TMI Flips English
  • Welcome!
  • Blog
  • Thomasson Morris Instruction
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

What I Choose Not To Teach

2/9/2015

3 Comments

 
It's easy to talk about what happens in my classroom and the things I choose as worthy to spend our communal time learning together.  But what doesn't get discussed much is what I choose NOT to teach.

In every curricular choice a teacher makes, there are fifteen un-choices of things to leave out.  I mean, in 6th grade History, we're supposed to cover the emergence of human beings from hominids through until the fall of Rome.  And in English we're supposed to teach research techniques and writing, narrative writing, literary analysis, argumentation, logical fallacies, and a more sophisticated writing style than in K-5.

In a year.

The way I decide what gets dropped is often based primarily on my own background knowledge.  
I know a lot more about Egypt than Mesopotamia.  So our unit on Mesopotamia was much weaker than the one we're currently finishing on ancient Egypt.   

For Egypt, I had a show about a guy walking the entire length of the Nile River.  I had a documentary on modern Egyptian cuisine and how it is a direct result of thousands of years of ancient Egyptian cuisine (did you know Egyptians were the ones who invented leavened bread?).  I had far more background and understanding of African history and culture, due to my degree focus being on the politics and literature of post-colonial Africa.  I also had games that simulated building the pyramids, making a mummy, and going on a 1920's British archeological dig.

For Mesopotamia, I had a cartoon version of Gilgamesh, some knowledge of the use of cuneiform, as well as some Minecraft simulations from the guy who used to have my job.

Clearly, I spent more time on the Egypt unit than the Mesopotamia one.  

But (and I know this may be controversial) I'm not sure it really matters.

Today, we talked about social class in ancient Egypt, and the kids did some actual historical analysis of primary sources: letters from ordinary Egyptians.  They had to read these documents, decode the main idea, the purpose and the audience.  They also had to use these letters to make inferences about what was meaningful and valuable to the real people who wrote and read them.  I saw students make connections between the content of the letters and nearly every other text and unit we've studied together - even Gilgamesh!  I saw them struggle with the language, but instead of giving up, they used the collaborative process to clarify and sharpen their understanding.  I also saw them triumph and pick up important details I didn't think they'd get.

And that is the point, isn't it?  Does it really matter if they know more discrete facts about Sumerian culture than Nubian culture?  Does it matter that they know Hammurabi's Code in detail, or be able to see the difference in the dynastic mummification techniques?

I'd argue that no, those things don't really matter.  What matters more is learning the tools of the discipline - in this case, how to think, read and write as a historian.

I remember the exact moment where I knew I was going to be a history major.  My first history professor in college, Dr. Hamilton, said that he didn't care if we knew dates of anything.  He cared about us knowing cause and effect.  He cared about us being able to see patterns and recognise the significance of historical trends.  He wanted us to FEEL and EXPERIENCE history, not just read about a bunch of dead people who did things a long time ago.

After high school history that was lackluster at best and indoctrination at worst (my teacher actually boasted about indoctrinating all of his students. No joke.), I found something that I could love: historical narrative.  Stories about people who had lived a long time ago but whose lives were more like mine than I ever thought.

That's what I try to give my students.  It's so easy to default to Great Man History or the History of Warfare, because those are simple narratives that are attractive to textbook publishers.  Simplicity is always favoured over complexity in K-12 textbooks (and honestly, that's also a reflection of our society's lack of ability to deal with complexity, but that's another post).

But in valuing simplicity over complexity and ambiguity, we're doing our students a disservice.  

I told my kids today that what they were doing was something I didn't do until college - look at primary sources and make inferences and meaning for myself, with the help of a teacher who could put the source in context for me.  And frankly, the results were astonishing.  I had a better discussion in my class today than in most of my high school history classes, and even some of my college history classes.

By pushing a parade of discrete facts and places over teaching historical thinking skills, we end up dumbing down the content to the point that the content becomes useless.  It's easy to look at an 11 year old and think that they're not ready for primary source analysis.  It's much more challenging to let them try.  Even if they fail - and they will! 

I think it's important to have a certain amount of historical content in order to apply those skills of thinking like a historian.  But I also think that history teachers over-teach and under-use historical thinking skills. 

And the real skill in teaching history is finding that balance: the balance between providing context and pushing constructivism.  

The balance between content and skills.

The balance between spoon-feeding and kicking off the training wheels.

It's a balance I'm still trying to figure out.  
3 Comments
Mickie Gibbs link
2/9/2015 09:51:44 am

I love the philosophy of your history professor and how you make it the case for your current classroom!

Reply
Shai McGowan
2/9/2015 10:01:33 am

You wrote that all in 20 minutes. Geesh! I couldn't tell you one date, okay maybe one, the Vietnam dates (I was born over seas on an Army base during this war), but I can tell you the why's and how's of many historical events. It probably doesn't matter. Not sure that I feel the same about mathematics though. There are concepts that do matter, that if I chose to not teach, my students wouldn't be able to progress through to the next stage of mathematical learning. It is a balance, that is for sure.

Reply
Carla Jefferson link
2/10/2015 03:43:26 am

Wow! I totally agree that we tend to spend more time on what we have background knowledge and what we're comfortable with. I love to write, but I HATE teaching writing! It takes soooo long! Providing students with the writing how-to videos has considerably helped. I definitely agree with it's a balance that we're ALL trying to figure out.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I'm a math teacher masquerading as an English teacher. I write about my classroom, technology, and life. I write in British English from the Charlotte, NC area.

    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Follow Me On Twitter!

    Tweets by @guster4lovers

    Archives

    August 2023
    October 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012

    Categories

    All
    American Literature
    Andrew Thomasson
    Background
    Blank White Page
    Cheesebucket Posse
    Coflip
    Collaboration
    Common Core Standards
    Creativity
    Crystal Kirch
    Curriculum
    Editing In Camtasia
    Essay Exposition Class
    Explore Flip Apply
    Explore-flip-apply
    First Week Of School
    #Flipclass
    Flipcon13
    Flipping
    Genius Hour
    Grading
    Humanities
    Ion Lucidity
    June School
    Karl Lindgren Streicher
    Kqed Do Now
    Language Of Humour
    Literature
    Live Response
    Mastery
    Metafilter
    Nerdfighteria
    Ninja News
    Patterning
    Procrastination
    Professional Development
    Puppets
    Reading Journal Videos
    Reflection
    Resiliency Project
    Sam Patterson
    San Francisco Stories
    Showme
    Spring Semester 13
    Student Post
    Success
    Technology
    Tfios
    The Beginning
    The Mess
    @thomasson_engl
    Tired
    Today
    Today's Meet
    Troy Cockrum
    Twitter
    Ubuntu
    Video
    White Blank Page Project
    Why We Read
    Youtube

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.