justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

Teaching History Backward –

From the Present to the Past

In my early years of public school teaching, I had an opportunity to teach a non-credit history course to a small group of fifth and sixth graders who were part of an experimental class.

After consulting many texts and popular sources on teaching the subject, I decided to adopt a radical approach. I had an idea that the past, or “history”, is of relatively little value to children (and maybe to many adults as well). That idea became a belief as I looked back at events that occurred prior to my age of understanding, what events influenced how I lived my life, and if any events affected the decisions I made.

As children, we hear too many stories that start with “When I was your age” or “You don’t know how easy you have it because in the past…”, and even “You need to learn from the lessons from the past.” In short, I’d concluded anything that has occurred outside of a child’s young life is primarily an academic exercise for that student, perhaps of interest as a special event, but having no real meaning or relevance in terms of the child’s decision-making process.

So, after checking with my principal and informing the students’ parents, I created the six-week curriculum to start with the present – recent current events – and then to take “a look back” and discuss what events might be considered or predicted to become future “history.” We looked back over the previous 20-year period, enough to cover a generation, but focused primarily on the past 90 days. 

And then another thought crept in. What about George Santayana’s prophetic statement: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Often quoted when commenting on some major, political, or social edict, it implies that the value of learning and remembering events from the past – “history” – will empower future generations with great wisdom...or at least a chance to make their own different mistakes. By not focusing on the usual pattern for reviewing past events…those that someone has already determined to be historically significant…was I failing to prepare my young students to avoid the mistakes from the past and thereby negatively influencing their decisions in the future?

I chose to stay my “course” for the next six weeks.

Since this experience took place before the advent of the Internet and our 24/7 news cycle, the students had to depend on newspapers, periodicals, and radio and TV news broadcasts for their project research. They also engaged their family and friends while focusing on three specific questions:

Who was impacted by an event? How was the event communicated? And, can a prediction be made regarding any possible lasting impact of an event so important as to be reported in the media? A few events were reviewed for any “editorial” views that were available.

The class created a reverse time line, three feet by 20 feet, starting with the present and moving back into the past for 20 years. We held discussions in class and the students eagerly built our class discussions into their own with their parents, relatives and friends, while weaving a genuine appreciation into their newly discovered perspectives of what would be remembered as a “historical event” in the future. 

The students did not disappoint. Their points of view were enlightening and their debates were engaging. Early on, they assessed why some current events might be memorable, while others would be of temporary interest only. At the end of the six weeks, the students were eager to prepare a formal project. Remember, this was a non-credit course.

For me, this was a very successful approach, although far different than the customary study of history through memorization and recitation of past events. It provided the students the opportunity to better understand why some events are remembered, in contrast to those that are not. I also had the privilege of being able to “look back” from my adult perspective to see how many of my students’ events truly became “historical” in nature.