Help please! History taught chronologically is not developmentally sequenced

[Guest]

""She asked if presenting history as a chronological story gave 'opportunities to make links, draw inferences and compare and contrast?'""

 

 

I hate Everything about that question.

[LMD]

No pressure, thanks Margaret. Yes, the concentric circles thing seems to be exactly what is happening.

Maybe in a classroom it's the most effective way to get all the kids in the sameish circle to make connections from?

Eta- and even though it would be secular in school, the centre of the universe thing would still stand.

Edited April 1, 2017 by LMD

[Plink]

History is not narrative? Pish-posh! 

 

The phrase "pish-posh" makes me smile.

 

That is all.

[Kiara.I]

 

 

I don't want to copy and paste much but the gist was how does teaching history chronologically engage with 'historical skills, understandings and concepts', how we 'apply that' and what type of things one might do to 'analyse, interpret and represent historical information.' She asked if presenting history as a chronological story gave 'opportunities to make links, draw inferences and compare and contrast?'

 

All of that just made me think, well, of course, isn't that what teachers do with anything? How would chronological or not make a difference?

ROFL

 

Um.

I might have spent one dinnertime explaining (to my 7 and 9 year olds) 20th century American foreign policy by drawing parallels between it and ancient mesopotamian empires. Maybe.

 

Is that the kind of "drawing inferences" and "comparing and contrasting" that she meant?

<blinks innocently....>

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[mom2scouts]

Considering my own pitiful public school history education and that of most people I know, the educational theory from this teacher appears to be a dismal failure. I've taught my children chronological history and I now have a teen who absolutely loves history and has extensive knowledge on some subjects. When we go to historical sites, he gets involved in intense conversations with the workers and we have to drag him away.

[CadenceSophia]

I didn't see it mentioned here. Apologies to anyone if I am re-making a point. Maria Montessori noticed that children were egocentric and "timeless" from birth up until about age 6 when they began to see themselves as having a place in time and community. This is why a Montessori classroom for 6-9 year olds is FULL of timelines. She considered this age to be the sensitive time for discovering that.

 

This is actually the reason I DON'T think that history should be taught strictly chronologically in long rotations - ancients, middle, etc but that children should have the opportunity to fill in a time line more broadly -- to learn about events and people who lived in vastly different times and places. Either way though, children who are typically taught drivel at this age in "social studies" more often than not love getting a sense of chronology.

[Farrar]

Thanks so much everyone for your thoughts! It is truly a privilege to have a place like this to discuss. Margaret, I would be interested in reading that link.

I've bowed out of the original conversation, it's clear that we're speaking different languages and I don't have the inclination to translate eduspeak.

 

To clarify a couple of things -

We are talking about elementary here, grades 3/4 ish max.

 

I don't want to copy and paste much but the gist was how does teaching history chronologically engage with 'historical skills, understandings and concepts', how we 'apply that' and what type of things one might do to 'analyse, interpret and represent historical information.' She asked if presenting history as a chronological story gave 'opportunities to make links, draw inferences and compare and contrast?'

 

All of that just made me think, well, of course, isn't that what teachers do with anything? How would chronological or not make a difference?

 

There was a little more about meeting developmental needs, learning intentions, curriculum outcomes and the teaching/learning cycle...

 

I'll try to individually respond soon.

 

From a classical perspective, the things she's asking kids to do are the things that are developmentally inappropriate. Those are skills for the logic stage and up. Kids in early elementary are in the grammar stage. The irony of this teacher throwing you eduspeak about *you* being inappropriate developmentally when she's the one asking kids to go above and beyond is really rich.

 

Don't get me wrong... I think you can introduce kids to those skills. And some kids will definitely be able to engage with them. Compare things, make connections, etc. Certainly when cover medieval Japan, kids should be able to spot similarities with medieval Europe. And there are a million others like this. But the *primary* goal is to get the basic narrative built up so that down the road, say, in 6th or 7th grade, they can start kicking butt at those skills.

