Keeping an open mind as a history teacher is about more than be willing to test our understandings of the past with new evidence. It also means looking at familiar topics from new vantage points. Recently on Twitter I’ve seen historians advocating more engagement with the public. I’m all for it, but I also think […]
Author: Eric Beckman
I am a veteran high school history teacher interested in decolonizing history curricula, anti-racist pedagogy, and e-learning.
Word around my house is that I may be over subscribed to professional publications. To be honest, there are more journals articles coming through the front door than I am reading. Occasionally surveying new historical scholarship is integral to an understanding of history as constructed knowledge, not as a settled fact. History is not the […]
Practicing the historical thinking skill of corroboration
After a summer of thinking about World History in a variety ways, school is underway. My interest in educational equity and disciplinary fidelity continue to motivate me to globalize the high school World History course. An excellent professional development session led by Dr. Keith Mayes refined my reasoning for continuing to globalize the course. In […]
For the past several years globalizing my World History classes has animated my teaching practice. I was fortunate to be able to share some of this work at the second annual Minnesota History Fest, where I presented “Putting the World in World War One in the World History Classroom.” Teaching about World War One presents […]
Curricular framing of imperialism in high school World History classes often bears the marks of the Western Civilization courses that preceded them
My interest in assessing colonialism involves the content as much as the process. In the photograph assessment, which I am currently grading, I want students to address the racism inherent in both colonialism itself and how it is presented in textbooks. The assignment, however, raises as many issues as it closes. I am finding it much […]
Last Spring I piloted an assessment of student understanding of the “new” Imperialism in regular level World History classes with eleventh graders. Students created google slides centered on photos of imperialism. Students interpreted the photos and analyzed causation, with three slides–before, during, and after–for each photo. I modified a History Alive! World Connections lesson, and students used History […]
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White innocence and legality
History and social studies teachers should be wary of the ways that whiteness shaped and shapes who is included and who is excluded.
I’m frankly a little embarrassed as a history teacher that I was slow to take seriously the popular support for and acquiescence to the possible authoritarianism of President-Elect Trump (for more on Trump’s authoritarianism see @sarahkendzior and Brendan Nyhan). Despite extensive reading and research since I started teaching in 1990, America, its past and present, is always more racist than […]