Historical Consciousness

I remember being young and watching the land before time and immediately thinking talking dinosaurs exist. There is no doubt in my mind that students who come into your classroom have inaccurate images of the past in their minds. I do not want to be the teacher to stand up at the front of the room and just tell them what they should be seeing, but instead I want them to think critically for themselves and inquire about the questions and wonders they may have. This will allow students to have a better basis upon which to make sense of their own lives. This is why it is so crucial to teach students to think historically. When Faulkner points to the fact that the past suffuses every part of our lives; it is embodied in our streets, buildings, our schools, our personalities, our government, and our ideas, it definitely challenged my thinking process a bit. So many times I say “oh it is in the past, we must move forward” but I now see that it is never completely gone. The past shapes everything we are, everything we do. The past is, as Faulkner said, not even past. However, to find out about the past and think historically is no easy matter.

There are elements to consider when teaching historically. One is significance. This is where teachers, students and researchers make distinctions between the historically significant and the historically trivial. Another element is evidence. This is where students need to learn which of these grounds are better to rely on than others. A third is Continuity and change. This includes the interaction between the concepts of change and continuity raises a host of problems for students’ historical thinking. When thinking historically students may confront the differences of the past, however, they may naturally (and mistakenly) assume that people living in different circumstances nevertheless thought in ways essentially similar to themselves. The error of “presentism” is a failure to realize how much they don’t know about the past.

Every child is different. Students from varying ethnic groups and/or social contexts have been shown to understand historical significance in differing ways. I would love to strive towards implement this richer vision of social study teaching. A lot of assumptions are wrong and require critical analysis and communication.

 

 

 

 

 

Citizenship Education

Universal Citizenship to me is ever-changing and can have many meanings/adaptations to it due to where a person is from, their experiences, visions for the future, and their understandings of themselves.  One of the concerns is due to the static definition of universal citizenship, children at a school like Jackson may never think of or see themselves as legitimate citizens. Especially if curriculum documents continue to present citizenship as a fixed definition to be memorized in unproblematic and uncritical ways. On the other spectrum, we are also equally concerned that students like those at MacKenzie may never fully understand the ways citizenship operates as “both a cultural and symbolic marker of social division. Teachers need to be aware of the relationship between students’ subjectivities and the ways in which they are able to take up the discourse of good citizenship offered through officially sanctioned curriculum. If teachers are just teaching from the curriculum and not taking in account of who their students are and their social locations, they will not get through to these children.  Teachers need to be aware of the limitations when talking about universal citizenship that states that all students should be able to be ‘good’ citizens in unproblematic and uncomplicated ways. Teachers one hundred percent need to understand the differential processes, both social and educational, that class (and racialize/gender) students. I do agree that if teachers engage in conversations such as poverty and privilege in the context of citizenship education, the there would be process being made. Many teachers I find avoid these tougher conversations, but this is hurting our students rather then allowing them to grow.  As teachers we have to create opportunities for our students to face challenges and “wrestle with political contradictions in the context of their everyday lives” and identify the differences they may see with liberal democratic narratives. This will then have the potential to change citizenship education that is currently represented in social studies. Another helpful tool for teachers to do is give the students guided questions about citizenship in order for them to truly understand and ponder further thinking. (Un) usual narratives provide students with productive and interrogative opportunities for engaging with the discrepancies between formal and substantive citizenship; the universalism of citizenship is revealed to be false in light of these narratives. In Canada there are many counter stories to this definition of universal citizenship. It is important for students to also identify how social location does mediate individual’s experiences of citizenship and produce them as citizens in particular ways.  Teachers can not reuse the same lesson plans on citizenships every year because every year they get a new batch of children that all have different experiences.  Citizenship education must be better connected to students’ lived experiences and social locations, and once we reach this level, we will then be making a transformation and bettering our students lives and positions on citizenship.

 

Jennifer A. Tupper , Michael P. Cappello & Phillip R. Sevigny (2010) Locating Citizenship: Curriculum, Social Class, and the ‘Good’ Citizen, Theory & Research in Social Education, 38:3, 336-365, DOI: 10.1080/00933104.2010.10473430

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