Interdisciplinary connections: Teacher and Student empowerment through social and cultural history, critical pedagogy, and collaboration.

[ASHP/CML] is just what we need in terms of content and methods. It is great having the planning time and the intellectual stimulation of adults and colleagues. Participation in their program has opened up new ways of thinking on how to teach.

High School Social Studies Teacher

Several years ago, I began working for the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (ASHP/CML) as a teacher mentor/program coordinator. One of my earliest experiences involved working with a teacher who initially believed that ASHP/CML engendered an anti-American stance, always focusing on the negative aspects of U.S. history and that our intensive teacher training program demanded too much time away from state exam preparations. During the course of two years, this teacher took part in our New York City Making Connections Program and collaborated with other educators by examining up-to-date scholarship on social history, multicultural literature, and innovative pedagogy in intensive citywide summer institutes and monthly seminars. Within that period, I had the opportunity to witness a transformative process in her professional growth--she gradually introduced new content and student-centered approaches in her classroom and engaged students in more meaningful ways. She later commented tha t our materials and approach strengthened her students' academic skills.

Today, as education co-director of ASHP/CML, it is still evident to me that instructional change is difficult, demanding, and sometimes unfamiliar work for teachers. It requires one to reflect on, rethink, and reenvision ones practice. It is also apparent to me that teachers should have to play a key role in the development and refinement of their curriculum. That process requires that teachers deepen their content knowledge and understand how to translate course content in ways that deepen student understanding.

Teachers need to have a voice in decision making, to have opportunities to examine new scholarship, and to be given more time to plan and interact with colleagues--in summary, teachers should feel empowered. The process of engaging in self-aware inquiry in a collegial setting fosters intellectual growth for each of us. And having the time and space to gain new knowledge by exploring new scholarship and effective teaching methods is a necessary and ongoing process for all educators.

I write this essay today as an educator involved in directing, designing and implementing professional development programs and interdisciplinary curriculum resources for secondary school humanities, Social Studies, and English faculty. My work is highly collaborative, so in that spirit, I write this piece with my close colleague Cynthia Jones of the Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College English Department of the City University of New York (CUNY). Cynthia has served as an ASHP/CML faculty partner and a member of an interdisciplinary team in our Making Connections Program. For two years, she partnered with John Blodgett, English teacher, and Pat Peacock, Social Studies teacher, both from Hostos High School.

The purpose of this essay is twofold: 1. to discuss the importance of sustained professional development and collaboration in achieving reflective practice and teacher change and 2. to describe how social and cultural history and literature and innovative critical pedagogy work together to enrich curricula, advance teacher practice, and engage students in rigorous ways. Of course, good models of professional development or innovative classrooms do not exist in a vacuum; no exemplary program or course can represent a panacea in education. We will describe Making Connections as one successful model of in-service professional development, exploring the Hostos team as a case study, and we will discuss the ongoing challenges the program &ces in public schools. The focus will be on three specific components of the Making Connections Program: the integration of social and cultural history and student-centered, inquiry-based methodology; the interdisciplinary approach to humanities teaching; and cross-institutional c ollaborations.

ASHP/CML BACKGROUND

The American Social History Project was founded in 1981 by the late Herbert Gutman, a pioneer of "the new social history" and Distinguished Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center, and Steven Brier, social historian and currently Associate Provost of Instructional Technology and External Programs at the CUNY Graduate Center. Their aim was to revitalize interest in history by challenging the traditional ways that people learn about the past. The project was an outgrowth of a four-year seminar on labor history for trade union leaders led by Gutman and Brier. In its first decade, ASHP/CML produced the Who Built America? (WBA?) textbook and video documentaries on the history of American working people. In 1989, ASHP began its teacher training program in New York City. And in 1990, the creation of a larger and more formal research entity at the City University of New York to extend the organization's work was approved and the Center for Media and Learning was established.

The Who Built America? print and multimedia curriculum resources are in many ways the foundation of ASHP/CML's work. The curriculum was designed to reinterpret American history from "the bottom up." Three decades ago, American historians such as Gutman redefined the nature of historical study and placed an emphasis on the experiences of ordinary people. Who Built America? Working People and the Nation's Economy, Politics, Culture and Society offers a unique synthesis of U.S. history that draws upon the best recent scholarship on "ordinary" Americans--artisans, slaves, farmers, women, factory and white-collar workers--and integrates their stories into a full picture of the nation's historical development. The Who Built America? documentary series complements and enhances the WBA? textbooks. Produced in collaboration with teams of historians and classroom teachers, the ten videos provide educators and students with an accessible overview of America's past. Video programs address a number of themes and topics in cluding: slave life and everyday forms of resistance in the South; immigrant experiences in the garment industry in the early twentieth century; U.S. expansionism, the Philippine-American War and its connection to American domestic culture; and African-American migration during the era of the Great War. Each of the videos is accompanied by viewers' guides and handbooks of classroom activities that include a rich collection of primary documents (text and images), literature, and classroom lessons.

