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Pre-Collegiate Teachers and Gary Nash


Gloria Sesso
Patchogue-Medford Schools, New York

I MET GARY NASH AT UCLA on July 13, 1992, when we began the work of creating the National Standards in History. Professor Nash was the leader in the development of the United States History Standards. In creating the Standards, we were to focus on Historical Thinking. We needed to organize the historical understandings, "what students should know," based on a series of questions divided by five categories:

  1. Politics
  2. Society
  3. Economics/Technology
  4. International Relations
  5. Ideas and Images
 1
      This process began an intellectual feast for a precollegiate teacher. We had to grapple with a series of questions, develop its significance, and incorporate it into a standard. Historical understanding requires students to think through cause and effect relationships, fosters paradox and complexity, avoids contingency as an explanation, and distinguishes between anecdote and analysis. The focus on "thick description" as a category of analysis requires the distinction of subtleties. 2
      Professor Nash spent countless hours developing the questions that were to be the focus of our endeavors. The questions were based on the latest historical scholarship which was particularly stimulating and exciting. I was learning history at the same time that I was part of an effort to develop standards in American history. The rigorous process in which a standard was developed enlarged and enriched my teaching and my thinking. 3
      Let us look at some of the examples of this process.

Colonization and Settlement (1585–1763)

Society

  1. In the English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard in the 17th century, who were the immigrants? From what countries and what social ranks did they come, and how did this vary in different colonies?
  2. How did family and community life differ in such regions as Puritan New England, Quaker Pennsylvania and the Anglican Chesapeake? What factors—economic, religious, political—account for these differences?

Politics

  1. Delineate the major differences among Spanish, French, English, and Dutch colonies in North America. What differences in modes of organizing government can be found within the English colonies?
  2. Analyze the political effects of the English Glorious Revolution of 1688 on the American colonies. Similarly, trace the effects of the Seven Years' War.

Economics/Technology

  1. Discuss the major spheres of economic activity in each of the following regions: New England, the South, and the Spanish Southwest.
  2. Discuss the English mercantile system, and what the benefits and costs it had for colonial economic development.

Ideas and Images

  1. Explore the tension between the individual and the community in colonial thought. What factors explain the rise of individualism in the colonial era and what forms did individualism take?
  2. How and to what degree were colonial Americans educated, and how did this vary with region, class, and gender?

International Relations

  1. How did rivalries between the major colonizing European nations affect the development of Spanish, French, Dutch, and English colonies in North America?
  2. How did British imperial policy change from the Navigation Acts of the mid 17th century to the conduct of the Seven Years' War in the mid 18th century?
 4
      These kinds of questions led to standards that were inclusive. The impact of the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War) did not simply lead to the Stamp Act. Consider also the impact of the war on France, England, Native Americans, and the colonists. The context and the point of view were to be considered in creating the standards. Class, race, and gender were categories of analysis as well. This approach incorporates new scholarship and does not lead to fragmentation or fission, but coherence. 5
      Let me conclude with an example of the kind of scholarship that enriched my teaching and resulted in a standard on the impact of the American Revolution on women. Gary Nash introduced me to The Gleaner by Judith Sergeant Murray and Benjamin Rush's views of women and education. I was able to combine these with the "Remember the Ladies" correspondence of Abigail and John Adams to conduct a lesson on the impact of the American Revolution on women. My students were analyzing primary sources to weigh evidence and reach conclusions. The series of questions that I asked enabled them to probe the documents for meaning and significance. The process was part of my experience of working with Professor Nash in the development of the United States history standards. 6
      Thank you Professor Nash! 7

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