[Targhee]

This is one reason why I don't believe in teaching the history cycle as a 4x3 sequence. I think basic geography, family/personal history, and very basic civics is a great place to start. Then when the kid is 8 or so, and starting to think outside themselves a little bit, start with history (and I don't think that ancients is any better or worse than US or modern - 20 years removed is still ANCIENT history to an 8 year old). My perspective; then again I am not a fan of taking 12 years to teach world history, 12 years to teach grammar, 12 years to teach composition, and 12 years to teach Latin. I'm not for memorizing facts/dates/people as "pegs" on which to hang future information. Introduce it as a study when kids can internalize it. Besides, most students classically taught didn't go to school until they were around 8 or older anyway, and prior to that they only learned to read, write (penmanship and basic spelling), and count and add.

 

...running away from the tomato throwers now...

Edited April 2, 2017 by Targhee

[goldenecho]

A friend of mine used to refer to the social studies in early elementary as "for children who have never been outside." I think that's a lot of what we're talking about here. I do think schools need to teach it. Some children have parents who aren't equipped because of finances, mental illnesses, or other limitations to really do a thorough introduction to the world around them. But for kids who are homeschooled, who inevitably have parents who are bent on introducing the world, it probably does seem pretty silly.

 

I was thinking about the history vs. narrative thing. I think history for children is narrative. History at the higher levels absolutely can be narrative as well, but it's messy. And a lot of it is about constructing your own sense of narrative after hearing varied perspectives, including primary sources. And that's the main thing about it. So I think you could say that for younger students you're teaching a narrative. For older students, it's more about helping them learn to construct a narrative. And those are really different skills. I think because we're all more aware that history is not a single narrative, we've gotten skittish about teaching it to younger students. And I've even seen a lot of homeschoolers - especially liberal types (and I say this as a liberal type who has overthought history at times) - get into a headspace where they're overthinking it so much that it's crippling and they don't end up doing anything. Like, spending a year being so worried about how you're presenting the Crusades or the early Colonial period to 7 yos that you don't actually end up doing it. And I think that stems from being afraid of constructing the wrong narrative or constructing the narrative for them. Except you have to construct the narrative for them when they're that age. And that doesn't mean that trying to get it right is bad. But more that the nuances are mostly going to come later.

 

I can relate to this.  I started trying to teach history at age 6, and started with American history because we thought we were going to be visiting New England later that year (didn't happen  :unsure:  ).  But anyways, I decided to start with Columbus to give a little context (even though his travels were no where near New England) and to use story-books to teach it.  But first, knowing it was controversial, I spent like a week learning about it.  I'm both a devout Christian, and a bit liberal in some ways too, so this was doubly challenging for me.   I finally found a storybook I didn't hate that presented a little of both sides of this story and prepped to teach it using that.  My main goal was not to make Columbus out to be a hero or a villian...

 

And...it...fell...flat....

 

This is literally the conversation I had after reading the book (after literally trying to not make Columbus out to be hero or villian, and not mentioning any of those words)...

 

My son:  "So, Columbus was a hero?"

 

Me:   Well, he did some heroic things, but no, not really (...I point out from the book the things he did which weren't good).

 

My son:  "So, he was a bad guy?"

 

Me:  (In my mind:  :bored: :banghead: :wacko:)

 

 

And I suddenly get why schools do not teach more nuanced history to little kids.   Little kids want the black and white.  They have a very hard time seeing shades of gray.  Even if you try to organize it in shades of gray they may come out with a hero and villain perception of it.

 

Soon after that the "going to New England" thing fell through when my husband lost his job, and I put off teaching history for a while...until my son started getting interested in ancient times.  And I think it was easier for me to teach Ancient times without getting so worried about what narrative I was presenting was,  simply because it is so ancient and theres less of our own identity caught up in it.

