History teachers | Imamother

Frum ↓

Mon, Feb 28 2011, 2:01 am

For the past six years I have been teaching Jewish history. I have writte my own textbooks and workbooks, since there is no material in our language. Right now I am working on a Jewish history book that is partly fiction, partly historical background.

I am wondering how many other history teachers there are on imamother, and I would really like to exchange ideas on what kind of books/stories/psukim/midrashim and other stories you like to use in preparing your lessons, and also what kind of projects you like to do with your students.

I am on maternity leave now so I have som extra time (uh well, sometimes) to read. I just started reading two new books 'Miraculous Journey' and 'Dawn to Destiny' which I really like and which I think are really helpful in preparing.

↑ Frum ↓

Wed, Mar 02 2011, 2:46 am

Thanks for the replies! I always taught world history in non Jewish schools and in a secular Jewish highschool. I did find it difficult sometimes to teach world history as an objective series of events, while my hashkafa gives (different) meaning to things that happened. The way one teaches history is very strongly connected to ones hashkofas. How do you deal with that?

↑ amother

Wed, Mar 02 2011, 4:27 am

Frum wrote:

I think it depends where you teach, how old your students are, and how much you can 'get away with.' I taught college in an urban community to students who were traditionally underserved in many ways. I would argue, under my screen name and real name, that they had very real reasons to have "chips on their shoulders" to have the opinions that they did over their lot in life, and I appreciate why they shared the views of various ethnic groups that they did. (It's a whole urban sociological discussion best served on another thread.) So that said....

When a student made an anti-semitic comment, I went with it. I said. **very calmly** "Thanks, Richard, for your comment. Can you clarify a bit? What do you mean 'all jews have money? can you elaborate and give an example from this week's chapter [on 1860s immigration]? Because today, you will learn that in the same way that you talk about being a second generation immigrant with no money, jewish (and italian, irish) immigrants to this city didn't have any money either." I don't reise my voice. I don't get confrontational. Also, I NEVER say I'm Jewish. If they ask me, I say "I'm a history teacher for the next 45 minutes and for the sole principle of this, it's irrelevant. If you really want to know, I'm a Catholic Preist/Buddhist Monk (or other role that only a male would have) or even "I'm the manager of the Yankees," which makes my rowdy group laugh and move on from the subject.

I don't know how well my tactic would go over in a public school, but it's worked very well in my urban college. You just need trust and excellent classroom management.

Yocheved84

Wed, Mar 02 2011, 6:00 am

Mrs Bissli wrote:

Just out of curiosity, for those who teach "world history" how much of curriculum is spent on non-western history, like Middle eastern, Indian or Chinese empires or African kingdoms, esp pre-western colonisation? I'm often perplexed lack of overall lack of knowledge on these subjects.

They wanted us to basically do everything EXCEPT Europe and the US, or at least not get to them until the very end. I knew almost nothing, and had to learn a heck of a lot before getting into the classroom. Take a look at the chapters for Craig's "History of World Civilizations," volumes 1 and 2 (I think published by Pearson). This is what we used. Look at the distribution of chapters and information covered. This is what we used. I don't know where you are, but we took many field trips so the students could actually see and/or experience materials from the history we had discussed in class.

↑ roze22

Wed, Mar 02 2011, 7:36 am

Mrs Bissli wrote:

the most recent schools I have taught at have had both a "European history" class and a "world history" class. I only discovered this year that there are different APs offered for each. So it all depends on the classes offered at the school

↑ Frum

Wed, Mar 02 2011, 2:11 pm

In my schools history was taught by era, and the focus was on national history although ofcourse world historymwas covered. I must say though that highschool focused more on themes, like Russia or the industrial revolution.

So what do you do woth difficult topics, such as the evolution, the role of christianity, etc.? What I also found hard was to teach about leaders, e.g. Stalin, and go all deep into the political system of Russia, while knowing that in the emd everything happened because Hashem made it happen.

From that point of view I really find it much easier to teach in the BY I currently work at!