To make sure that my students' understanding of history sticks, my curriculum focuses on creating opportunities for them to experience what it feels like to see the world from a different perspective.
From Yemen, Tanzania, Peru, and Israel, to Albania, Dominican Republic, China, and Morocco, many of my students are first-generation Americans who come into the classroom with unique worldviews that have been influenced by their roots in other countries.
The variety of cultures in our school has strengthened our study of modern history, as many students are able to share deeply personal connections to the events that have shaped our world over the course of the past two centuries. Our school uses project-based learning, which eschews the textbook in favor of activities that put students in roles that represent the world outside the classroom.
My Project
When Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote Hamilton, he sought to bring the story of a forgotten founding father to a wider audience. My course asks students to look at how the founders - many of whom were just a few years older than the students themselves are right now - were able to bring about a movement that turned the world upside down.
In this historical research-based class, students are asked to consider the men and women of this era and propose a way to tell one of their stories to a wider audience, as they explore the Early American history that’s still alive in New York from Harlem and the Heights to the Financial District and Fort Greene (and beyond).
This project will provide books for my students; we will dive into these books to find the names that history has forgotten, and use the NYPL and NY Historical Society to research them in order to bring their stories to life.
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