Teaching World Wars Index / Teachers' Index
Preface
World War raises its ugly head in our
studies two or three times over the course of our twelve years of study in public schools
in the state of Georgia and Japan. In Georgia it comes up once in the in the fifth grade
for about eight class hours, and again in the ninth grade for about the same amount of
class time. In Japan, it comes up in the sixth grade and again in the ninth grade for
roughly the same total hours as in Georgia. What kind of impressions do students receive
from these episodes studying death and destruction? I discussed this question with my
wife, a Japanese citizen and sixth grade teacher, and we concluded that for most Japanese
students: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the B29 bomber, Hitler, and Pearl Harbor are the main
memories. Judging from my own experience as an American student, I'd have to say that
Pearl Harbor, Hitler, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima made the strongest impressions. Aside
from these events, important considerations such as the causes of the war, or that the
First and Second World Wars are related phenomena, made little impression in our
experience. After reviewing the curriculum objectives and teaching materials recommended
by teachers in Japan and the U.S.A., it becomes more obvious that our limited impressions
of the World Wars show, in part, that we tend to remember events of the World War as
external calamities to our own national history. In the fifth and ninth grades, the World
Wars, come up in the near the second half of a year of intensive national history. World
history is not taught in any form until after the fifth grade, and even then it is only a
survey of world geography and cultures before national history resumes in the ninth grade.
It is often not until college, that students have any chance to study history
thematically. Without formal studies in world history it is difficult, if not impossible,
to consider deeply the themes and challenges common to various nations in the world
that arguably made war inevitable, and assigns every nation at least some of the
responsibility for the shared calamities of the First and Second World Wars.
To better understand trends in our respective curriculums and teaching methods in
Japan and Georgia; and explore the prospects for developing a thematic global context for
our future studies, I conducted a survey of primary, secondary, and college teachers in
Japan and the U.S. 1 From the responses, and
follow-up research into materials and methods, I merged and organized the teaching
objectives and materials in both countries into a guide. I used Georgia's Quality Core
Curriculum (QCC) objectives as a base, because they were the most comprehensive and
detailed and allowed for comparative approaches to themes related to the world wars. The
guide draws parallels between the national histories of the U.S. and Japan beginning with
their respective Civil War period during the Second Industrial Revolution; then it traces
other common themes like nationalism, militarism, and imperialism, through the First and
Second World War to show that some of the causes of the World Wars were intrinsic to these
nations and others during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From a
two-dimensional view of the U.S. and Japan across the wars, it is more obvious than
studying from a one dimensional national history, that our respective national identities
have evolved greatly in a hundred years. Making this realization reminds one to be careful
using the lens of the present to judge actions fifty or a hundred years ago, across
cultures and within. One would have to conduct an extended study into the lasting
impressions on students using this curriculum, but from a two dimensional context, the
causes of the World Wars become at least as impressive as the events.
The guide, "Modern National History and the World Wars: A Trans-National
Approach for the Fifth and Ninth Grades," covers nine themes and corresponding
questions in chronological order for use in the fifth and ninth grade classes using
Georgia's QCC curriculum objective standards. Using the guide in Japanese classes is would
be as easy, but there are enough content correlations to make the guide useful during
portions of the school year in the sixth and ninth grades when studies of modern national
history generally occur. The guides have yet to be test-run, so construction and
reconstruction will be continuing for years to come. I look forward to collaborations with
anyone interested!
Teaching World Wars Index / Teachers' Index
Upper Primary Grades 5 and 6
here at worldclass.net/toolbox/worldwar/upprim/index.htm.
Sixth Grade: After an intensive study of national history in the fifth grade, the QCC objectives for sixth and seventh grade turn to a broad field of Geography and World Cultures. The objectives are very general and the course is left up to teachers' choice of textbooks and supplementary materials to give the students an introduction to the regions and cultures of the world, beginning with the Americas, Europe, and Oceania, and then moving on to the seventh grade to Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Some teachers reverse the order of the presentation and begin the sixth grade with Africa. The QCC guide recommends introducing the cultures (languages, ethnic origins, music, and art) and then build on the themes taught in the fifth grade to compare reactions to the challenges of Industrialization, Nationalism, Imperialism, and Militarism in the world. Concurrent exchange projects with students in other countries in the regions under study should be utilized as well. In Japan, sixth graders study national history in the context of world history, in much the same way Georgia students do in the fifth grade, so there are possibilities for exchanges of student reflections and projects. The World Jam section of the Students' Index at worldclass.net/sindex.html, or the CyberSchools project at cyberschools.net/global-ss/overview.htm would be good places to begin linking-up for exchange projects and data-bases.
World War books recommended
include:
a. The Cay, by Theodore Taylor (1968). This short novel is a story
of escape from a Dutch island in the Caribbean during the Second World War. It reflects
well the view of the races during the war.
See an eight lesson unit titled "Examining Bias in a Global Perspective: from
newspaper articles, a novel (The Cay, by Theodore Taylor), to our own
stories," here at
worldclass.net/toolbox/worldwar/mdscl/firstperiod.htm.
b. Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James
D.Houston (Bantam Doubleday: 1973). This 203 page novel tells the story of
Japanese-American internment from an adolescent Japanese-American girl's perspective.
c. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, by Eleanor Coerr
(Doubleday, 1977) This touching 62 page story is about the long-term effects of the
bombing of Hiroshima. In Georgia, the theme of Hiroshima does not come up in the QCC
objectives anywhere, but the story content can be applicable as representing Japanese
culture after the Second World War.
