Best Practices: Teaching Elementary School

Best Practices: Teaching Elementary School History Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.' This commonly cited quote of the great historian George Santayana underlines the importance of understanding history, especially in a participatory republican democracy such as America. Students need to learn about their nation's past to make informed decisions about its future. Teachers must help students engage with history as critical thinkers, to enjoy learning about history, and to understand its sustained relevance to their lives.

Thus a critical part of teaching history is avoiding a focus on events and personalities, and teaching students how to think about, research, and approach history as a series of opinions, not simply the memorization of battles and names so they can make decisions about their own roles in history as voters and citizens. Above all, history teachers must avoid creating the perception history is "a parade of facts," (Hartzler-Miller 2001, p.678).

Prior to the 1960's, "American history education generally focused on military and political events and personalities...today's history curriculum include a broader range of topics...students do not passively receive these messages. Rather, they draw upon life experience to construct personal understandings" (Hartzler-Miller 2001, p. 675). In particular for elementary school students, making history come alive to students is part of the core of the curriculum.

History teachers must make an effort to realize best practices in education, defined in terms of student engagement and understanding of the discipline at the highest level of which the students are capable, although history must still be rendered as a discipline in concrete and developmentally-appropriate ways.

For example, one fifth grade teacher named Martha Andrews who was educating her students about the Revolutionary War began with learning activities about colonial 'daily life' and role-playing activities so the debates of the period would seem meaningful to the students (Teaching historical context before and during role-playing activities., 2009, NCREST). Often, a "narrative approach works better than traditional textbook instruction because it activates emotional links to reflective thinking and places the student much closer to the participant's view of history.

From this perspective, historical understanding is based on such hallmarks of literary understanding as empathizing with others and sensing causality as it operates within the unfolding event" (Hoge 1988). Introducing fictional and primary literature to add a human dimension to history is another important element of personalizing the relevance of history. For Andrews, generating student interest a meaningful appreciation was the purpose of her first dramatic assignments. She critically surveyed the reactions of her students, noting "a plan is not something she creates before the project begin..

she uses her initial plan as more of a general outline or draft that she revises in response to what she learns about the students and their progress. In order to make her initial plan...she does not need to have all the answers....her initial planning is supported by frequent meetings with her colleagues and discussions about the general goals, issues, and progress of the Social Studies curriculum. Once the study is in process, Andrews becomes a co-investigator with the students" (The planning process, 2009, NCREST).

The class embarks upon a guided voyage of exploration, and although Andrews has certain predetermined benchmarks and learning goals she must reach, based upon district standards and her personal view of what is essential to learn over the course of the unit, she does not have an unwavering and set path as to how to attain these learning goals. This approach also has the advantage of drawing upon multiple learning styles and needs and tailors the lesson to the classroom dynamic.

A flexible teacher like Andrews can use more visually simulative assignments, like constructing maps or studying objects with visual learners, role-plays and studying speeches for auditory learners, or reenactments and hands-on activities that keep students moving in a class of largely kinesthetic learners. Regardless of the composition of the learning styles of the class, Andrews always deploys some sort of a multi-faceted approach. Andrews views her role as an instructor as a partnership with the students and teaching is a dialogue.

It is a dialogue of student interests, informed with curriculum assignments that stimulate student creativity. Many assignments are open-ended so students learn how to debate information, and evaluate the quality of sources and form their own opinions. Students are, after all, 'part' of history being made, as well as readers of history, and the participatory approach of Andrews underlines this fact. Field trips were a frequent component of Andrew's class, to various historical landmarks. The community was used as a resource, in this case the city of New York.

Students traveled to lower Manhattan to take a walking tour of historical sites of colonial New York and to the Museum of the City of New York. As well as such engaging assignments, Andrews also met frequently with other teachers and school administrators over the course of the year to ensure that her lesson plan continued to satisfy state standards.

She used a variety of means of assessment and instruction, including but not limited to simply circulating around the classroom, rather than anchoring at her desk during assignments; scheduling individualized meetings with students and their parents; using progress reports, rubrics, and setting clear expectations; offering creative assignments like imaginary role plays and creative 'what if' prompts; and she also scheduled review periods to examine what the students had learned and what they needed to work on (Multiple means of assessment, 2009, NCREST).

Students were intensely involved in the assignments -- for example, during the role-plays they interviewed one another, and quizzed their fellow students on what their partner had learned. Through this intensive methodology students learned critical thinking skills as well as facts about history, such as how to compare and contrast different things or to read between the lines of an author's bias. Reasoning is a critical skill that is ideal to sharpen through the tools available in a history classroom.

For example, students can compare and contrast life as a member of the upper, middle, or lower class during a particular time period, Athens vs. Sparta in ancient Greece, or life as an enslaved African in the American South vs. A factory worker in the North. Students are never too young to be encouraged to question their textbook as omniscient authorities of history, and history provides a wonderful way to teach students about evaluating bias, slanted language, and rhetoric.

"Even when your students have learned historical thinking skills like sourcing and close reading, they may fail to apply them in other contexts, and especially with sources they have learned to view as unquestionable authorities," like their textbooks (Bain 2006). Using the textbook as a starting point than proceeding onto news sources is helpful because of the familiarity yet presumed objectivity of the textbook. Beginning with the familiar is always helpful.

Studying the ordinary details of the past and then evaluating the 'artifacts' of primary sources and material objects, to see what they say.