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In July 2004, the New York State Education
Department convened a Global History and Geography
Advisory Committee to identify the components that
should be incorporated into the Global History and
Geography Online Resource. The committee strongly
emphasized the importance of providing local school
districts with a firm grounding in current world
history scholarship. To quote Marshall G.S. Hodgson:
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The attempt to study…(world) history is plagued with
many problems, but we can set aside at least some
that have supposed to plague a universal history. We
need not be deterred, of course, by the sheer
quantity of past events in so wide an area. We are
not concerned, after all, with each of the events
that have happened in each nation, but only with
those which have involved major segments of mankind,
and so set a framework to all our historical
experience. Those, while very important, can be
presumed to be relatively few. For purposes of
perspective (these need not be the only purposes of
a world history), but surely they are important... |
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The authors identified in this component have written
important works in world history. More importantly, all of
these works
contain hundreds of anecdotes and stories that
Global History and Geography teachers can use in
their classes. To put it simply, these are the writers who
have captured the big picture of world history.
Closely tied to world history scholarship is the
development of essential questions.
Essential questions
emphasize the fundamental big ideas of teaching
and learning Global History and Geography.
Prominent educators
including Heidi Hayes-Jacob, Jay McTighe, and Grant
Wiggins have provided definitions and examples of
essential questions, which have
implications for curriculum developers, teachers,
and students.
For the purpose of this Global History and Geography
Online Resource, essential questions reflect:
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the New York State
Learning Standards for Social
Studies |
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themes and concepts
that recur across the Global
History and Geography core curriculum |
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content/skill connections and linkages
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