How to teach history鈥檚 complexity?
Surrounded by sagebrush and vast plateaus, more than 70 teachers from across the country gathered in rural Wyoming in June to strategize about how answer that question. The Landmarks of American History and Culture workshop, sponsored by the National Endowment of the Humanities, is the latest effort to help educators better teach the legacy of Japanese American incarceration during World War II.
Teachers learn to sift through vast archives of primary source material, take tours of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center鈥檚 museum and the camp鈥檚 original structures, and participate in sessions featuring former incarcerated people, their descendants, and education experts on best instructional practices鈥攂uilding up a base of knowledge to take back to their classrooms.
Eleven states across the country have passed mandates to teach Asian American history in public schools, with others contemplating similar proposals. Japanese American incarceration during World War II is a pivotal touchpoint that advocates for the new standards say is necessary to understand a fuller Asian American history.
But such a quick expansion of new curricula can be daunting for teachers. That鈥檚 where Tyson Emborg, the Heart Mountain master teacher, hopes that this workshop and others like it can assist educators.
鈥淭he story isn鈥檛 as easy as it鈥檚 often written in a textbook,鈥� Emborg said. 鈥淥ur intent was to create a workshop that gives people an understanding of those broader standards as they鈥檝e been identified.鈥�
Emborg, who鈥檚 also a curriculum coordinator for the Douglas County district in Colorado, said many teachers he鈥檚 talked to primarily want guidance to make sure they accurately reflect the history in their lesson planning. Part of that instruction, he said, involves pedagogy and terminology, such as using the word incarceration rather than the more benign-sounding term internment to and avoiding 鈥渋magine this鈥� lessons.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very important for teachers to learn how to teach this topic and what works for their classroom because they know their students more than anyone,鈥� said Sybil Tubbs, Heart Mountain鈥檚 education manager. 鈥淗eart Mountain is filling those gaps in so many ways.鈥�
Although the workshop is focused on history, it鈥檚 not just for history teachers. Part of the workshop鈥檚 goal is to help teachers across subjects and grade levels find an angle to introduce Japanese American incarceration history into their respective subjects. One math teacher will examine how the federal government came up with $20,000 per surviving incarceree in reparations for Japanese Americans in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. An English teacher plans to use the poetry created at Heart Mountain.
For Leslie Gore, an art teacher at the University School in Tulsa, Okla., the workshop was an opportunity to weave together curriculum and personal history. Gore鈥檚 parents, uncle, and grandparents were incarcerated at Heart Mountain. She had visited the site before, but this is the first time she looked at it through a teaching lens鈥攁nd the first professional development workshop she鈥檚 attended in her teaching career.
鈥淚鈥檓 here to learn, to build something that鈥檚 going to be purposeful, which really resonates with who my mother was,鈥� Gore said. 鈥淣ot only am I here to honor her legacy and to feel her spirit, but I鈥檓 also here to do what she would want me to do.鈥�
In the past, Gore鈥檚 students have created pipe cleaner flower bouquets similar to those incarcerees made at Heart Mountain during celebrations. Origami cups, fan-folded books with painted pictures, and stamps are other projects Gore created with her students stemming from her family鈥檚 story. Through the Heart Mountain workshop, she鈥檚 excited to be able to tie a more concrete history to the art.
鈥淵ou鈥檙e teaching sculpture but it鈥檚 the story that started it off. 鈥� We鈥檙e thinking about what happened in history and we鈥檙e thinking about Mrs. Gore鈥檚 story,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd being able to teach this history and this story, especially in a very creative way, it has a lot of meaning.鈥�
