NAME:
Raymond R. Moser
SCHOOL:
Dodson Gifted Magnet
CLASS:
Medieval World History
SCHOOL PHONE:
310-241-1900
World History – The Transition
Mr. Moser
Dodson Magnet; Room 8
History is the most important subject in secondary school, yet often is the
most ignored and the worst taught. To teach the dynamic of the human
historical experience in order to give perspective to the student’s own
existence is the greatest responsibility that a teacher can have. However,
this can not be done by the rote memorization of dates and names that too
often passes for “history” in secondary schools in the United States. Names
and dates are only the skeleton of history, and only by providing the students
with the skills of a professional historian can history become the vibrant and
living subject that it should be.
The history standards for the seventh grade in California cover medieval
world history, and the approach taken is to turn the students into apprentice
historians. An apprentice historian, as do other apprentices, performs the
skills of the professional at a level commensurate with their level of
understanding and capability. In the apprentice historian’s case, it means
that in this class that the students will not be outlining chapters in
textbooks, memorizing lists of names and dates, nor filling out worksheets.
The skills of the historian that will be taught in this class involve both
understanding the subject through the use of themes and primary sources, and
expression of what is learned both in written and oral forms.
The seventh grade curriculum covers the medieval world across the
continents from Asia, to Africa, from Europe to the Americas, giving the
students the experience of millions of people across more than a millennium.
In order to utilize this curriculum to maximum effect, I use small group and
class discussion to understand the great themes of empire, government,
succession, dissolution, among others, enabling the students to see these
themes as they are read across the continents and centuries, discovering both
commonalities and differences. The students learn the subjective nature of
history understand how historians can make generalizations about the subject
without falling into stereotypes or dogma.
History, however, is about documents, reading them, interpreting them,
and demonstrating how they are used by historians to write history. Only
through the micro view of primary sources do students get the full flavor and
necessary skills to understand history on their own. We will use a number of
sources in a variety of projects, including the Koran the Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam, a House Code from fifteenth-century Japan, the Tao Te Ching, Dante’s
Inferno and Martin Luther’s 95 Theses. The students learn to study history
from the inside out and not just the surface. The textbook will provide a
tool by which students can be taught to consolidate large amounts of text into
easily recoverable information for future use.
Expression will be both written and oral. Historians must be able to
write and express themselves to the intellectual community to which they
belong, and effective writing will be ongoing focus of this class. They must
also be able to present that information to an audience, and in each unit
students will have a poem, story, or report that they will present orally to
the class.
An understanding of humanity, on both a panoramic and microscopic scale
should be the fruit of a well taught history class. This apprentice historian
should also improve their reading, writing, and speaking, skills that they
will need throughout their academic lives. History should be the most
exciting and meaningful class the students take, for it teaches about
humanity, the goal toward which all education should strive.