The project's basic message is that the experiences of ordinary people and the roles they play in the making of modern America is important to understanding the nation's past. By examining the actions and beliefs of ordinary people--women, African Americans, Native Americans, factory workers, immigrant groups--we can develop different interpretations of American history. Our resources place an emphasis on the social and economic conflicts among Americans of different classes, races, national origins, and genders, as well as collective movements that helped shape our nation. By doing so, we help students realize that American society was shaped by people like themselves--people who struggled over the meaning of American ideals of liberty and equality.

One of the unique characteristics of the project is that our content and methodology work together to encourage both teachers and students to see themselves as active agents in a democratic society. Just as ordinary Americans shaped history, so too can teachers and students. By examining evidence from various sources including oral histories, diaries and letters, exploring multiple perspectives by different groups neglected in traditional texts, and engaging in inquiry about historical interpretation and meaning, teachers feel empowered to enrich their curricula and students make meaningful connections between the past and present, between history and their own lives.

MAKING CONNECTIONS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

The Who Built America? materials provide the intellectual foundation for Making Connections, our flagship education program, which was established in 1989. For over twelve years, ASHP/CML has worked with secondary school humanities teachers in an effort to transform the teaching of America's past in New York City public schools and nationwide. Our Making Connections Program (formerly High School Collaboration) provides opportunities for Social Studies and English Language Arts (or humanities) teacher teams to collaborate with CUNY faculty partners or ASHP/CML scholars during the course of a school year. ASHP/CML provides sustained professional development through intensive summer institutes and monthly seminars where faculty teams explore ways of integrating inclusive history, literature, inquiry-based pedagogy, and new technology into their classrooms. Making Connections requires a long-term commitment: schools must program Social Studies and English teachers in back-to-back classes with a common register of students and common prep time. Teacher teams receive a full set of our curriculum resources (textbooks, CD-ROMs, handbooks, videos, selected literature). They are required to attend seminars of our year-long program and teach interdisciplinary ASHP/CML courses. Participants do nor implement a prescribed course per se, but they explore ways of integrating our materials and methods into their existing curriculum or adapting our lessons to meet the needs of their students.

The Making Connections program enables teachers to explore up-to-date scholarship and innovative pedagogy with other faculty from across the city. Ongoing monthly all-day seminars offer teachers the opportunity to examine the topics and themes addressed in our resources--industrialization, slavery, U.S. Imperialism, race, resistance, Reconstruction era, and immigration from multiple perspectives. In-depth discussion of new content and ways of integrating it into the humanities curricula and ongoing conversations about ways of implementing effective teaching strategies into their classrooms encourage teachers to see themselves as lifelong learners and reflective practitioners.

INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING 

ASHP/CML courses focus on incorporating activities that connect two disciplines without sacrificing the demands of either. The double block class period and common planning time is largely responsible for making the approach feasible. Teams plan interdisciplinary lessons and units, develop essential questions that can bridge topics in U.S. history and English Language Arts or American literature. Themes as well as skills are reinforced in each class. In addition, the block programming gives teachers the option of team teaching. Teacher teams determine whether they will assign a collaborative student project, connect their classes through chronological and parallel teaching, develop a literature-based activity based on a novel, or create a thematic unit together. An interdisciplinary model fosters a meaningful collaboration between teachers who traditionally would have had little interaction. It moves teachers away from working in isolation into a valuable relationship where they learn from each other and adva nce their own understandings.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY AND INQUIRY-BASED METHODOLOGY

The essence of understanding history lies in the ability to synthesize information, grasp larger concepts, make inquiries, evaluate evidence, and develop interpretations. ASHP/CML emphasizes a student-centered, inquiry-based approach to history that enables students to think more critically about the subject, question events, and problem solve. We encourage students to address controversy and sometimes to take a critical view of celebrated figures or dominant beliefs. The analysis of evidence and multiple viewpoints, characteristic of social history methods, enables students to see themselves not only as historians, but history makers as well. Our content and methods give students the space to engage in discourse and creative activities, exchange ideas, and develop new meaning.

Teacher participants in Making Connections are given the tools and resources to facilitate collaborative classrooms where students engage in role-play, debate, poetry writing, close reading of text and images, and other creative yet rigorous group work. This pedagogy is played out in our teacher training seminars where participants take part in experiential classroom activities that they can then implement in their own classrooms. As teachers critically think about new content and effective pedagogy and examine their experiences from a student's perspective, their professional growth often translates to improved practice and deepened student learning.

