"Education is the movement from darkness to light," wrote Allan Bloom, and I'm hoping to shed some LCD light on history with a new projector and speakers. With so many interactive tools that bring history alive, my students need new opportunities to relate to stories of the past.
"Why did South Carolina recede from the Union and start the Civil War?
Why didn't Abraham Lincoln just let them become their own country?" "How did Adolf Hitler kill all those people without anyone stopping him?" The 6th grade historians in my class are ready with a litany of questions every day. They want to know about the first conversation between the Native Americans and Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean. They are dying to understand how someone could make money from selling other people. These curious students are on a constant quest to understand history in a deep and meaningful way. They are dedicated scholars that work hard. They take home more homework than many other students in their neighborhood and complete it voraciously and come back to school with more questions. They are readers, writers, and researchers of American history, but more importantly they are dedicated learners with new questions every day.
My Project
If we received a projector and speakers, it would literally shed new light (and sound) on the history of our country. We would be able to video conference with Civil Rights protesters, listen to interviews with former slaves, and study the signature of John Hancock. Students would be able to cobble together these real life stories into their own narrative understanding of history. These tools would also aid English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities (which accounts for nearly 20% of my class) to grasp history in a truly meaningful way. In 2011, my students deserve more tools in their classroom than a textbook and some chart paper and they would appreciate the chance to SEE, HEAR, and FEEL history in new ways.
These tools will impact hundreds of students for many years to come.
Each year a new set of students will interact with history using the latest multimedia resources. The projector is a timeless tool that will help a large group of students have simultaneous access to all the information that become available each year. Through these tools, my students can get the answers to their questions from the documents and people who were there instead of from a stagnant textbook or a teacher.
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