 

Edited April 3, 2017 by goldenecho

[goldenecho]

I agree it doesn't have to be exclusive and can be interwoven. I guess really my thought was that most of the programs that do world history - like SOTW - don't do anywhere near enough US history for my thinking.

 

I actually don't even think it has to be chronological, though I see some key benefits to that. But jumping around won't kill kids either - as long as there's a sense of narrative within the jumping around. As in, a month on the Greeks, a month on the Civil War, a month on the middle ages... it's fine if you can make it a story that kids get engaged with.

 

Yeah, I was looking ahead and thinking about that.  But I plan to send my child back to public school in 7th grade, where they will then have a full year of Texas History followed by a full year of American history (I know because I have an older son in public school).  So, with that in mind, and knowing that they will have next to no World History there, I think it's more important to put that American history he'll be be getting in some world context.  If I was planning on teaching all the way through I think I would follow up Story of the World by spending a couple years on American history, though.

Edited April 2, 2017 by goldenecho

[bookbard]

OP, my child is in K in Australia - I have been following their history lessons closely. So far it's been making family trees, sharing family stories of special occasions like birthdays, putting on a world map where people's parents come from. For a lot of kids probably the first time they've seen a world map or clicked that people come from other places. I know the teacher has shown pictures of 'the olden days' and has talked a bit about the concept of the past - that things were different back then. It's very a very small and cosy way of beginning with history.

 

It's also another way where kids from poor backgrounds would be getting less than kids from richer backgrounds (not talking of money, but enrichment). By this age, my daughter has a basic knowledge of mythology from a wide range of cultures (including indigenous), is aware of ww2 and who was in it, knows about the US revolution (due to listening to Hamilton!) and the European invasion of Australia. I agree that this initial knowledge from stories and play will act as 'place-holders' while she's developing more understanding and knowledge as she grows. 

[RoundAbout]

I don't understand the problem with teaching history as narrative! Elementary school students are not doing what historians do anyway - examining original documents, synthesizing new information, etc. 

 

Personally I've found it useful to teach history chronologically, though maybe not strictly necessary. On the other hand we have friends with a child in public school and their social studies are all over the map - one month the ancient world Greek mythology, next month civil rights movement, and right now they're studying the Manhattan Project (in fourth grade!). Some of these things just don't make sense without a whole lot of context and background information and only get more confusing when studied out of order. 

We use Story of the World and love playing the game Timeline. I could care less about names and dates, but I want my son to have a good understanding of things like the Black Death came after the Fall of Rome and before the Renaissance. I don't think this is strictly narrative, as we also spend a lot of time discussing connections and cause-and-effect (how the invention of the printing press helped the Reformation for instance) and doing map work. But there's nothing wrong with pure narrative at this stage and lots of kids connect with the fascinating world of the ancients.

[ktgrok]

""She asked if presenting history as a chronological story gave 'opportunities to make links, draw inferences and compare and contrast?'""

 

 

I hate Everything about that question.

 

UGH!!!!! 

 

How about, it gives them the chance to understand history!

 

(and I don't even teach history in chronological order, exactly, lol!  We are doing American this year cause I wanted to. Next year we'll do Child's History of the World.)

[Bluegoat]

Warning:  This is more of a rant than I originally intended.

 

Early social studies in most schools is a complete joke.  It checks boxes and teaches absolutely nothing new.  Beyond developmentally inappropriate, it is redundant and boring (for all but the most neglected students). Holidays? Community Helpers?  Yawn

 

It gets slightly better in the "let's repeat the story of how our own country was founded over and over - oh, and we will toss in other cultures and their history at various periods of time without regard for connections" years, but not much.

 

Then, just when the kids finally get to learn something new and interesting, they are forced to rush through thousands of years worth of history, anthropology, archaeology, government, sociology, and geography all at once  - while staying focused on what is "going to be on the test."  Toss in brains working hard to process advanced Trig and hormones, and the time for deep consideration drops exponentially.  

