Tips for Teaching Local History

This blog will be a great resource for those who are looking to teach local history to students. The information provided can be differentiated to any grade level. In this project, I have researched, evaluated and gathered information on the local history of my hometown, Bay Ridge Brooklyn. In doing this, I was able to identify three tools that greatly increased my knowledge of the relatively small neighborhood of Bay Ridge. 

It is very important that students have the opportunity to explore and understand the local history of the area they live in or where they go to school in. So often social studies and history teachers are expected to educate their students on global events, or events that happened in the United States, with little emphasis on what was occurring in their local communities. For students, history and social studies classes can contain such abstract and foreign ideas. Student often question what the purpose of learning these concepts is, and how it can relate to them in their present day lives. By having a unit, or lessons on local history built into curriculums, students can relate to the concepts they are learning in their classes on a more personal level. According to academic article, Teaching local history using social studies models for Turkish middle school students

"It has been noticed by the opinion of the students about local history teaching with models, that most students do not show interest nor are they aware of the historical places in the region in which they live. In addition, it can be said that the students gain an awareness of the historical monuments and they have an increased interest in the history lesson." 

In seeing how the students positively responded to the information about local history, they are able to become more engaged and aware of the historical sites surrounding them. For small towns, these sites might be hidden gems that are not openly known or recognized. For neighborhoods like Bay Ridge, Bay Ridge is connected to one of, if not, the best known city in the world. There have been so many historical events that have taken place within New York City, as well as the borough of Brooklyn. It is a disservice to the students of Bay Ridge to ignore the rich history that our neighborhood has. For areas that are smaller and region, it is worthwhile to extend the borders of geographic locations, and look into the local histories of larger neighboring cities, or even the states!

Learning local history will also inspire more local and civic engagement as when students become aware of the significance of their neighborhood, their pride in their hometown will grow. This can lead to students becoming active participants in local government, or just helping to preserve the history of their neighborhood by continuing to learn and share stories from the past. Local history is a vital resource that is often forgotten in our social studies and history curriculums, and it deserves a chance to be taught to students.

Below are some tips and tools that I have utilized and identified while working on this project.

1. Utilize the locals! 

There are many local historians or groups in neighborhoods that hold gems of information that is not published in easily accessible books or online pages. These groups can offer information or published articles that can provide great insights to historical events, prominent people, and even have access to interesting photographs and artifacts. For my neighborhood in particular, the Bay Ridge Historical Society, and websites such as Hey Ridge, offered a lot of incredible articles and details about my local history. I would also suggest using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to see local community historical groups, as some people share their own artifacts and stories there as well. 

2. Remember our elders!

There are many elderly people who grew up in the neighborhood, and can talk about how their home has changed throughout the years. This is a great resource for students, as they can incorporate their families into their assignments. Another great option would be to collaborate with local elderly facilities, and help build bridges between the younger and older members of our community. In conducting interviews with elderly members of the community, the students can compare and contrast what life was like in the past to the present, and are also able to gain informal information. A textbook won't be able to share where the local hangout spot was for teens in the 1950s! 

3. Virtual Tours

As we are still in the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to conduct walking tours of local points of significance. A fun way to get students involved would be to create virtual tours! For now Google virtual tours is still operational, and it is a seamless way of creating a virtual tour! Students can access this site and create tours of their neighborhoods, or the places that their family comes from, or even of historical places. An alternative to Google Virtual Tours would be MyMaps powered by Google, which allows for uses to create their own maps with their own points of interest. This is a great tool for students to have a ‘hands-on’ and interactive aspect to learning about local history! I will hopefully be able to update this with other suggestions of alternative virtual tour creator websites. 

Overall, there are multiple tools that can be used to learning, sharing, and eventually teaching local history to students. I highlighted some of the ones that stood out to me as I worked on this project. Hopefully these tips and tools will be beneficial to you! 

Sources for this article:

Oguzhan , Karadeniz. “Teaching Local History Using Social Studies Models for Turkish Middle School Students .” Educational Research and Reviews, 1284-1292, 10, no. 8 (April 11, 2015): 1284–92. https://doi.org/10.5897/ERR2015.2222 .