What does AASLH stand for?  Gwen [log in to unmask]



At 04:25 PM 6/20/97 -0400, you wrote:
>        Family history is very tempting and it is interesting for
>individuals to pursue.  But I worry about class assignments geared to
>family history when there are so many other interesting topics available
>that don't have the same pitfalls.
>
>        If all families were intact, if all kids grew up knowing relatives,
>a family history/genealogy assignment would be fine.  But many children
>today live in split families and presented with a chart showing mother and
>dad could be very painful to them.  Where do they put their step mothers,
>step fathers, and the others in their lives?  Will they feel as their
>family is not quite "right" if they can't fill in the recent generations?
>If they haven't grandmothers to talk to or grandfather who served in the
>war?
>
>        Instead of putting kids in that situation, and you can imagine all
>the variations that can occur, I would have the students decide upon topics
>and then participate in oral interviews of neighbors.  Or have students
>"adopt" people in the area with grey hair and interview them about their
>lives noting especially when the individual life touches upon some of the
>events of history that interest the children.  Or have the children do
>genealogical charts of the stores on a street to look at change over time.
>
>        Students can conduct a variety of very interesting and very useful
>projects.  They should know that their research is important and it should
>be saved in a local historical society or in a school archive with the
>children themselves preparing an index (either on cards or on a computer).
>
>        I urge you to look also, at R. Butchart's Nearby History of your
>school published by AASLH which gives very good ideas about how to research
>a schoolhistory.  Then the childrens' memoires of going to that school can
>be added to the research and the students will have participated in
>something worthwhile.
>
>                                Carol Kammen
>Cornell University
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