Photographer: Ella Chuppe
Matthew Woodward teaches the scholars in the Historical Analysis focus area to do more than just view the perspectives of historical figures this year. Instead, he encourages them to discuss history from a modern, ordinary lens in order to fulfill the GSP objective of expanding scholars’ mindsets.
Woodward utilizes the novel Hidden America to achieve this objective, with each chapter of the book focusing on a different historical event from a unique perspective to reveal a hidden modern impact. The novel is written by journalist Jeanne Marie Laskas who puts an emphasis on the importance of the “forgotten working class” in her historical analysis.
“I had read this book before, and I was like, gosh, that’s a really cool concept of looking at history through an ordinary lens,” Woodward says. “[It’s important to be] looking at the people we don’t hear about often, especially because I think the scholars in their APUSH or their AP World classes, they hear from the perspectives we know about.”
In a particular class in Woodward’s focus area, scholars discussed the impact of the New Deal on modern farmers in the recent decades. The discussion brought upon overarching themes of perseverance through hardship, their education, and what these reveal about the common idea of the American dream.
Based on their assigned chapter of Hidden America, scholars described the living conditions of migrant farmers in the 2010s as poor, and stated that the history of immigration legislature contributes to a negative dynamic today.
Woodward says one of the key objectives for the course is for scholars to be able to gather their own definitions of the American dream.
The New Deal promoted the long term effects of the American dream by “helping people through jobs, which connects to the idea of working,” according to one particular scholar in the discussion.
Photographer: Ella Chuppe
In order to identify examples of the American dream and help scholars in their definitions, Woodward tasked scholars with creating a presentation about one key historical figure who they felt represented it. Scholars’ selections of the American dream ranged from Lindy Barnes and Alexander Knyshev’s choice of Indira Gandhi because she “advocated for social reform and wanted to create a better environment” to Noah Weisenberger’s selection of Jackie Robinson because he “broke the color barrier in baseball.” Other selections included Quenton Mobley and Will Pratt’s selection of Muhammad Ali, Marc-Andrew Relich’s selection of Michael Jackson, and even Lucas Driskell and Marshall Anstatett’s selection of Spiderman. These figures all represented values that scholars found essential to the American dream, and their variety reveals that scholars are all gaining a unique perspective of historical analysis from their own ordinary lens.
This is Woodward’s first year as a focus area instructor since the beginning of his journey with GSP as a scholar in 2016. He said that his perspective changed after returning to the program, “As a scholar, I was just like, oh, this is fun. I’m enjoying it. Like there’s all these opportunities for me. I’m learning so much. And then coming back to work for the program, I’m like, oh there’s a lot of people and a lot of work that goes into making this what it is. And so I appreciate it.”
Even after being in the program for years, Woodward still recognizes its profound impact on everyone involved, “I get to see year after year, even though every year is different, the outcome is still pretty much the same. But these people walk away knowing so much more and having a community that they know they can always come back to. I describe it as GSP magic.”
In his first year as a focus area instructor and second year as a general studies teacher, Woodward is implementing the GSP magic in his own classroom, looking to use ordinary perspectives to give scholars a unique perspective of their own.
Want more? Click below to read another!
Leave a Reply