"ASHP/CML respects teachers at their profession. While the content of the program is exceptional, the strategies it gives to help teachers engage students in ways is the true strength of the program."

Pat Peacock

CROSS INSTITUTIONAL COLLABORATIONS

ASHP/CML has been at the forefront of school/college collaborations, leading efforts in education reform and building sustained learning communities. Secondary school Social Studies, and English teachers and college faculty are partnered to reach interdisciplinary courses using ASHP/CML curriculum materials and methodology. As faculty teams work together, planning periods and seminars become sites for professional growth. Teams explore ASHP/CML materials, adapt classroom lessons, and develop new units of study. As teams test reaching strategies, it enables ASHP/CML to apply theory to practice, and to see how new approaches to history and literature and to teaching play out in the classroom. High school teachers have reported on the development of more academically challenging lessons for all students and college faculty have expressed gained knowledge about skill building exercises relevant to their college students. Such an exchange is an example of the successful forms of collaboration necessary to effect m eaningful change in high schools and colleges.

"ASHP/CML has encouraged me to examine my own teaching practice. The program has also improved my understanding of the needs of NYC high school students, many of whom will be attending CUNY colleges."

Cynthia Jones

CASE STUDY: ASHP/CML TEAM JOHN BLODGETT, PAT PEACOCK, CYNTHIA JONES

Between 1998-2000, I, Cynthia Jones, was released part time from my teaching duties at Hostos Community College in order to work with an ASHP/CML interdisciplinary high school team. I collaborated with the Hostos Team by meeting regularly with Pat Peacock and John Blodgett in school to plan interdisciplinary lessons and units using ASHP/CML materials and other primary sources and literature. I worked directly in classrooms, either observing students, taking part in group work, or team teaching. I also worked with school administrators to ensure the effective implementation of the ASHP/CML program. John began the program as a new English teacher; Pat had participated in Making Connections previously and had become a Social Studies teacher after having taught English for several years. At the time, I was relatively new to the Making Connections Program. While I served as an ASHP/CML mentor, I saw my primary role as collaborator and team partner. Over the course of two years, a deeply meaningful collaboration gr ew. Each of us admits experiencing challenges as each brought our own working style to the partnership. But our commitment to the program and to teaching and learning led us to develop and hone questions that would guide our practice. We generated the following questions to help us reflect on our work and determine what we are doing well and what we need to improve upon in our teaching and curricula:

* Did students develop a more critical interpretation of the past?

* Did we help them forge connections between the past, future and the present?

* Did we provide guidance and a learning environment to help students examine evidence, deepen their understandings, and improve higher order thinking skills?

* In what ways did we help students make connections between their English and U.S. History courses?

* Did our lessons allow opportunities for a transformation of consciousness? for student empowerment?

While the program demands a great deal of time for teachers, it helped us grow as professionals. We faced challenges about the presentation of certain content and the pedagogical strategies to employ with a diverse student population. But in the end, the process was a useful negotiation. Below is a brief description of some our thinking about essential questions that helped bridge disciplines:

How do we teach students the value of democracy while illustrating how conflict ridden it can be? How do we teach students to think critically, to see the importance of dissent and resistance in understanding American history? We all felt that students need to be exposed to competing viewpoints. Lessons should always be based on multiple sources of evidence. It was important for us to be able to engage students in a learning process where they could actively experience and shape history. And so we modeled the democratic process--analyzing evidence, discussing larger ideas and concepts, developing questions, exploring different perspectives, generating interpretations, reaching consensus or debating. We found that this process helped nurture students' intellectual capacities.

The following unit on slavery addresses our essential questions. Using ASHP/CML's video Doing as They Can: Slave Life in the American South, students in the HOSTOS-ASHP/CML course explored day to day resistance strategies employed by slaves. Students generated the following questions before viewing the documentary:

* How did slavery develop in the U.S.?

* What did it mean to be enslaved?

* How did slavery affect the way people lived and worked?

* What were the African American religions during slave time?

* Why didn't the Founding Fathers outlaw slavery?

After viewing the video, students engaged in a free writing exercise. After a whole class discussion about how day to day resistance was woven into the fabric of everyday life for slaves, students were asked to create a "found poem" by using some of the words in the viewers' guide. A few students had an opportunity to share their writing.

Small groups later examined different documents focusing on the years before the Civil War. Each group was to complete a document analysis worksheet and present their findings to the entire class. The worksheet included questions that helped students think critically about the author or artist, the audience and purpose of the document. Students looked at the following documents: an advertisement for a slave sale, an 1851 poster for the capture of escaped slaves in the north, an image of abolitionists, an illustration of slave life on a plantation, and the African American folktale Brer Rabbit: "Tar Baby." The culminating activity for this unit was a final writing assignment.

