Teaching difficult history to young students is no small task. When I think about difficult history I think about how uncomfortable it makes me as an adult. This makes me consider how difficult it must be for my little first grade learners to take on this heavy information. When I think of my first graders I want to keep them innocent as much as I possibly can. I am sure I am not the only person who feels this way, which is what makes this topic especially difficult for me.
Students need to hear hard history. During the video Teaching Hard History: How and Why they talk about how when students go to high school they spend a lot of their time unlearning what they've previously been taught. This often happens again in college. This really made me think hard about my own instruction. I asked myself - how can I teach my littles in a way that is authentic and beneficial to their future but without scaring them about the world around them and the abilities of humans good or bad.
What I have come up with is this - you can teach hard things in a soft way. Point of view is especially important. I am aware that my point of view is very different than every student I will ever teach or have taught because my personal experiences are very different. My own experiences make me want to nurture and shelter young children. I believe this is a great quality for a first grade teacher as long as I am aware of why I feel this way and what the downfalls of this trait could be. I am aware that giving students sad information or bad news is hard for me. What I am doing to help this is framing information in a way that is honest but soft. I will give an example - Indigenous People Day is coming up and I have been thinking about how I can teach my students about this. They need to know that Christopher Columbus thought he had landed in India and so he called the people there Indians. They also need to know that Christopher Columbus had made a mistake. I will focus on the importance of recognizing all the contributions that Native American's made to our society. The Boys and Girls Club of America has a great resource for ways to teach about this holiday https://www.bgca.org/news-stories/2024/August/what-is-indigenous-peoples-day-how-to-celebrate-with-kids-teens/#:~:text=In%20the%20early%201990s%2C%20many,land%20before%20European%20explorers%20arrived.
I am working hard to reframe my thinking about teaching hard history. Instead of thinking of it as giving bad news and crushing little spirits, I am thinking of it as giving children facts in a gentle way to help them think critically about why we want to be kind and respectful to others.
Hi Jordyn,
ReplyDeleteI could not agree with you more! Teaching difficult history is no small task. It is so strange to me why teaching history can be so difficult and make us as adults uncomfortable when history is something that will never go away, and will always get more intense. I agree with you that you can teach hard things in a soft way. I believe that it is good to nurture and shelter young children, however I would make sure it is not over done. We as teachers still need to make sure our students are growing. It can be challenging to reframe your thinking, but it is definitely doable. Nice work on your blog!
Hi Jordyn,
ReplyDeleteI love that you acknowledge the fact that if teaching hard history is uncomfortable for you, that it may also be uncomfortable for your students. It was interesting for me to read your post as your classroom is much different than mine since your students are so young. I feel like when my students get to 7th grade this is the fist time they are fully being taught hard history. It is interesting because we will discuss topics that they have heard about or been taught about before, but we will go more in depth so they are always surprised by how much was brushed over. It is hard to find the balance and determine what and when students need to learn hard history.
Morgan