Models for Teaching about the World Past and Present

1. Models for Teaching about the World Past and Present from a civilizations-based model to a human-centered, global model Click on icon for sound

2. Why teach and learn about the world? • People from all over the world are coming together in many arenas, and need knowledge about each other. • Memory is an important part of what makes us human. Each person is a transmitter of knowledge about the past.

3. Three common models for teaching about the world • The geographic perspective • The civilizational perspective • The world history perspective

4. Option #1: the geographic perspective • This is a “stand-alone” geography course • Geography studies often give students their first view of the whole world • Students are taken on a tour of the world, full of descriptive facts • It is organized around a sequence of regions, based on modern divisions of the world. • This division makes it hard to teach about earlier historical regions, which were often very different.

5. Geography/World Cultures Model Canada Russian Federation Europe U.S.A. Far East Middle East / North Africa Central / South Asia Central America Southeast Asia Sub-saharan Africa South America Australo-Pacific Western Hemisphere Eastern Hemisphere

6. Option #2: the civilizational perspective • Most “world history” courses have been organized around coverage of civilizations • Students are given chapter-by-chapter descriptions of world civilizations, including: • a description of its geographic setting • an account of its origins • descriptions of its political, social, and cultural history, and a list of its contributions • Including new topics in these courses has been a problem, because “only civilizations need apply” • Many regions without major civilizations were very important in world history, but they find no place in these courses.

7. China Other River Valley Civs. Byzantium & Russia Ancient Mesopotamia India Islam Sub-Saharan Africa The Americas Ancient Egypt Colonized Countries Developing Countries Classical Greece Classical Rome Medieval Europe Renaissance Exploration Scientific Rev Enlightenment Industrial Revolution Imperialism World Wars Postwar To Present Traditional Western Civilizations Model

8. Traditional world history covered only a small part of the world’s surface, only expanding its scope with the modern expansion of Europeans after 1400 C.E. It focused on Mediterranean civilizations, but added others gradually and incompletely in response to multicultural demands to cover the non-west

9. Option #3: world history perspective • This new model for teaching about the world is organized around global eras of human history • Students take an era-by-era tour of world history, that includes • dynamic coverage of geography’s role in human history • inclusion of regional societies, civilizations, and the spaces between them • interactions among cultures and long-term historical processes • The model is academically challenging and culturally flexible. It helps develop critical thinking and research skills. • It effectively incorporates new and existing research.

10. CHRONOLOGY Cultural interactions Era 8 Era 7 Era 6 Cont inui ty Era 5 Era 4 Regional Societies Regional Societies Regional Societies Regional Societies Regional Societies Regional Societies Regional Societies Era 3 Era 2 Era 1 GEOGRAPHY

11. Spread of Religions Agriculture Technology CHRONOLOGY Era 6 Era 7 Era 8 Era 5 Era 4 Era 3 Trade Era 2 Era 1 GEOGRAPHY

12. THE NEW WORLD HISTORY MODEL • Geographically comprehensive and truly global in scope • Human-centered and inclusive • Developed by international world historians and geographers • Academically sound rationale for inclusion of the world’s societies and cultures • Accepting of new scholarship and research to encourage lifelong learning

13. Why is World History education important? 1. World history helps make sense of globalization. 2. World history demonstrates our expanding knowledge about the past. 3. World history shows links from national history to the rest of the world. 4. World history sustains citizenship.* *From Patrick Manning, “Presenting World History to Policymakers: Three Position Papers,” Perspectives, March 2006

14. SOME WORLD HISTORY EDUCATION LINKS • UNESCO World Heritage http://whc.unesco.org/ • Bridging world history http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/worldhistory/whatis.html • Center for History and New Media http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/worldhistory/ • The Silk Road Projecthttp://silkroadproject.org/index.html • Europaischer Kongress fur Welt- und Globalgeschichtehttp://www.uni-leipzig.de/zhs/ekwg/ • European Network in Universal and Global History http://www.lamprecht-gesellschaft.de/ENIUGH/eniugh-frame.htm • Histoire du Mondehttp://www.histoiredumonde.net/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=47 • World History Compass (links to world history information around the world)http://www.worldhistorycompass.com/about.htm • Shixue Lianxian(History On-line) http://saturn.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/~liutk/shih/ • World History For Us All online curriculum http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu