For my final project, my initial ideas include several questions that focus on teaching about the incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII and how the historical evidence provides an insight into what happened before the war ended. One of the novels that they are assigned to read is John Okada’s No-No Boy. Okada’s novel focuses on more about what happens to Japanese Americans after WWII, but he does begin the novel referencing what had happened to many Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The following questions might help my students to begin thinking about the historical issues surrounding an unforgotten and partially hidden period in American history:
What have American history courses revealed about the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII? Why study this part of American history? Are you able to make the connections between the primary and secondary sources? What inquires or historical questions can be derived from viewing, examining, and analyzing the historical evidence? What arguments can be constructed by viewing the primary and secondary sources? Based on your research and reading, what do you think is missing or hidden?
The above questions are challenging for students to make sense of because they were taught from an omniscient narrative that did not include any humanistic approach to learning about the selected historical content. It is a topic that most students have had little exposure to because it is another ugly part of American history. Also, students may have had no exposure to this part of American history, which makes me very sad because I was one of those students. During my freshmen year in high school, my Honors History teacher scanned over a small paragraph in a textbook about the internment camps during WWII and told us that it was not important and it was not on the exam. Fast forward many years later, I have been delving into the unimportant historical content to learn more about it; and I began to “uncover” more interesting sources to investigate and analyze. The historical issues pertaining to the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII make my students feel at unease about what happened, and some of them hesitate at first to learn more about it because it places them in an uncomfortable position. At this point, some of the students begin to ask more developed questions and have a sympathetic or empathic understanding. As a result, they either have to choose “to learn about the rhinoceroses or to learn about unicorns” (Wineburg 498).
(Postscript for Responding to “The History Curriculum in 2013”)
The ideas expressed in Dr. Kelly’s “The History Curriculum in 2013” present a different approach to teaching history. Instead of focusing only on historical content knowledge, he provides 4 different concepts/skills (making, mining, marking, and mashing) with the use of technology to help educators teach history in a new and interesting way. He provides examples for each concept and how each concept can be incorporated into the history curriculum. Kelly knows the importance of digital resources and how they can be used to teach history in a different way. Echoing the move to teach history with a different approach such as Wineburg, Levesque, Calder, and McClymer, Kelly’s ideas are another approach to teaching history and fostering historical thinking. However, Kelly goes a step further with his approach to teaching history by emphasizing that undergraduate students will be better equipped for graduate programs, employment, and research opportunities because they have gained additional skills while studying history.
