Local history is becoming less localized. It is widening out . . . reaching for far-flung comparisons.
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In the teaching of history, many of us are confronted daily with the fact that our students see no relationship between the facts which we feel obligated to present and the world in which they live. I feel that the use of local history will develop this relationship. The student will be able to study:
. . . history at the local level the study of people how they act and react; showing people living together, working together, getting along together (or not) at work, at play, in politics, business, government, in social and cultural pursuits.
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Most importantly, I feel that by using the local area the houses, roads, factories, artifacts, and the people the student will; in some degree, recognize that he belongs to and is part of the past. Local history is therefore a part of something larger. It connects the student with the area in which he lives and the area connects the student directly with our national history.
As a pedegogical tool, local historical studies provide the materials to develop in students the interest necessary to teach the skills and concepts with which we, as social studies teachers, must be concerned.
It is my aim in this unit to incorporate the local historical study of Black Rock Harbor with the history of maritime New England from the 17th through the 19th centuries. The relationship of local to regional history can be extended to national historical materials. This unit can be used as written, or as a model for study of other local areas of historical interest. It is written as a unit to be included in a unique program in which I am involved at Andrew Warde High School in Fairfield, Connecticut. I will be able to integrate this social studies unit with English, science (marine biology), and math on the ninth-grade level.
Although I teach in a unique curriculum, I feel that the concept of local historical study and the use of this particular unit can be used in any grade nine classroom. The key is to make the local, regional, and or national relationships clearly visible to students and then to bring your students outside to see, smell, touch, hear and taste the very areas which they will study daily. From a recent article in the pages of the
New York Times
, the following quote seems to apply to students who study local history as I hope they would:
Becoming an expert in anything-plumbing or quantum physics—takes brainwork and time. To become expert in a subject requires mulling it over, touching and smelling it from different angles and carefully filing away its various facets in the tool chest of the mind.
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