Our Facing History Inter-School visitation with Facing History New Tech, a Cleveland Public School. While we met under the intention to expand our sense of community, we ended up finding how much more we have in common.
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I walked into my first classroom in September 2009. From that moment on, I was constantly looking for ways to teach history differently. Personally, I had always loved history classes - particularly the stories of the past, the acknowledgement of human character and relationships, and why people made the choices they did. To me history was always about the stories. I was the kid who loved history but struggled through high school lectures. They didn't engage my attention for long periods of time and I simply did not have the tools to know how to focus my attention. So when I entered that classroom that first fall, I knew that my intentions were to create an environment that would teach history differently. I would be the teacher that created a way for my students to see themselves as a link in an endless chain of history, that they would meet the characters of the past, and of course, that they would learn important literacy skills along the way. [And since I began my teaching career in New York City, of course they would also pass the Regents]. And then I started to lecture. I threw in a few projects here and there, some essays and other assignments but for the most part I spent my first year talking at my students. They all passed the Regents Exams that June. I had survived my first year (with all its ups and downs). I had solidified my love for being in the classroom. But I had failed at creating the kind of engaging environment I had always thought my classroom would be. And so that summer, I searched for the tools that would help me. And I went to my first Facing History workshop. It took me a few years and many contacts with Facing History to truly understand the depth of information, tools, and amazing help they provided but it only took minutes to understand that Facing History was a way for educators to think differently about how we approach the teaching of history in our classrooms. That our aim is not only to help students know the facts and dates of the past, but to help our students be more human, to see what impact they could make on the world by studying those in the past. It is a journey I'm still on and I encourage you to get on the Facing History train, fast. Today, I often end my course by asking my students "what do you think this world would look like if every individual had to sit through a Facing History course?" My answer is we could transform the world.
Click the links below to learn more about the Facing History organization:
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The Scope and Sequence:
Brace yourselves. There is so much history. The high school courses we teach often ask us to teach the entire history of America or the world in just a single year and to do it well, authentically, while also focusing on developing analytical, writing and speaking skills. The amount of work is insurmountable so I always feel like I'm rushing. In my first years I delved straight into "the material" on the first day of school.
The first time I saw the Scope and Sequence that Facing History employs in their course of study, I didn't believe that my classroom could handle it. It made me panic to think that I wouldn't cover an adequate amount of material. Until the creation of this course, I had just taught Facing History in small units or lesson plans but now I was engaging in a year-course. I still panicked. The task ahead of me was to teach early Zionism, the Holocaust, the creation of the Modern State of Israel while also spending at least six weeks on our keynote project. But I decided to take a leap of faith on this Scope and Sequence. For the first weeks of school, we spent time framing the course. When we finally got to the case study, I worried again that I had wasted time and wondered if my students had gained anything from our first weeks. The impact of those weeks did not hit me until we were deep into our first case study. Naturally, my students began making connections to the ideas of identity, group membership and "us" vs. "them" thinking. I didn't have to make the connections for them. By spending the time to frame our study, I had given my students the lens with which to view our subsequent study. This framing transformed our entire year as the students continuously connected each new topic back to the big ideas we had introduced in the first weeks of the course. Read more about "Framing the Course" here. |
The Pedagogical Triangle:
Facing History helped me to put a name and process to a philosophy of education I had always held dear. For our students to be engaged they must not only be intellectually challenged but they must also have an emotional connection to what they are learning that forces them to think about their role in the world. In other words, how does the study of history help our students become better human beings? This is Facing History's pedagogical triangle. Essentially, the pedagogical triangle allows educators to help young people become upstanders who contribute positively to their communities and world at large by integrating the emotional - i.e. stories, human experience - with academic rigor (hello, Common Core) - with sincere reflection. When a course integrates these three elements, we can actually transform the classroom experience into the human experience, affecting our students identities for a lifetime.
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What is Facing History? Watch below:
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Advocating for Facing History - Matt Damon
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Why and How you can bring Facing History into your Classroom:
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First and foremost, I encourage you to browse through Facing History's website. Browse through the primary and secondary source documents that bring history to life for our students, the lesson plans and classroom ideas. More importantly, pay attention to the language of the questions that they ask. Spend time reading about the "Scope and Sequence" (see above). Find out if there is a Facing History network office in your area, and if there isn't reach out anyway for important tools and connections. Basically, the Program Associates at Facing History are the most invaluable tool that they offer to teachers. These are seasoned educators with a vast array and knowledge of pedagogical tools, historical information who help you bring Facing History to life. They are there for you. Lisa is my Facing History Program Associate and she has helped mold me into a more dynamic and thoughtful educator. She is there for me to answer simple questions like "where on the website can I find..." or "do you have a lesson idea for..." but she also comes to my classroom to give me authentic feedback without the strings of administration attached. My advice to all budding humanities-based educators: get yourself a program associate. They are your cheerleaders through this often arduous profession. They are gold.
My next piece of advice is go. Go to your local Facing History workshop or travel somewhere to attend these workshops. This is some of the best professional development I've ever had in ten years and the reason that I love it is because they facilitate their workshops in the same manner that you or I would facilitate our classes. So while they teach you the history and philosophy behind Facing History, they are modelling how to teach. How do we ask impactful questions? How do engage our students in being inquisitive and asking difficult questions? What pedagogical tools do we use to create vibrant classrooms where students are at the center of the learning? These workshops are a vital time to connect to other educators. More importantly, you start to feel part of this Facing History family. It's one that I'm grateful to be in and welcome you into. Teaching in a Jewish Day School? Or a Jewish supplementary school? That's great because Facing History has an entire office dedicated to teachers in a Jewish setting. Located in their Boston office, this team of Program Associates is well equipped for addressing the particular needs of Jewish students. It makes sense. I knew how to teach about the Holocaust as an educator. But how were my lessons going to translate from the New York City public school classroom to teaching Jewish students about the Holocaust? How do I talk to Jewish students about immigration or anti-Semitism? How do I help Jewish students connect their past to their futures? The workshops run by the Jewish Ed team are fascinatingly geared towards helping educators to grapple and answer these questions. More importantly, once you attend a workshop you unlock access to a massive database of sources and lesson plans to use at any time in your future career. Likewise, you can rent class sets of texts (books and text-books) for use in your classroom. Finally, beginning this past year the Jewish Ed department has launched the Project Focused Learning Initiative - a grant that educators in a Jewish setting can apply for to create a unique Holocaust PBL for their students. Look in the right-hand column for more information on that. |
The PFLI Grant provided us with the funds necessary to dream big about our curriculum and keynote project. It is unfortunate that so many times our budgets stifle our teacher imaginations. By applying and receiving this grant through Facing History I was able to say yes to every thing I thought would create the most authentic learning experience for my students. Yes to Survivor Circles. Yes to inviting a documentary filmmaker into my classroom. Yes to better technology. Yes to an opening night that was elegant and allowed my students to be filmmakers for one night. Read more about how we funded the project this past year and how we will be funding it this upcoming year without the grant.
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