Lower Secondary Grades 7, 8, and 9
Seventh grade: Seventh grade is the second half of the Geography and World Cultures study which began in the sixth grade with the Americas, Europe, and Oceania, and continues with Asia, the Middle East, and Africa in the same vein by introducing the cultures of each region (the languages, art, music, and literature). The studies follow-up with consideration of how peoples in these regions faced the challenges of Industrialization, Nationalism, Imperialism, and Militarism, introduced in the fifth grade. In Japan, seventh grade social studies classes study world geography, so there is some potential for exchange projects, but the best time to work them is in the sixth grade, the last year of primary school.
Eighth grade: The eighth grade is wholly devoted to state history in Georgia. In Japan, students study state and national history, so there is a possibility of exchanging impressions of the effects of war in their state or region, a key objective in both countries curriculum.
Ninth grade: Quality Core Curriculum objectives for national and world history at the fifth grade level look remarkably similar to the upper secondary grades' objectives which are combined for grades 9-12. Chances are, students are going to get their world history core in the first or second year of high school before electives become an option. The Upper Secondary version of the objectives and commentary (in maroon colored text) follow the fifth grade objectives (in black) and commentary (in blue). Follow the content threads here at worldclass.net/toolbox/worldwar/upprim/index.
World War books recommended
include:
a. All Quiet On the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
(Ballantine Books: 1982). This fast-paced, poetic, 1929 classic, once banned in Germany,
is truly a great book on a soldier's life and his friends during the First World War.
Discuss the book in class and get the students to propose alternate endings for the story.
b. Any of the books listed in the previous section for the upper primary
grades 5 and 6 would be appropriate too.
World War videos recommended
include:
a. The Great War, an eight hour documentary series by PBS available
through pbs.org/greatwar. Specific connections to the Quality Core Curriculum objectives
are included in the commentary of the standards guide here
at worldclass.net/toolbox/worldwar/upprim.
Upper Secondary Grades 10, 11, and 12
World War books recommended
include:
a. The DollMaker, by Harriette Arnow (Avon Books: 1954). This book was
recommended by a teacher teaching the Second World War. It reflects well, too, the social
crisis many people faced in the migration from the farm to the city to work in factories
during the war. This book documents a family moving from the Appalachian mountains to
Detroit.
b. Hiroshima, by John Hersey (Vintage Books: 1946). Many upper
secondary school teachers use this book in their units on the Second World War. John
Hersey document the lives of five people who survived the bomb and lived to lead fruitful
lives decades later. Their lives contrast sharply with the times that followed, though,
and the book's captivating coverage of their lives makes it journalism masterpiece. I
listened to the Edward Asner read audio version of the book and considered it long-winded
compared to the book itself.
World War Videos Recommended:
a. The Great War, the PBS eight hour documentary on the First World War
with an extensive teaching guide. Discussion of the biases shortcomings of the series and
debates with the documentary could form a focus of the class. How would they have done it
differently to place less of the blame on Germany?
b. Casablanca, the Humphrey Bogart classic for class discussion.
Special Project Recommended:
Comparative Oral History of the Second World War using Japanese and American sources in
English. I have only been able to scan through these books so far, but the prospects look
good:
a. Japan At War: An Oral History, by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore
F. Cook (The New Press: 1992)
b. "The Good War": An Oral History of World War II, by
Studs Terkel
(The New Press: 1984)
College Level
Papers and Presentations:
a."Twentieth Century Currents: 'Race' and 'Nation' Across
the World Wars" is a two part paper I prepared for an independent study course
for my teacher certification program at North Georgia College and State University.
The first part, 'Race' focuses especially on a collection of Second
World War magazine illustrations in Japan and America John W. Dower's War Without
Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (Pantheon: 1986). I started to develop the
presentation into a full-fledged paper and have added some new sources and commentary to
the original presentation.
The second part, 'Nation,' is related to the first part because national
identities in most industrialized nations through the First and Second World Wars were
closely tied to the still popular Social Darwinian pseudo-science of the late nineteenth
century. This paper attempts to trace the developments in our conception of nation
by reviewing two prominent books in the field: 1) Nations and Nationalism: Programme,
Myth, Reality (Cambridge: 1990), by Eric Hobsbawm, and Nationalism and Modernism
(Routledge: 1998), by Anthony D. Smith. To test their different views of the nation
and nationalism, I apply their theories to consider the Serbia/Kosova crisis, and
to homefront America during the First World War as researched in the chapter "The War
for the American Mind," in David M. Kennedy's Over Here: The First World War and
American Society (Oxford: 1980).
Part One: 'Race'
Part Two: 'Nation'
Book Reviews
Accidental Journey: A Cambridge Internee's Memoir of World War II, by Mark Lynton
(The Overlook Press: 1995) ->
War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, by John W. Dower (Pantheon:
1986) ->
Endnotes
In the English language,
I used three list-serves for posting projects, general postings for teachers K-12, and
surveys using a service provided by St. Olaf College in Minnesota. The submission
guidelines are at http://www.stolaf.edu/network/iecc/.
I also posed on the H-Humanities list-serves for High School History and Social Studies
Teachers (H-HIGH-S) at http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~highs/
and College History teachers (H-TEACH) at http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~teach/
. Finally, during March and April, I participated in a forum on teaching the Second World
War for teachers at all levels sponsored by historymatters.com the list serve is still
functional at WORLDWARIIFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERVE.CUNY.EDU.
In the Japanese language, I posted requests on a multi-disciplinary social sciences
list-serve called SOUGAKU at sougaku@salon.edu.mie-u.ac.jp
directed by the University of Mie Prefecture; on a Social Studies teachers list-serve
called SHAKAI at shakai@iwai-h.ed.jp/iwai.ibaraki.jp.
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