November 1, 2016
HIED participates in seminar with Peruvian students
On Tuesday, October 18, twenty-five History Education BS and MAT students participated in a distance seminar with ten Peruvian history students from Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola (USIL) in Lima, Peru. The seminar, coordinated by Dr. Jami Leibowitz (Interim Director, Global Academic Initiatives and Director, Global Understanding) and facilitated by Dr. Charlotte West (History professor, USIL) and Dr. Allen Guidry (Associate professor, History Education – ECU), engaged participating students in a seminar that explored questions related to American Exceptionalism in the teaching of US History, the role and importance of sourcing in the study and teaching of history, the issues around identifying “heroes and villains” in teaching history, and the recent ECU marching band debate. Prior to the seminar, held in one of ECU’s Global Classrooms, Dr. West cited her reason for initiating the course connection between ECU and USIL, “I’m trying to get them to think about how they have been taught history and recognize the importance of thinking critically about textbooks and sources.”
Students from both programs were excited about the opportunity to engage in an academic dialogue with international colleagues. ECU HIED student Eric Walls commented, “Getting even a small perspective from people who are not so emotionally, socially, and politically connected to the subject allows us as Americans to be able to step outside of our collective bubble, if only for a short while, and see things from a completely different point of view. This can only help us as students and as future teachers to understand our own bias a little better.” USIL student Camila Cordero echoed this value of varied perspective, “Connecting with future teachers of history in a USA college was insightful in many ways. It was interesting to hear their points of view on different issues because they were so diverse. They probably have had very different life experiences than us so it was cool to hear their perspectives and I hope that we were able to do the same for the students and professors that participated.” ECU HIED student Rebekkah Scott noted, “This seminar was an excellent exercise in experiencing the benefits of diversity and cultural understanding. Not only did we have an incredibly deep, thought-provoking understanding, but we also got to laugh together and genuinely enjoy discussing amongst ourselves about issues both in teaching and in how the Constitution has been implicated in current events both on our campus and beyond.”
One of the discussion threads on the seminar went beyond the teaching of history in classrooms to current events on ECU’s campus. ECU students shared their varied perspectives on the issue prompting USIL student Micaela Zegarra to comment, “I was also able to see how they [ECU students] disagreed in the same issue, and how they managed to be respectful with each other. It was interesting to listen to their different positions on the same topic.” Following the seminar Dr. Guidry noted, “It was refreshing to see students from two separate parts of the globe discussing and coming to some common understandings about how we teach and learn about the past.”
Camila Cordero (USIL) summed up the thoughts of many participants when she noted, “The experience was awesome and I think we should do this more often with focuses on other issues.”
Photos from the retreat can be viewed by following the link below:
https://goo.gl/photos/4iqgM9Cyh9WVzf9RA
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