HDD Checkpoint #1
Problem Definition
Name: Alexi Per: 4
Projects can be:
An idea you have of something amazing to do: “I want to…”
A solution or exploration of a problem in the world: “I wish…”
A way to help or fulfill someone else’s need/problem: “They need a…”
Focus your mind onto your best project idea by finishing one of the prompts above in a complete sentence.
I wish that people had a better connection to history and the events and people within it.
Who is the “user group”, “client”, or “intended audience” for this project? Be purposeful in selecting this: sometimes being incredibly specific is necessary, and sometimes being super general and vague is necessary.
I specifically want to focus on those who are not already invested in history or those who are only interested in the large events of history. It can be anyone of any age or knowledge level.
What is the actual problem that you are tackling?
The lack of grounding and humanization and history education and how that has led to a loss of connection to ancestors, the past and for some our cultures. I want to bring back a connection to culture, ancestors and history as a whole. As well as humanizing events and people in the past. Allowing a better connection to our history so we don’t repeat past mistakes, and to better connect people to one another by understanding the hurts of the past and hopefully leading them to dismantle current systems that are upheld by a twisted past.
The Big Goal: Design something that…
Demonstrates your ability to innovate, creatively problem solve, and grow.
How does your project idea meet the requirements above? How is this project idea a good match for you?
I feel like there are lots of different things I could do to solve this issue so it doesn’t stay stagnant with one idea. In fact I’ve already gone through a long developmental process to even get to this final issue in the first place. I started with thinking about collecting a historical record about covid, to looking at storytelling, to finally ending up here with hopefully combining first hand accounts of history with good storytelling elements to in some way solve this issue. But that idea could evolve and change into a different way to solve this issue.
Adds value to the world.
How does your project idea add value to the world? List statistical, factual evidence that your idea is actually NEEDED in today’s reality. Each item on the list must be linked to where you found that item on the internet. A minimum of 5 pieces of evidence are required.
Valerie Strauss April 27, 2020
Survey results of what Americans know about their country’s own history have always been depressing. For example, a statistically representative national Gallup Survey in 2003 found 53 percent of Americans did not know that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States are called the Bill of Rights, 33 percent did not know who delivered the Gettysburg Address and 42 percent didn’t know the title of the national anthem.
Contrary to stereotype, many of the books are compelling, even exciting. Historians challenge and revise one another not because they carry hidden “opinions” and “biases,” as students are taught, but because they learn new things from new evidence or from revisiting familiar evidence with new questions. Little of this exciting work reaches high school students. Freshmen in college, even those coming from excellent secondary schools, often have no idea that historians discover new knowledge every day.
https://archives.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/why_history_matters.html Penelope J. Corfield,
Historians are often asked: what is the use or relevance of studying History (the capital letter signalling the academic field of study)? Why on earth does it matter what happened long ago? The answer is that History is inescapable. It studies the past and the legacies of the past in the present. Far from being a 'dead' subject, it connects things through time and encourages its students to take a long view of such connections. All people and peoples are living histories. To take a few obvious examples: communities speak languages that are inherited from the past. They live in societies with complex cultures, traditions and religions that have not been created on the spur of the moment. People use technologies that they have not themselves invented. And each individual is born with a personal variant of an inherited genetic template, known as the genome, which has evolved during the entire life-span of the human species. So understanding the linkages between past and present is absolutely basic for a good understanding of the condition of being human. That, in a nutshell, is why History matters. It is not just 'useful', it is essential.
The study of the past is essential for 'rooting' people in time. And why should that matter? The answer is that people who feel themselves to be rootless live rootless lives, often causing a lot of damage to themselves and others in the process. Indeed, at the most extreme end of the out-of-history spectrum, those individuals with the distressing experience of complete memory loss cannot manage on their own at all. In fact, all people have a full historical context. But some, generally for reasons that are no fault of their own, grow up with a weak or troubled sense of their own placing, whether within their families or within the wider world. They lack a sense of roots. For others, by contrast, the inherited legacy may even be too powerful and outright oppressive.
https://www.harvardbusiness.org/what-makes-storytelling-so-effective-for-learning/#:~:text=Telling%20stories%20is%20one%20of,influence%2C%20teach%2C%20and%20inspire.&text=For%20starters%2C%20storytelling%20forges%20connections,and%20values%20that%20unite%20people. Vanessa Boris, December 20, 2017
storytelling forges connections among people, and between people and ideas. Stories convey the culture, history, and values that unite people. When it comes to our countries, our communities, and our families, we understand intuitively that the stories we hold in common are an important part of the ties that bind.
Good stories do more than create a sense of connection. They build familiarity and trust, and allow the listener to enter the story where they are, making them more open to learning. Good stories can contain multiple meanings so they’re surprisingly economical in conveying complex ideas in graspable ways. And stories are more engaging than a dry recitation of data points or a discussion of abstract ideas.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-schools-teach-womens-history-180971447/ Anna White, March 2019
According to Smithsonian’s calculations, 737 specific historical figures—559 men and 178 women, or approximately 1 woman for every 3 men—are mentioned in the standards in place as of 2017. Aside from the individuals explicitly named, many references to women feel like an afterthought, grouped in with other minorities as they are in the Florida standard for high school social studies, which prompts educators to teach their classes about significant inventors of the Industrial Revolution, “including an African American or a woman.”
The standards also fail to reflect the racial demographic of the children they are intended to educate. In 2014, 54 percent of U.S. adolescents were white, and this is estimated to drop to 40 percent by 2050 as the U.S. becomes increasingly multiracial. The demographic of women mentioned in the standards, however, is still 62 percent white, and only one woman of Asian or Pacific Islander descent, Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, is named at all. African-American women comprise 25 percent of those named, including Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, who are three of the top five most-often cited figures named in the standards
“All history projects require choices,” write the study’s authors. “Women often don’t make the cut.”
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/mar/29/history-school-crisis-disconnected-events Niall Ferguson
25% of all schools no longer teach history as a discrete subject in year 7
30% of comprehensives spend less than one hour a week on history in the years up to age 13
More GCSE candidates took design and technology than history last year
More A-level candidates took psychology.
It is a paradox indeed. History has never been more popular outside schools than it is in Britain today. Yet history has never been so unpopular in British schools.
Even more disturbing is the evidence of widespread historical ignorance among school-leavers. A recent survey of first-year undergraduates reading history at a reputable UK university found that: 66% did not know who was monarch at time of the Armada; 69% did not know the location of the Boer war; 84% did not know who commanded British forces at Waterloo (a third thought it was Nelson); and 89% could not name a single 19th-century British prime minister.
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