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"I didn't think this would happen and look where we are now!": How do we connect history to this current moment in the world?

Wayne Zhang

There's a lot happening in the world right now that relates to my school's history curriculum. (My co-teacher and I were talking about how when we just finished talking about Venezuela, we needed to start talking about Greenland, and haven't even gotten to Iran yet.) 

I teach regular World Studies and also AP World. Especially in AP World, I'm really trying to covering as much of the curriculum as I can, and I definitely doing a lot to relate the curriculum to today: Simone de Bolivar & Venezuela (Unit 5), Imperialism to Trump buying Greenland, etc. But I also want to try and make new assessments that force students to make connections in an authentic and accessible way. 

Does anyone have any philosophies about being purposeful and mindful in tying your curriculum to what's happening in the world right now? How much of the current curriculum do you relate to the past—especially in an AP world curriculum? And how do we talk about power in the world today without trying to force kids to think one particular way? Are there any topics that you talk about the most? 

   

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    There are a lot of intersecting ideas that pop into my head with this topic. My first thought is two-fold and based around the idea of useful and usable history: connecting historical study to our present lives is very literally the point and we have to be cautious in doing so, lest students leave thinking the point is that "history repeats itself" and we must "learn from past mistakes".

    A few ways to approach this spring to mind. There's the school of thought that current events has no place in the history classroom; this surely cannot be the path we pursue, as it completely undermines the purpose of a usable history.

    I think pulling from the Little Big History projects is a strong option here, as it requires students to take interest in something and research the history of it. We could easily imagine doing the same but with a current event instead. Students are tasked with choosing a headline of interest and researching the history of it. A related idea to this would be having a dedicated "current events day" of the week, where students pause their study and have to do one-day research on a current event.

    I'm also reminded of this article from Caitlin Monroe in the November 2023 issue of The History Teacher. In it, she describes a course she teaches that is entirely focused around the year 1948. The course looks at different events from that year but, crucially, involves the study of the histories of those events (one example she gives is of "scientific research linking smoking tobacco to lung cancer" that begins "with Indigenous tobacco uses in Mesoamerica before the Columbian Exchange"). I once considered teaching a version of this with the focus year(s) being 2010-11, as that was the birth year for that group of kids. Ultimately I chickened out and went with a more traditional middle school US history-style course (which for my Chinese students was a pretty new perspective, so I didn't feel too bad). The same principles for Monroe's course could easily be applied to today, I'd think.

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    There are a lot of intersecting ideas that pop into my head with this topic. My first thought is two-fold and based around the idea of useful and usable history: connecting historical study to our present lives is very literally the point and we have to be cautious in doing so, lest students leave thinking the point is that "history repeats itself" and we must "learn from past mistakes".

    A few ways to approach this spring to mind. There's the school of thought that current events has no place in the history classroom; this surely cannot be the path we pursue, as it completely undermines the purpose of a usable history.

    I think pulling from the Little Big History projects is a strong option here, as it requires students to take interest in something and research the history of it. We could easily imagine doing the same but with a current event instead. Students are tasked with choosing a headline of interest and researching the history of it. A related idea to this would be having a dedicated "current events day" of the week, where students pause their study and have to do one-day research on a current event.

    I'm also reminded of this article from Caitlin Monroe in the November 2023 issue of The History Teacher. In it, she describes a course she teaches that is entirely focused around the year 1948. The course looks at different events from that year but, crucially, involves the study of the histories of those events (one example she gives is of "scientific research linking smoking tobacco to lung cancer" that begins "with Indigenous tobacco uses in Mesoamerica before the Columbian Exchange"). I once considered teaching a version of this with the focus year(s) being 2010-11, as that was the birth year for that group of kids. Ultimately I chickened out and went with a more traditional middle school US history-style course (which for my Chinese students was a pretty new perspective, so I didn't feel too bad). The same principles for Monroe's course could easily be applied to today, I'd think.

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