 

I don't care if my kids ever memorize a single date, but I do care if they can explain why and how bronze impacted warfare and what happened next.  I want them to know why the printing press was important for the reformation. I care whether they understand the reasons behind why Marie Antoinette was so detested, and whether they can envision ways to avoid the French Revolution.  I care whether they can think about a new law in Kenya on today's news, and extrapolate how it will affect both the Kenyan population, and the world. 

 

Social Studies isn't about getting questions right on tests.  It is about understanding how our world works.  There is no way to get to the point of making connections unless kids are allowed access to information, and given time to process it on their own.

 

Ha!  My daughter started public school this year for the first time, grade 6.  She had never heard of social studies before.

 

About half way through the year she told me "Social studies is the stupidest subject ever, it isn't about anything."

[Bluegoat]

This is one reason why I don't believe in teaching the history cycle as a 4x3 sequence. I think basic geography, family/personal history, and very basic civics is a great place to start. Then when the kid is 8 or so, and starting to think outside themselves a little bit, start with history (and I don't think that ancients is any better or worse than US or modern - 20 years removed is still ANCIENT history to an 8 year old). My perspective; then again I am not a fan of taking 12 years to teach world history, 12 years to teach grammar, 12 years to teach composition, and 12 years to teach Latin. I'm not for memorizing facts/dates/people as "pegs" on which to hang future information. Introduce it as a study when kids can internalize it. Besides, most students classically taught didn't go to school until they were around 8 or older anyway, and prior to that they only learned to read, write (penmanship and basic spelling), and count and add.

 

...running away from the tomato throwers now...

 

 I won't throw anything, in so far as I would talk about trivium stages, I'd have the grammar stage start in the 7-9 age range, not the 4-6 that seems common.

[Hunter]

The current modern social studies is a messed up watered down version of the old home geographies.

 

Primary grades used to cover home geography and nature study for the content subjects, and the 3R's, literature, and sometimes religion/catechisms were prioritized.

 

To this day, the old order Amish teach the 3R's, singing and drawing, and only squeeze in geography and health if they can.

 

In the 1800s, the elementary geographies and histories were started in the post-primary years which were called the elementary years. The "elementary" textbooks were sometimes started a little earlier than the classical logic stage. In the later 1800s, when the typical reader series was 6 books and the 6th reader is at our current high school level, elemetary subjects were introduced along with the 4th reader. Some students read the 4th reader a lot younger than other students. "Grades" did not always last a year and were sometimes tied to the readers.

 

Early in the homeschool movement, selling history curriculum made some people a lot of money. Sellers wrote some great rhetoric pushing year after year of history.

 

A history focused homeschool is ONE way to organize and focus a bunch of kids in a bunch of different grades. It is not the ONLY way.

 

HiSTORY is just a bunch of stories to me, slanted and biased, telling more about the author than his inspiration, and full of all the stuff of fairy tales. I prefer to start with a strong focus on home geography, nature study, and literature. And lots and lots of Bible/holy-book or WHATEVER the family believes in, including witchcraft or communism or wearing a spagehtti strainer on their head.

 

I'm not into early is better. Yes, gifted kids need to be BUSY, but even for them, early is not always better in every subject.

[Bluegoat]

I'd forgotten about home geography!  THat stuff can be great, totally different than social studies.

 

 

[Hunter]

Payne's Geographical Nature Studies and C.C. Long's Home Geography are my favorites for primary grades.

[Renai]

Home Geography by Long: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12228

[Hunter]

Payne starts with rivers instead of directions and maps.

https://archive.org/details/geographicalnat00payngoog

 

Both start with what the child is familiar with and work bigger from there.

 

The early years of Waldorf are based on the default old Home geography and literature focus. Most of Waldorf was just a compilation of what Steiner thought was the best of the best and the norms of the time.

