I think we are talking about the same thing. What I believe is that teaching family history is merely a start. Of course family history should lead to an interest and a deeper study of history in the classroom. I don’t think we disagree, rather, I wanted you to take the argument one step further.

Connie Eccles wrote: “Teach Family History in Schools! …and our kids will learn to love history”

Yes, teach family history for sure. But what about teaching community history as well? Family history is a place to start helping students understand the value of critically exploring a past that is close to their own lives but it does not go far enough. While your family may be interesting to you it probably has little or no interest to me. Sorry, that’s just a fact of life. Family history, in the end, provides students with little more than the ability to learn about primary source documents and how to analyze those documents. Fitting that family history into a broader context is what makes it interesting. My family immigrated to the United States from eastern Europe in the late 19th century. That fact alone is dull and uninteresting except to me and the rest of my extended family. Were I to connect the story of my great grandparents and grand parents to the larger story of immigration I might have an interesting history to explore.

Nice as far as you go Connie, but in order to have a lasting influence you have to go a little but further than you did.

…. This is my reply (from Connie Eccles)

You missed the point entirely. I was not trying to make history important to you personally but to the students in the class in respect to their personal history. I beg to differ in your assessment. Learning personal history is what opened up my curiosity about history. I now care about the epidemics, the wars, prohibition, medical advances, the depression and more because although it did not affect me, it affected my ancestors.

And as far as it being interesting to the teacher, that is not a requirement. A teacher’s challenge is not just to teach facts but how they apply and matter in the student’s life

I am enrolled in an Ed.D program in NY. I am a teacher of about 20 years in private and public schools, and hope to land an administrative job for next year. I am also obviously aaware in policy. Hope you stop by again, and look over some of my education posts.