By engaging in stimulating activities that involve reading and interpreting challenging documents, writing, and questioning, and debating, students were definitely exposed to rigorous, highly academic work. I noticed that while some students had difficulty analyzing the documents, the guiding questions on the worksheet were helpful and in the end I think that the "critical reading" of the text and images was a thought provoking exercise and the writing activity helped students synthesize the complexity of the past.

ASHP's emphasis on primary document analysis and literacy building helps students actively question and imagine historical events.

-John Blodgett

While the case at Hostos High School illustrates the benefits of the program for teachers and students, ASHP/CML faces a number of challenges in implementing the program in schools. We find this an opportune time to write this piece as high stakes testing currently looms large over schools, teachers, and students. New York State is now requiring that students pass Regents examinations in American History and English Language Arts in order to graduate. Assessment issues--standards and accountability--are the main concern of policy makers. Test scores from standardized exams are seen as providing accurate evidence of student learning. It is also a time when the larger public is deeply engaged in questions of teaching history to the young. Of course, these issues have always remained a controversial and crucial topic in education and have evolved in different ways over the past few decades.

The work day of most teachers allows them virtually no time to engage in any sustained learning about how to do their work differently. Their time is fully scheduled during the day, with the exception of a few brief and scattered preparation periods. Like other professionals, teachers learn by working with other colleagues and by having the time to be reflective practitioners. While we require schools to implement effective programming, as described earlier, in order for teachers to teach an ASHP/CML interdisciplinary course, the reality is often that it's difficult to veer away from the norm of 40 minute periods. "What do I reach on Monday morning for a 40-minute period?" is still the persistent question confronting teachers. External pressures such as standardized exams, while well intentioned, can operate with an emphasis on coverage rather than depth, with diffuse and hard to understand expectations for student learning, and little convergence between hard day-to-day decisions about what and how to teach and how to prepare students for state exams. Most standards coming from policymakers take no account of such facts such as the amount of time teachers and students have in which to cover content.

Some teachers face the problem that they are expected to override their experiences in teaching with a collection of external prescriptions about how they ought to teach. Many participants of Making Connections make the point that external pressures from new exams and added responsibilities in schools make it doubly difficult for them to be creative in the classroom, to plan effectively together as an interdisciplinary team, to fully commit to a year-long intensive program, or explore new scholarship. But we feel that organized professional development should take place through the school year and nor in isolation from actual practice. Schools should invest time in creating or developing learning communities and collaborations.

While ASHP/CML faces increasing challenges in implementing an interdisciplinary reaming approach in schools, we continue to receive positive feedback from high school and college faculty. With initial support from the Aaron Diamond Foundation, later Dewitt-Wallace Reader's Digest Fund, and currently CUNY and the NYC Board of Education, the Making Connections program has grown steadily over the past decade. Since 1989, the program has directly impacted approximately 600 teachers and over 80,000 students. Over the years, we have assessed our work, refined our resources and strategies with the goal of meeting the needs of all teachers and students. What are we doing well.? What can we do better? These are the questions that guide our practice. As participants give us insight into how our program has changed their reaching, to what extent our materials are being used in their schools, and which activities work well with groups, we gain insight into ways of strengthening our program. ASHP/CML historians, educators , and media producers also continue to develop educational materials for humanities faculty. Our latest textbook, Freedom's Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry into the Civil War and Reconstruction, published in 1996, includes a rich collection of primary documents and reaching strategies. Our longstanding emphasis on the importance of visual materials in social history recently led to the completion of the resource guide, Picturing A Nation: Teaching with American Art and Material Culture (produced in collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum of Art). And our History Matters web site, which includes a wealth of primary documents, syllabi, interdisciplinary classroom activities, and links to useful sites, is now used by many educators and schools nationwide. With the use of these resources in creative and rigorous ways, our education programs have enabled us to provide life-long learning communities that foster intellectual collegiality for college, university, and secondary school faculty m NYC and nationwide.

Our curriculum and approach is particularly important at this time in American history. In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans are grappling with questions of civil liberties and citizenship. What happens in the classroom will better equip students to critically and thoughtfully examine what's happening in the larger society. Social and multicultural history can give us insight into current events. For example, how do the events of Japanese Internment and the Red Scare relate to recent events? What can we learn from the voices of immigrant groups in the past to help us address issues in times of national crisis today? What have we learned from the past? How has American democracy changed over time? How do we honor dissent if the cause is toward justice and equality? We need to encourage students to question the language and images that help frame how we understand the past and the present.

ELIZA FABILLAR is education co-director at the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (www.ashp.cuny.edu). She has worked for the organization for over six years.

CYNTHIA JONES is an English Department faculty member and coordinator of an interdisciplinary writing program at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College of the City University of New York.