Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars: America Between the Wars

Each summer the Gilder Lehrman Institute holds seminars for public, parochial and independent school teachers "designed to strengthen educators' commitment to high quality history teaching." More than 6,000 teachers have participated in the program through the years. In the summer of 2006 600 participants from 49 states and 6 foreign countries took part. HNN asked participants to write up their reflections, which we will be publishing over the coming months.

Many Americans recognize the “Migrant Mother” photograph from Dorothea Lange. In this iconic picture of the Great Depression, a woman with a deeply lined face propped on her hand gazes forlornly away from the camera as she cradles a baby in one arm and another two children bury their heads on her shoulders. Most people who know this photograph probably first saw it in a history class when learning about the harshness of this era, and as a history teacher I certainly continue to introduce my own students to this image each year as a way to discuss the Great Depression’s economic hardship. However, as I participated this past summer in the Gilder Lehrman Institute seminar “America Between the Wars,” I began to look at this photo in new ways and gained fresh understanding of how, through this photo, I could teach other themes such as gender roles and artistic freedom during the Depression to my students. How we studied this one particular photo at various points during our week of study exemplifies why I believe the Gilder Lehrman program provides such value to history teachers. Not only did I learn significantly more about the history between the two World Wars, but I also came away from the seminar with new teaching ideas and connections with other teachers.

Above all, the seminar participants benefited from the knowledge and teaching experience of our two professors, Alan Brinkley of Columbia University and Michael Flamm of Ohio Wesleyan University. Although Prof. Brinkley had to balance his time with our seminar with his duties as the Provost of Columbia, each morning he lectured for us on a new theme about this era. Often in discussions with the other seminar participants after Prof. Brinkley’s lectures, we marveled at his ability to provide us with new ways to think about this history. So often we history teachers believe that we already possess a strong understanding of our subject, but Prof. Brinkley helped each of us reconsider and deepen our knowledge, thus demonstrating the kind of teaching each of us would like to have in our own classrooms. Prof. Flamm also had this ability to teach the ideas in depth, and he then also pushed us beyond this. As a former high school teacher himself, he understood that simply knowing the history is insufficient if a teacher cannot also convey its excitement and complexity to his or her students. Thus, with Prof. Flamm we always discussed teaching ideas as well as historical themes. Overall, our two professors certainly developed a challenging seminar both historically and pedagogically, and I believe that all of the participants appreciated this method.

Not only did our two professors develop a thoughtful and useful approach to the course, but the resources we used during the course also benefited us. Before the seminar, we read several interesting books and articles, which provided a good background for the seminar itself and also became the basis of our class discussions. Yet even more relevant to the seminar themes and my own teaching in the future were the field trips and the visual aids during the seminar. Because we were in New York City, we were able to take advantage of the neighborhoods themselves to inform our understanding of the history. After our discussion of the Harlem Renaissance in class, we went on an architectural tour of Harlem itself. Then, once we had learned more about immigration and poverty, we explored the Lower East Side and the Tenement Museum followed by a delicious dinner at Katz’s Delicatessen. These two outings allowed us to connect the lectures to the actual experiences of the people and times we were studying, and they also reinforced for me how important it is to develop these kinds of trips for my own students at home in order for them to see the reality of history outside of their books. Both professors also brought this message to life as well in their own lectures when they used an astounding array of photographs, maps, cartoons, and other visual aids. Prof. Flamm was even generous to offer to burn CDs with all of his images for members of the class, a resource of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of teaching tools. This alone will be invaluable to me in my classroom, while the other readings and field trips will also inform my teaching.

Finally, the seminar offered one last invaluable benefit, the time and experience of other teachers. Coming from across the United States and teaching many different grades, all of us could take the time to discover ways to enhance our pedagogical practices. Not only could we learn from each other through the class discussions and more informal conversations at all times during the week, but we also produced among ourselves a great classroom resource. During the week, each participant chose two brief primary sources connected to the era and then wrote an introduction and a series of questions for the documents. John McNamara, our coordinator from the Gilder Lehrman Institute, then bound all of the documents together and presented each of us with a copy to bring home with us. Thus, we came away from the seminar with all of the sources from Prof. Flamm, as well as lessons from each other ready to bring into our classrooms.

Throughout my years as a teacher, I have encountered two distinct problems with professional development, both of which the “America Between the Wars” seminar solved. The first problem has been encountering too much content in a class without much thought about the practical uses of the ideas for children, and the second problem has been too many teaching techniques with no thought of their connection to any content. In this seminar, not only did I learn how to reconsider ideas from this era, but I also gained new insight about how to teach it. It benefits both me and my students, and that is the real purpose of professional development.