World History

When people remember certain events in their lives and compare those memories to another individual who participated in the event, they will find that their memories will not be exactly the same. This is true of world history as well. Especially since different nations and different cultures have widely different views and perceptions. With this in mind, who decides what to put in our world history books?

As Americans, our world history is bound to be centered in western culture. It would be very interesting to read a world history book from a culture different from our own. At least we are now teaching world history. It is a fairly recent addition to schools subjects. In fact, it was 1982 when the World History Association established world history as a field of study.

There are many reasons that world history is now being taught. Some of the major benefits or teaching world history to our students is that world history creates informed citizens, an understanding of the global business world, a sense of humanity and patterns of thought. These are only a few of the benefits.

However, we are learning more about world history and teaching world history in our classrooms. One of the major movements in teaching this field is the attempt to make the class more interactive. As this field is still new, it has had a tendency to be a memorization lesson more than a lesson of global trends and events that stimulate thought.

This requires an open minded teacher as well. To expand our teachings of world history we must explore both ideas that are common and ideas that are unique. We need to encourage our students to think for themselves but give them the support to find information that will lead them to their own discoveries about world history.