[Liz CA]

 I have had to tell several children, not just my girls, that one does not greet a police officer with "Hey, cop!")

 

 

:lol: :lol:

[Liz CA]

My ds enjoyed Ancient History and still remembers to this day some of the fun stuff we read and the cradts we made, and the timeline.

 

I don't believe in boxing in children. They have far more capacity for learning than we usually give them credit. If you refer to Piagetian thinking, are you referring to his differentiation when children supposedly enter the abstract thinking phase - formal operational stage? Many developmental psychologists still give Piaget  credit for being a pioneer in the field, however, have acknowledged that cognitive development takes place very individually and is not bound by rigid age brackets.

[Ausmumof3]

I sometimes think this is a bit like "don't teach kids the facts, teach them the scientific method".

 

I just finished reading Mind Change which is more about what if any effect screen usage is having on the brain and something the author said from a neuroscientist stands out in this discussion. Kids have a lot of new brain networks being built all the time. Adults don't but they build more connections and pathways between existing networks. Initially kids just see objects as they are and then they gradually develop special meanings, association, context and connections around those objects.

 

To me this fits with the classical education approach is teaching facts in the early years and then moving on to logic and rhetoric. You have to have some kind of a foundation there to build connections to on the first place.

[knitgrl]

I don't understand the "teach history, not narrative" pov. To me anyway, history IS narrative.

 

If I taught first grade= neighborhood, 2nd grade = city government, 3rd and 4th grade = state and state government, 5th grade america and american government, when would we learn about the rest of the world? from story books randomly selected throughout those years? leaving all sense of chronology?

 

This is what the public school taught when I was there. When I was in 5th grade, all of a sudden, we were studying the Revolutionary War. Just the War part. The soldiers uniforms and battles and things. I had no idea why. It made no sense. I guess maybe because they figured 11yo's could not understand the politics behind it? Teaching history chronologically just makes sense to me. I think that to most kids and their perception of time, 200 years ago and 2,000 years ago are not really that different. Why not start at the beginning so that they will have a clue as to why later things happened?

 

[goldenecho]

One reason I like starting with Ancients first because I don't get the older kid objections of "why do I have to learn about something that happened 5,000 years ago?" While I do have an explanation for that, it's nice to start on ancients during the stage when my kids care more about whether it's interesting than whether it's useful.  And it IS INTERESTING. 

 

So is American history, but when they get to that I'd prefer they be a little older so they CAN understand some of the nuances of it.   It's not that I don't think it should be taught earlier, it's just that if I have to choose between teaching American history when my child is 7, or teaching it when he's 11 (which I sort of do...because I plan to send them to public school in Junior High, and I don't have time to teach everything twice in that time period), I'd prefer to spend more time on it when he's  11.   I want my child to learn about the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians and Greeks and Romans and the Middle Ages, but I don't mind if it's in a more general way.  There are not a lot of specifics that I care that they remember, as long as they come away with a sense that history is long and wide and deep...plus a general, if shallow, understanding of the major civilizations that shaped our world.   But with American history, I want them to have an understanding of why our country was formed that goes a deeper than "taxation without representation."    I want to go deep with them on that, and there's more details I want them to remember.

Edited April 8, 2017 by goldenecho

[Bluegoat]

The other side of this for me is that when they talk about allowing kids to make connections, often I think they really mean spoon feeding the connections the adults want them to make.

[Tanaqui]

The other side of this for me is that when they talk about allowing kids to make connections, often I think they really mean spoon feeding the connections the adults want them to make.

 

Math in elementary school often seems to involve kids measuring things with thumbs or feet or steps so they can see how inaccurate those measurements are when going between people. They are never allowed, apparently, to come to the conclusion that it's mighty convenient to have a measurement system that you don't have to remember to carry around with you.

 

Using body parts to measure things might be inaccurate, but there's a reason it's persisted for so very, very long.

