Teaching Contemporary Russia and Europe at the Secondary Level in the United States
- Young Americans grow up an ocean away from Europe, and most never leave their native land. They do not have the natural understanding for different cultures that comes from geographical proximity, and in particular they know little about the plight of Russia today or such European concerns as the arrival of the Euro or the dangerous conflagrations in the Balkan. In our rapidly globalizing society it is an important responsibility of teachers to break into this ignorance. I have designed and taught at the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA, a prototypical course, unique in the world, in which a full year in secondary school is devoted to the history of Russia and Europe since the Second World War. The course opens with a retrospective study of Marxism-Leninism, Stalin and the Second World War. Then chronological and thematic studies of the history of the area since 1945, on the one hand, is balanced by almost daily analysis of international current events on the other hand.Young Americans grow up an ocean away from Europe, and most never leave their native land. They do not have the natural understanding for different cultures that comes from geographical proximity, and in particular they know little about the plight of Russia today or such European concerns as the arrival of the Euro or the dangerous conflagrations in the Balkan. In our rapidly globalizing society it is an important responsibility of teachers to break into this ignorance. I have designed and taught at the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA, a prototypical course, unique in the world, in which a full year in secondary school is devoted to the history of Russia and Europe since the Second World War. The course opens with a retrospective study of Marxism-Leninism, Stalin and the Second World War. Then chronological and thematic studies of the history of the area since 1945, on the one hand, is balanced by almost daily analysis of international current events on the other hand. College-level textbooks, newspapers, professional journals, many videotapes and discussions with visiting experts round out the course. This paper concludes with a detailed description of those instructional materials that have proved the most beneficial and successful.…
