Community in the Classroom
For our presidential impeachment unit, the family and friends interview project for this unit is a mini project which involves interviewing family and friends who were alive and aware during either Nixon's attempted impeachment or Clinton's attempted impeachment. These interviews can help shed light on not only the events themselves, but also the way that American citizens perceived them at the time. It's also a great way for students to strike up a conversation with their friends and family about what they're learning!
I see tremendous value in talking with friends and family members about an event that happened in the past for a couple of reasons.
1) It makes the event more real. Although history is entirely made up of events that truly did happen, it can be hard to visualize an event happening until you speak with someone about how they saw and experienced it. It is one thing to discuss these events passively, it is another to seek out the event in the eyes of those living in The United States at the time!
2) It fosters, in a low-risk setting, how to conduct and go about an interview. Students will be asked throughout their high school and possible college careers to interview people, and learning how to plan for, initiate, and guide an interview are wonderful skills for a student to learn, and what better way to learn than through someone the student is comfortable with.
3) It encourages students to value the perspectives of others. Things that happen throughout history affect everyone differently, and it is important to seek out more than one perspective to every event.
4) It encourages conversation with friends and family. Simply put, students connecting with friends and family for any reason is always a good thing.
An example of what we might do that doesn't involve any interviews would be that the student would read through articles, watch videos, and listen to lectures about how people felt during these impeachments. Although some of this will occur in the classroom, having such a limited and boring view of how others felt about an event will make for boring class time. Going out into the world and actively seeking out that information with people you connect with will have an infinitely more effective result on learning about events in history and how those living in The United States felt about them.
Reading articles/watching videos/listening to lectures:
PROS: Students will learn about differing perspectives and the events themselves.
CONS: Students might get antsy, and may not connect to such a passive way of learning information.
Interviewing friends and family:
PROS: Students will learn about different perspectives and the events themselves, while also connecting with the community and their classmates.
CONS: The discussion will need to be guided in class in order to fully benefit, as well as a few minutes of lecture/a few articles/a few videos may need to be shown if interviews come up with little information.
I see tremendous value in talking with friends and family members about an event that happened in the past for a couple of reasons.
1) It makes the event more real. Although history is entirely made up of events that truly did happen, it can be hard to visualize an event happening until you speak with someone about how they saw and experienced it. It is one thing to discuss these events passively, it is another to seek out the event in the eyes of those living in The United States at the time!
2) It fosters, in a low-risk setting, how to conduct and go about an interview. Students will be asked throughout their high school and possible college careers to interview people, and learning how to plan for, initiate, and guide an interview are wonderful skills for a student to learn, and what better way to learn than through someone the student is comfortable with.
3) It encourages students to value the perspectives of others. Things that happen throughout history affect everyone differently, and it is important to seek out more than one perspective to every event.
4) It encourages conversation with friends and family. Simply put, students connecting with friends and family for any reason is always a good thing.
An example of what we might do that doesn't involve any interviews would be that the student would read through articles, watch videos, and listen to lectures about how people felt during these impeachments. Although some of this will occur in the classroom, having such a limited and boring view of how others felt about an event will make for boring class time. Going out into the world and actively seeking out that information with people you connect with will have an infinitely more effective result on learning about events in history and how those living in The United States felt about them.
Reading articles/watching videos/listening to lectures:
PROS: Students will learn about differing perspectives and the events themselves.
CONS: Students might get antsy, and may not connect to such a passive way of learning information.
Interviewing friends and family:
PROS: Students will learn about different perspectives and the events themselves, while also connecting with the community and their classmates.
CONS: The discussion will need to be guided in class in order to fully benefit, as well as a few minutes of lecture/a few articles/a few videos may need to be shown if interviews come up with little information.
I believe this project would accomplish teaching standard #1, as it recognizes that students learn best when they don't just do reading, watching videos, and listening to lectures. This project involves hands on learning, as well as visual and linguistic learning. It relates well to emotional and social learning as well, as it "collaborates with families, communities (...) to promote learner growth and development."
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