I am a High School History/Social Sciences teacher and department chair, we are currently revising the World History (WH) curriculum and I would be interested to hear the opinions of this distinguished community on what they think are the essential parts of a WH curriculum.
Some context for those who have not been in a high school classroom for a while. Under the common core state standards social studies was essentially assigned the non-fiction work of the English department and we tried to squeeze in content where we could. The skills focus was on argumentative writing and source analysis with a push for student led inquiry. Content side we are, of course, expected to be inclusionary and diverse in content as well as perspectives. We are supposed to start around 1450,but there is some leeway, the earlier history is taught in middle school. We have about 135 in-class instructional hours with little to no expectation of work being done outside of class for non-AP classes. World History is generally taught to 10th graders (15-16 yo). A minority will go on to complete a 4 year degree, most will attend some college.
Ideas that have been floated include old school content based classes, student choice inquiry/independent study classes, History of Philosophy as a combo history/philosophy class to teach critical thinking, and area studies with a series of regional histories. As historians, what do you think should be the focus of a WH curriculum? Which concepts/themes/skills/content are essential?
So as someone going through university for history I think something that is critical is source analysis and understanding how to do proper research. History can very easily become memorize facts without more in depth thinking about what your being told. This of course causes large amounts of problems for actually understanding history, lots of works continue to uncritically repeat the same problematic narratives that new research debunks. By getting students to critically analysis sources and develop proper research habits you can dramatically increase the comprehensive ability of students to critically think.
I have been teaching as a professor at a community college for three or so years, so I am a bit familiar with what some students come away with from HS. I would say a good place to start would be to emphasize the evolution of things. If students can understand how history builds on itself and how no event exists in a vacuum, I think they can better grasp key events. I also agree that some philosophy should be added into the curriculum. Understanding Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Lenin, and Mao could go a long way in grasping the conflicts of the last few centuries. Finally, I think there is a need to emphasize the dangers of anachronisms and applying modern standards backwards. I am all for analyzing historical figures and their faults, but I have increasingly found students making judgements of historical figures based on modern conceptions of morality and ethics. Once again it goes back to the idea of evolution and development. Figures like Columbus must be examined and frankly denounced, but to only focus on specific aspects fails to give the full picture. To offer another example, I remember distinctly learning in HS about Jefferson and his impact on the revolution, but never really learned about his ownership and rape of slaves. All historical figures are multi-dimensional and understanding that (without solely using modern conceptions) I believe will very much help high school students and the field of history in general. I think ultimately, what I am getting at is students need to understand the full context (or as much as possible) of events and people. Otherwise, by college they are stuck in narrow viewpoints of history.
Hello, I am a historian who studies the intersection of education with Holocaust memory. Further, I was a classroom World History and Western Civilization teacher for 9 years.
I am a proponent of the need for students to be "Citizen Historians." What I mean by this is that even at the High School level, students need to learn the process of thinking historically. Of asking historical questions. Of sorting through sources in a way that brings them to the most likely narrative. UNFORTUNATELY, I have to stress this because most of the history taught at the high school level (and in basic level undergraduate surveys) is simply students being told the story of the past. This teaches them that 1) history is "what happened" and 2) the study of history is just knowing a bunch of stuff about the past. This ultimately serves them poorly when someone tells them that x group is trying to rewrite the past. They fundamentally misunderstand historical revision and fail to learn about viewing new perspectives in the past.
Thus, what I suggest for non-AP World History classes are the following goals:
Note that "coverage" is not key to such a course. Certainly noting trends from different areas of the world would be important for being able to synthesize accounts, for example approaches to dealing with the Third Bubonic Plague (~1900) around the world, but not for making sure that students know "everything."
I suggest that each unit focus on 1-2 historical approaches. This enables students to know that historians ask different questions about, sometimes, the same sources. Further, you are likely to find that students will be interested in at least one of the ways of thinking about the past.
The biggest difficulty here is that for appropriate primary source analysis, students MUST know the broader history. Without any material being delivered outside of class, you are somewhat limited. Thus, I suggest content-heavy, but short teacher-directed approaches. If matched with what they need to know for the source analysis, this would be optimal. If you have a lot of content-specific standards, then you do your best to get the context there and use primary sources to fill in.
Feel free to ask further questions if you like. Or PM me. Either way, best of luck!