The Lesson Plan

While I was running on the transport machine earlier, I composed my first day address to my students. (I compose a large number of my lectures and lessons while working out at the gym. This made me look up this interesting article — Exercise is a State of Mind.) I’ll be taking things slow this year and allow a lot more time for ‘easing in’ as opposed to going straight to work as I’ve done in the past two years. I’ll spend a week just getting all of us to know each other, and will reveal more of myself on the first day than I usually do in the first quarter.

Two questions will prompt me: Why history, of all subjects? Why teaching, of all jobs? Here are some notes.

One of my main thrusts this school year is to bring back history to the core of my course. That may confuse some of you considering I do teach Asian History. But last year, we decided to branch out a bit more and called our course Asian Studies. It gave us a wider range of topics to discuss, and allowed us to touch on politics, economics, religion and even developmental studies. All the while, history remained our central framework — the spine, if you will — that structured everything else.

This year, I’ll be less ambitious. My approach will be more similar to ‘08 where we looked at the history first then discovered how politics, economics and many other fields factor in. But this year will be even more specialized into history.

My guiding premise is this: Biology, chemistry, physics and math teachers all show you how biology, chemistry, physics and math operate in the world we are in. That is what makes those subjects necessary, interesting and relevant (notwithstanding the fact that you are science scholars). It breaks down everything you can do, see, hear, taste, smell and feel into observable, understandable and explainable things. History is just the same! It is not a record of all things past, but a constant activity of looking at the past. Like biology, chemistry, physics and math, we all do, see, hear, taste, smell and feel history without even knowing it. (I’ll be delivering it pretty much in these same words.)

Credit for this new approach goes to Sam Wineburg’s “Historical Thinking”, a new book I’ve read over the summer. It was a fascinating read, and embedded in my mind the idea that people don’t learn about history through textbooks. He raised important questions such as “What do our students know about history, and who tells them what they should know about history?”

With this, I am daring into a new approach where I change what my students read and how they read for my class. My approach had been about making sense of the material we read and then deriving lessons and learnings relevant to our place and time. However, there is something anachronistic about that since when people made decisions centuries ago, they did not have the standards we do now.

When we study history we should be placing our feet in their shoes, but what has been happening often is that we put their feet in ours. For instance, it is true that we can discern the causes of the Opium War, but do we understand its roots? Which do we put greater emphasis on, that the conflict began as a denial of trade to the British by the Chinese, or that the Emperor of China told the King of England to “Tremble and obey!”?

Answering questions such as these will look at what we as historians and students of history value. The least we can do is treat the material fairly, and really discover the context of certain people and events. Thus for this year, my focus is on how my students reinterpret events and make sense of the stories. This is what it means to bring history to the core of the course.

This thinking isn’t that radical however. When I was a student myself, I didn’t like how history was taught to me. I admit, the language (Filipino) was a problem and it was basically memory work. Thus, I didn’t have much love for the subject. But most of the history I’ve known and love I’ve learned from my novels and movies. And according to Wineburg, these are valid sources of history for the layman.

So in a sense, my students who are all too familiar with Japanese anime and manga know more about Japanese language and culture than I do. And that is indeed the case! I’ve always wanted to learn Japanese, but never found the time or motivation to do so. Whereas my students and friends steep in anime and manga have learned more words and ideas than I have. This raises an important question which I will guide my students in answering throughout the entire year: Where do you get your history?

Perhaps I should share where my interest in China came from.

Of all the lessons I teach in one school year, there is no doubt that I am most comfortable whenever we discuss anything about China. It feels second nature to me and I admit, I can navigate myself around it better than Philippine history. But I don’t even have a degree in Chinese studies. And though I look Chinese, I can’t speak the language (yet).

My interest in China originated from two things: Bruce Lee and Chinese food. Bruce Lee ignited my interest in the Chinese martial arts. I became a big fan of the wuxia genre and loved everything from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Once Upon a Time in China. When the time came for me to teach Chinese history, I would go through the material and encounter elements I’ve seen in the films. “Hey! The Warring States Period! Could this be why they have so many different styles?” Then I would investigate. “Qing dynasty! Hey… Crouching Tiger is set in this era. What is it about?” I would look into it. “Sun Yat Sen! He’s the guy in Once Upon a Time in China! Who is he?” Then I read up on him.

That’s how I learned about Chinese history. Jumping off from the films, I looked at their actual historical settings and then learned much more about the movies I already enjoyed. But what did Chinese food do for me? Well for starters, it made me very comfortable with Chinese culture. It gave me a certain sensibility to all things Chinese, and so from movies and food I moved further into their history, philosophy and culture.

While I am aware that my experiences are not shared by my students, my own experience has given me insight into how I can teach history better. First, I should explore my students’ own affinities and guide them in discovering the histories they already know. Even if what they’re familiar with is not Asian history related, that is fine. The important thing is that they discover the concept of history.

Second, I should generate their interest first. While I have done this to varying degrees of success (and hence failure), I realize that the emphasis now should be on discovery. In the same way that I’ve learned about China from things which are not outright historic, I should allow for my students to discover Asian history the same way. This can work two ways: provide stimulus from where they can derive historical knowledge, or learn the history and see how it works by laying it out in their own canvass. I shall adopt both approaches depending on certain situations.

These are just my notes on what I intend to say on the first day. Of course I won’t overwhelm them with the theories on history I’ve just laid out. I’ll be teasing them more with the activities we have coming up in the school year, the topics for the year, and the mysterious new scoring system for the year.

I just feel refreshed coming into the school year with a different and hopefully better understanding of history. Ultimately, by bringing history back to the core of the course, I bring the student front and center as well. In talking about how they understand history, it is my hope that they discovery their own stories.

This is why we teach history after all.