Teaching History

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Teaching History

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When teaching history, it is very important to incorporate a multicultural perspective into the curriculum. For example:

One teacher teaching history in California discovered that the background of the community established in the Boyle Heights section of East Los Angeles, where she was teaching history began with the Gabrielino Indians.
Thus, first she taught about the Gabrielino Native American Culture.
Secondly, she noted to her students that by the late 19th century Boyle Heights had become a completely different, it had converted into a wealthy white community. The class then discussed and did assignments on the sequence of events responsible for this transformation.
Thirdly, in the early part of the 20th century, some of the original settlers of the city of Boyle Heights moved to the Westside of Los Angeles. Then, almost suddenly, waves of immigrants and native-born people came to dwell in the community. So by the 1920s, the social fabric of Boyle Heights had transformed again by the influx of Japanese-American, Jewish-American, Mexican-American, the Molakan tribe, as well as other ethnic groups in her teaching history, the class discussed how, like immigrants in the rest of the country, each of these groups were able to established their own ethnic identity within a polyglot community.

Then the lesson became a broader one—the class covered the Great Depression. They discussed why it was a difficult time for the residents of Boyle Heights and how it had become this way. World War Two changed that area forever all over the nation. The 1950 census shows the community in flux with a growing Mexican-American population, and the 1960 census shows that Mexican-Americans had become the majority there and in 2006 the area is 95% Latinos.

There need to be more lessons as teachers teaching history, redefine their curriculum and the importance of cross-cultural understanding.

The example I gave is only one of many designed to give students a broader, world vision of their daily lives. Teaching history should reflect human connections around the world, similarities and differences and the understanding of both. Teaching history should illustrate to students how the many other cultures out there relate to our nation, the state and if and how these cultures have effected out lives. Do not restrict yourself, as a teacher teaching history to lessons of America, even if you are teaching about cultures that have been carried here from somewhere else. Be sure to include lessons on other nations—smaller nations whose lives were lived out much more differently than ours and how traditions have transformed within those cultures as well. Discuss the cultures unusual to them—have them give input such as writing papers or taking tests with essay questions to be sure they understand it in their own words. They will begin to connect complex aspects of modern life from multicultural perspectives.
I believe that teaching history must be meant to educate children in global multiculturalism—and that will be a cornerstone of their history classes.

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