Models for Teaching about the World Past and Present

from a civilizations-based model to a human-centered, global model

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Why teach and learn about the world?

• People from all over the world are coming together in many arenas, and need knowledge about each other.

• Memory is an important part of what makes us human. Each person is a transmitter of knowledge about the past.

Three common models for teaching about the world

1. The geographic perspective

2. The civilizational perspective

3. The world history perspective

Option #1: the geographic perspective

• This is a “stand-alone” geography course• Geography studies often give students their

first view of the whole world• Students are taken on a tour of the world,

full of descriptive facts• It is organized around a sequence of

regions, based on modern divisions of the world.

• This division makes it hard to teach about earlier historical regions, which were often very different.

Russian FederationEurope

Geography/World Cultures ModelCanad

a

U.S.A.

Central America

South Americ

a

Far East

Middle East / North

AfricaCentral /

South Asia

Sub-saharan Africa

Western Hemisphere

Southeast Asia

Australo-Pacific

Eastern Hemisphere

Option #2: the civilizational perspective

• Most “world history” courses have been organized around coverage of civilizations

• Students are given chapter-by-chapter descriptions of world civilizations, including:

a description of its geographic setting an account of its origins descriptions of its political, social, and cultural history, and a list of its contributions

• Including new topics in these courses has been a problem, because “only civilizations need apply”

• Many regions without major civilizations were very important in world history, but they find no place in these courses.

Ancient Mesopotami

a

Ancient Egypt

Classical Greece

Classical Rome

Other RiverValley Civs.

Medieval Europe

Byzantium & Russia

Islam India

China

Renaissance Exploration

Scientific Rev Enlightenmen

t

IndustrialRevolution

Imperialism World Wars

Colonized Countries

Developing Countries

Postwar To Present

Traditional Western Civilizations Model

Sub-Saharan Africa

The Americas

Traditional world history covered only a small part of the world’s surface, only expanding its scope with the modern

expansion of Europeans after 1400 C.E.

It focused on Mediterranean civilizations, but added others gradually and incompletely in response to

multicultural demands to cover the non-west

Option #3: world history perspective

• This new model for teaching about the world is organized around global eras of human history

• Students take an era-by-era tour of world history, that includes

dynamic coverage of geography’s role in human history inclusion of regional societies, civilizations, and the spaces between them interactions among cultures and long-term historical processes

• The model is academically challenging and culturally flexible. It helps develop critical thinking and research skills.

• It effectively incorporates new and existing research.

Era 1

GEOGRAPHY

CHRONOLOGY

Era 2

Era 3

Era 4

Era 5

Era 6

Era 7

Era 8

Regional Societies

Regional Societies

Regional Societies

Regional Societies

Regional Societies

Cultural interactions

Regional Societies

Regional Societies

Cont inui ty

Era 1

GEOGRAPHY

CHRONOLOGY

Era 2

Era 3

Era 4

Era 5

Era 6

Era 7

Era 8

Technology

Agriculture TradeSpread of Religions

Geographically comprehensive and truly global in scope

Human-centered and inclusive Developed by international world

historians and geographers Academically sound rationale for inclusion

of the world’s societies and cultures Accepting of new scholarship and research

to encourage lifelong learning

THE NEW WORLD HISTORY MODEL

Why is World History education important?

1. World history helps make sense of globalization.

2. World history demonstrates our expanding knowledge about the past.

3. World history shows links from national history to the rest of the world.

4. World history sustains citizenship.*

*From Patrick Manning, “Presenting World History to Policymakers: Three Position Papers,” Perspectives, March 2006

UNESCO World Heritage http://whc.unesco.org/

Bridging world history http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/worldhistory/whatis.html

Center for History and New Media http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/worldhistory/

The Silk Road Project http://silkroadproject.org/index.html Europaischer Kongress fur Welt- und Globalgeschichte

http://www.uni-leipzig.de/zhs/ekwg/ European Network in Universal and Global History

http://www.lamprecht-gesellschaft.de/ENIUGH/eniugh-frame.htm Histoire du Monde

http://www.histoiredumonde.net/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=47 World History Compass (links to world history information around the

world) http://www.worldhistorycompass.com/about.htm Shixue Lianxian(History On-line)

http://saturn.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/~liutk/shih/ World History For Us All online curriculum

http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu

SOME WORLD HISTORY EDUCATION LINKS