Anthropology and its role in teaching history: A model world history curriculum reform

Abstract

This study addresses the importance of committing to redesigning how world history is taught at the high school level. Presented is a model for curriculum reform that introduces an approach to teaching revolving around a thematic structure. The purpose of this redesigned thematic curriculum was to introduce an alternative approach to teaching that proceeded from a "critical perspective"--that is, one in which students did not so much learn discrete bits of knowledge but rather an orientation toward learning and thinking about history and its application to their lives. The means by which this was done was by teaching world history from an anthropological perspective. A perspective that made archaeological data more relevant in learning about the past. The study presents how such a model was created through its pilot application in a high school world history classroom. It is through the experimental application of the curriculum ideas in the high school classroom that I was able to determine the effectiveness of this curriculum by following how easily it could be used and how well students responded to it. Therefore, followed in the study was the evolution of the curriculum model's development as it was used in the pilot classroom. Thus, I was able to determine the extent of its success as a tool for teaching critically and for teaching from an anthropological perspective.