The single biggest component of students’ preparation for the future is awareness of the wider world. How can students be expected to meaningfully contribute to our global society and the trajectory of its destiny if they do not have an understanding of how it works, what cultures comprise it, and what historical influences have shaped it? To my mind, developing this understanding is the very basis of being educated in the field of social studies. As teachers, we can best promote students’ ability to become global citizens by providing authentic learning experiences which create opportunities for this kind of reflective and critical thinking.
It was these core beliefs that functioned as the driving force behind my process of determining the purpose and goals of my WebQuest. Primarily, I wanted the project to contain a research element. The knowledge about how to properly evaluate sources and then synthesize that information with other data collected is a valuable skill that will enable secondary students to succeed when they enter college. Beyond college, the ability to conduct accurate and useful research will be a powerful resource for these young adults in the working world across all possible career tracks.
I elected to have them channel their research into their own ancestry for a variety of affective reasons. At the high school level, adolescents are simultaneously deeply interested in themselves as individuals while also wondering where they fit in the broader world; this project marries those two interests and ties it to my above stated vision of social studies while providing students a meaningful opportunity to make a personal connection with a chapter of U.S. history. As they learn more about the era in which their ancestors arrived in America, students will learn of the hardships their families encountered upon their arrival, which as a general rule stemmed from discrimination by the established population who had already settled in this country.
By connecting students to the personal experiences of their immigrant ancestors, it is my hope that this WebQuest will allow students to place themselves in the shoes of any immigrant group, and recognize that ethical behavior dictates that we should treat our contemporary and future societal newcomers with open-minded respect. A responsible, thoughtful attitude such as this is but one of the many aspects of social justice that I hope I will be able to encourage students to embrace, thereby enabling them to positively impact society in 2025 and beyond.
The completion of this WebQuest as an end-of-the-year project will provide an excellent opportunity to have a class discussion about one of the broad themes we will have covered in our study of American history—the sense of “otherness” that has been applied to various immigrant groups on the basis of skin color. I foresee an illuminating session about the bogus “science” of eugenics that was tragically popular a century ago and how it spawned restrictive government policies and corresponding societal attitudes towards specific ethnic groups had real consequences for real people. This could broaden into a discussion about how modern science has proven that there is no genetic basis for racial classifications, and that as future adults, the students hold the key in the attitudes they project as to whether humanity will persevere and triumph over these discredited divisions.
If they are able to broaden their thinking in this fashion as a result of completing this WebQuest, I feel students can be expected to take their understanding of race, ethnicity, and nationality one step further to reflect on how it impacts the world. As its future leaders, I hope they will come to understand the value that exists in viewing the world not as a collection of competing nations but as one human family. Such a seismic shift would go a long way towards ameliorating our global struggles with war, poverty, and disease—an ideal that could prove very intriguing to often remarkably altruistic teens. Admittedly, it is a lofty goal that today looks far from being realized, but I remain hopeful that it is within our power our as teachers to shape the leaders who could create such a world; actually doing so would be the greatest legacy that Claire, Tim, and their generation could possibly deliver.
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