The Past, Present, and Future
Hello, My name is Ashley Dorlack and welcome to my blog! I am currently a junior at Marquette University, where I am pursuing a double major in Elementary Education and History, and I have been loving every second of it.
Teaching has been one of my aspirations for as long as I can remember, so I feel grateful each and every day for being able to live my dream! Education is such a wonderful privilege that everyone has the opportunity to partake in, but unfortunately schooling, among many other aspects of life, is not an equal opportunity for all. Socioeconomic class, race, and ethnicity have an effect on what kind of education is received and how certain lessons are received by students. Take history for example; if I were teaching a lesson on the Revolutionary War and only used sources from white, influential males in the new world, I would be teaching a very one-sided, un-relatable lesson that paints the United States and never doing any wrong! Multiple perspectives are so crucial in social studies especially as it is important for all students to relate to lessons. I also think it is important to teach the truth and teach for social justice, no matter the issue. For example, I remember learning in my suburban, mainly Caucasian school when I was younger that Christopher Columbus discovered America and I was taught that what he did was right, since he was “civilizing the uncivilized.” What is commonly known as the white-man’s burden was drilled into my head for as long as I can remember, and I think that is so wrong on so many levels!
Being that History is my second major, I feel that it is my responsibility and duty to my students to teach them relatable, meaningful content that they can become passionate about from an early age. It is my job to of course teach the children about pivotal events in history that lead us to where we are today, but it is so much more than that! It is my job to show them the injustices of the world, to show them the difference that they can make in society through knowing the past, to show them multiple sides of each story, to show them how democracy works in the classroom and the real world in order to prepare them for the future and educate them on our past wrongdoings in hopes for change in the future. After all, History is the past, present and future and our children learn about the past in the present in hopes for a brighter future.
