Perspective in K12 History: Seeing All Relevant Data in Relationship

History textbooks often refer to the United States as a melting pot, a metaphor referring to different peoples, cultures and nationalities forming a single nation. Except this might have given publishers too much liberty to convey our shared past in terms of a single narrative. For example, the phrase ‘American Dream’ tempts us into thinking we must always look ahead, never mind the past and how a thoughtful consideration of historical patterning could inform an intelligent future. Because if you think about it, who wants to undergo melting?

In time, publishers began to insert strategically places sidebars here and there—a tactic that breaks up the appearance of single, overarching narrative. Topics? Outliers. Po’pay. Tecumseh. Harriet Tubman. Sojourner Truth. Cochise. Frederick Douglas. Sitting Bull. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Jane Addams. Martin Luther King. But does a text box suffice? After all, these humans bent the moral arc of our universe, and not with their bare hands. Yet a text box would have us believe these people were anomalies, versus community members. Besides, this approach suggests the U.S. isn’t a melting pot, but instead a mixture. Whereby two or materials are put together, like oil and water, with each keeping its original properties. This, friends, is where I put my foot down. Because if I know one thing it’s this: we are far greater than the sum of our parts. No offense to you, and you, and you.

The truth is we don’t seem to have the courage to examine how multiple worldviews have or haven’t morphed into one. Perhaps this is because there isn’t one overarching narrative, and we do OR don’t want it to stay that way, evidenced by the Project 1619 and the response to it. In the meantime, schools know they have to teach social studies, and to an increasingly diverse population, without drawing the ire of a single parent. Me thinks it would it would be easier to stop teaching social studies altogether. Or just let the single, overarching narrative ride. The dilemma? Having one worldview is like having one eye. Like a cyclops. A massive creature struggling against his astigmatism, stumbling towards something (he knows not what)—unsure of the nature, proximity and urgency of the object or events at hand. In other words, without perspective, i.e., seeing all relevant data in relationship, we’re simply not equipped to mange reality.

This might explain why New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones spearheaded The Project 1619: to consider the past, and therefore the present, with a slightly different lens. For example, Project 1619 asked the public to reconsider our nation’s sacred Origin story, claiming colonists revolted to ensure the institution of slavery. Some historians gathered en masse to protest, politely, yet the whole job felt like blood on the tracks. No sooner, another voice suggested historians should re-commit to the job they were trained to do: gather more evidence, then test truths to effectively expand our worldview. Then, and only then, can we adjust the aperture of our collective lens and make the fuzzy, clear.

In that spirit, Elephanta Education is using Game Theory to design K12 social studies programming, inviting students to build a living model of the past. Why? So we can engage and inspire children to consider how multiple worldviews increase perspective. And so students can test multiple data sets drawn from GIS, primary sources like Tribal treaties, economic data, culture and science. If so, a generation of Americans with knowledge and skills for building a more perfect union.

Rowdy? Heck yea. Rigorous? Yes. Inspirational? You’ve got to see it to believe it.