[Bluegoat]

Math in elementary school often seems to involve kids measuring things with thumbs or feet or steps so they can see how inaccurate those measurements are when going between people. They are never allowed, apparently, to come to the conclusion that it's mighty convenient to have a measurement system that you don't have to remember to carry around with you.

 

Using body parts to measure things might be inaccurate, but there's a reason it's persisted for so very, very long.

 

As I've become older, I find I appreciate these types of measurements more.  Not only for the reason you mention, but I find in many cases, the measurements are actually more useful - an inch for example is more useful to me than centimeters are - they are just a little too small.  Feet are also very useful, while I rarely use meters.

 

One of the more useful measurements I have learned is how far apart telephone poles are, and how many steps I need to go 50ft.

 

Plus, while metric might be easy, it is actually really good for your math skills to spend a lot of time with imperial measurements.

 

ETA" there really is a very abstract quality to conventional measurements and especially metric ones. 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Bluegoat

[goldenecho]

As I've become older, I find I appreciate these types of measurements more.  Not only for the reason you mention, but I find in many cases, the measurements are actually more useful - an inch for example is more useful to me than centimeters are - they are just a little too small.  Feet are also very useful, while I rarely use meters.

 

One of the more useful measurements I have learned is how far apart telephone poles are, and how many steps I need to go 50ft.

 

Plus, while metric might be easy, it is actually really good for your math skills to spend a lot of time with imperial measurements.

 

ETA" there really is a very abstract quality to conventional measurements and especially metric ones. 

 

I used to live on a boat that was 50 foot long...and I still think of many things in "boat-length."   :-)  Whatever formal measurment system a child (or adult) uses, I think it's good to have a sense of what those measurement means in terms of objects they are really familiar with, even if they're less uniform or can't be communicated well to others (ie, is it taller than a "Dad" or shorter than a "Dad").

Edited April 7, 2017 by goldenecho

[Hobbes]

Math in elementary school often seems to involve kids measuring things with thumbs or feet or steps so they can see how inaccurate those measurements are when going between people. They are never allowed, apparently, to come to the conclusion that it's mighty convenient to have a measurement system that you don't have to remember to carry around with you.

 

Using body parts to measure things might be inaccurate, but there's a reason it's persisted for so very, very long.

I was thinking this the other day, when my 7yo was working on measurement and found that her finger is exactly a cm wide. My first thought was, "how convenient​ for her!" 😠Pity it won't stay that way...

[luuknam]

As I've become older, I find I appreciate these types of measurements more.  Not only for the reason you mention, but I find in many cases, the measurements are actually more useful - an inch for example is more useful to me than centimeters are - they are just a little too small.  Feet are also very useful, while I rarely use meters.

 

 

I agree about feet being a handy size. BUT, I really do like cm and mm better than inches. Inches are often too big, and when I find myself trying to say 1/5 or 2/5 or 1/25 of an inch, that's not going to work well. Whereas 0.5cm or 1cm or 1mm are easy to understand.

[LMD]

Yes, I find cm/m much easier. But I guess that's cultural, metric is what we grow up with so it's just how we 'see' measurements.

[luuknam]

Yes, I find cm/m much easier. But I guess that's cultural, metric is what we grow up with so it's just how we 'see' measurements.

 

 

I thought Bluegoat was Canadian though, and that they use metric too. 

[Barb_]

Conceptually, it means teaching about community helpers and institutions that students may interact with, police, firefighters, mailmen. Very little time is dedicated to social studies in public schools any more so these topics allow teachers to add special day activities and call it "good".

 

Responding to agree and also to mention that I love your screen name.

 

One of my top five movies of all time :)

[Bluegoat]

I thought Bluegoat was Canadian though, and that they use metric too. 

 

Yup, I grew up with metric.

 

This may come down to what sort of things I tend to meaure.  When I use cm, I end up with these large numbers.  I have similar issues with mL.