I'm sure many of you think that all teachers do during the summer is chill by the pool, count their money and race their Honda Civics all around the neighborhood. Although there were some summers that actually did involve pools, I was taking care of my kids so it didn't really count as "chillin'". But now that my kids are grown and don't need me, I actually do quite a bit of work over the summer. Every morning I get up, do the dishes, make some tea and then get to work on class activities for next school year for about three or four hours. But I'm not complaining. The summer is my time to make the fun creative stuff I really like doing in class (like games and Escape Rooms). It is pretty much like a hobby for me but instead of building ships in a bottle, I am building engaging activities for my students. It makes me feel productive and it pays off when my students are engaged and having fun in class. It is a win-win!
But engaging activities take time. As a result, there is always something I need to trim down in order to make room to get deeper into an important topic. I often joke that my World History class could basically be called "Everything" because that is basically what I could be teaching. I'm basically teaching 4.5 billion years of history... in 177 school days.
So I'd like to ask all of you, what should I never trim down in class? What is the one topic that if your history teacher had skimped on you would have given them a rotten, worm-filled apple?
To give you an idea of what I'm teaching, we start with the basics of historiography. Basically what is history and why do we bother studying it? (Spoiler alert it is so we can learn form the past and avoid mistakes and make good decisions based on what people have done before). There is really not much that can be cut down from this. Kids need to know about facts vs opinions, point of view, dominant narratives, the tools of historians and the traditional theories of history.
Next we jump into what culture is and what civilizations have in common. We use the ancient civilizations of China, Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt to illustrate the important aspects of culture and civilization. For this unit I usually have them plan a time-travel vacation to one of these civilizations and they try to sell me on why I should go to theirs.
We cover the beliefs of major world religions so students can see how similar world religions are. The hope is by breaking down the ignorance, hopefully they can accept others who are different from them.
Then teach about the purposes and types of governments. Being based in the U.S.A. we of course use ancient Greece and Rome as examples of democracy and a republic.
We then jump all the way to the Middle Ages. This is where we have had to trim things down to just the basics. We hit the Magna Carta, the Crusades, Feudalism and the Plague. Sadly it is one area that we have had to speed up.
Then we get to the Renaissance, Reformation and Scientific Revolution. From there we jump to The Enlightenment and how it inspired revolutions. We do spend quite a bit of time on the reasons for revolution as well as the specifics of The French, Mexican and American revolutions.
After that it is the typically lead in to the 20th century and many, many, many wars. We start with The Industrial Revolution and Imperialism and show how that led to WWI... which led to WWII... which led to the Cold War... which led to... I think you get the point.
So what was your favorite topic when you studied World History? What should I add more to?