Historical Perspective-Well it depends on who you are talking with?

Hold on a second.... let me find the old soapbox....it is kinda hard to find in this office under all papers and textbooks....oh there it is under a social studies guide (surprise, surprise) ....okay let me just dust it off and set it up...Okay I think I am now ready.

The question asked is "What are you reactions or experiences with point of view, perspectives, or bias in history?" Let me start by stating that because of my background in history there is no quick and easy answer to this question. In fact I have taken courses devoted to studying this question and in fact have given lectures in which I further go to discuss and analyze the question delving deeper into it and looking at it through the lens of different ethnic groups, cultures, societies, and the various time periods. Like I said it is not an easy question to answer.

When I was a curator in New York and working in a private collection it was amazing to see how skewed the retelling of certain events and the recording of history itself had become because a prior historian had decided to write facts to certain stories and certain stories for certain facts without any primary sources or reliable documentation. Based off this information the local hospital decided to spend an obscene amount of money to celebrate its 100th birthday in 2005 because of these "facts" written and recorded. The hospital board and a majority of the town were pretty upset...to say the least.....when primary resources were pointed out to them noting that the hospital was not established until 1906 and did not open its doors until 1907. But I digress....over time perspectives become skewed, people want to show the positive in the past and tend to gloss over the negative. Look at today's textbooks a majority of them are usually one-sided when it comes to different events, ethnic groups, and cultures; including the discussion of slavery, the Civil War, Japanese Internment Camps, and so on and so forth.

Alright I need to stop now my head is beginning to hurt and I have not even tackled question 2. Let me say this I plan on having an integrated curriculum with differentiation taking into account the various needs of my students. For LEP students I intend to include them in my differentiation plans and will use various strategies including vocabulary picture cards, low vocab. high picture illustrations, etc...