I recently witnessed my mother--a longtime stay-at-home, single parent--go back to school to earn her Masters in Elementary Education. My mother has the uncanny ability to excel at whatever she puts her mind to, so naturally she landed a job teaching third grade at a prestigious independent school immediately after completing her degree. The third grade social studies curriculum at this school was unique in that the students spent the entire year learning about Chicago history with a focus on the Native American perspective. My mother was constantly coming home with anecdotes about William Wells, Tecumseh, and Black Partridge--all important players in Chicago's history, but names I had never heard during my elementary school education.
Amidst my mother's enthusiasm for the curriculum, I began to fully grasp both the infinite depth and the impossible breadth of history. We can never know everything about an event of the past, and therefore, do we ever have the authority to pass judgment on history? And, because even the facts that have been preserved are too numerous to teach in twelve years (or more) of schooling, how do we determine what is the most important?
With this blog I will track my research of this topic as I search for answers. More specifically, I will begin by studying the United States, Germany, and Japan, and the politics behind World War II education in these countries. I hope to eventually broaden my search to include case studies such as apartheid in South Africa and Native American oppression in the United States. Ultimately I will attempt to draw conclusions about the most effective way to remember the past and how to teach history to improve the future.
--K
P.S. You can follow my research and findings by reading my posts on this blog; please feel free to add any insights--or more questions--by commenting. Also I will continue to post relevant news articles in the sidebar, as well as other interesting web-accessible media.
