMU (early America) a substantial reframing of American history to incorporate "Atlantic history" themes. I was struck by the consistency with which the authors of the new standard carried that focus through the 19th century and into the 20th.
From one perspective, this is a salutary development. Atlantic history has redefined the way we think about early America, and to a lesser degree US history. It is what I teach, in my upper level offerings. So it is good that the AP is realigning their curriculum to fit current scholarly trends.
But Atlantic history is explicitly hostile to nationalist narratives. The whole point is to avoid the teleologies that occur when you teach an earlier period largely to set up a later narrative. But this means that there is a real tension between AP US history as history, vs. as civics. The civic educator needs a story that emphasizes national origins, and the formulation of national aspirations and ideals. Atlantic history stands in opposition to American exceptionalism--but of course the US IS exceptional, in the sense that it is not Ghana, nor Peru, nor Britain, nor Germany. And US citizens do need to appreciate that, if they are to be citizens of this place, this nation, and not those.
So Peter Wood and others are not wrong to express dismay at the redesign of the AP US history standards. There is a tension within the redesigned course that may make the course a better introduction to history as practiced with modern universities, but less useful for what the course purports to be--a study of the history of a particular nation, and one that strives, at least at the level of national myth, to find its public identity elsewhere than ethnic tribalism.
Well wishes,
Kevin R. Hardwick
James Madison University
Sent from my iPad
> On Sep 2, 2014, at 9:56 AM, "James Hershman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Jon and all,
>
> This devaluing of history, especially local and Virginia History, is a
> troubling trend in the state's public education system. For over a
> decade, the Thomas Balch Library gave an award to the best local
> history project in the Loudoun County Public Schools Social Science
> Fair. Beginning in 2012, the school system's social science
> coordinator informed the library director that there were no more
> projects in local and Virginia History--the emphasis in teaching had shifted now to "global citizenship."
> Well, it's all well to be informed about the world but I think you
> need some grounding in the place you live and how that connects you to
> the world. Thomas Jefferson was a citizen of the world but he knew
> first, and was secure in that knowledge, that he was a citizen of
> Virginia and a resident of Albemarle County.
>
> Jim Hershman
>
>
>> On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 11:36 AM, Jon Kukla <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Thoughtful remarks about history/social studies curricula in
>> Commentary section of today's Times-Dispatch, but I wish the paper
>> had also identified the 15 additional Virginia scholars represented only by "el al."
>>
>>
>> http://m.timesdispatch.com/opinion/their-opinion/testing-times-teachi
>> ng-history-social-science-creates-informed-citizenry/article_db50a307
>> -689a-589f-a071-32ddf6d5c7a3.html?mode=jqm
>>
>> Jon Kukla
>> ________________
>> www.JonKukla.com <http://www.jonkukla.com/>
>>
>> ______________________________________
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the
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>
>
>
> --
> None
>
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