A Taiwanese Teaching World History Class in U.S.

It has been a while since I updated this blog. What have I done in the past few months? First of all, my wife and I have a new baby boy. Academically, I have finalized a dissertation chapter, written a new chapter draft on the historical memory of New York Loyalists, and I am teaching my own class of world history from 1500 to present. I am writing another new dissertation chapter now on the Anglican Loyalists in New York. Writing dissertation, like many people have said, is a hell-like experience. It is like being "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." (Rev. 19:20) But, fire could also refine us, as long as we can stand through it. Let's hope that I will stand through it.

So far, I really enjoy my first experience teaching my own class. I will be lying if I said I don't feel good when students call me "professor." (Sometimes they called me "Dr.", and I had to correct them, which made me even more eager to become one.)  But the best part is being able to teach those non-history majors to appreciate history and link their life experience with the history they learned in class. I assigned each student to write a mid-term book review. I provided a suggested list of books for them to pick, and told them they could consult with me if they wanted to choose a book not on this list. My purpose was to encourage students to read history books. A student came to me telling me she wanted to read a book about Scottish history. I asked her why, and she responded that she has Scottish ancestors, so she wanted to learn more about her ancestor's culture. I liked this idea. Considering her purpose, the time frame of our class, and the fact that she is not a history major, I suggested her to read How the Scots Invented the Modern World. She accepted this suggestion and wrote a wonderful review. Many students in my class are students of nursing. Some of them want to research on the history of nursing for their final research projects. Even though I am totally unfamiliar with this area, I highly encourage them to conduct such research. The best research project for the non-history majors, I think, is the project that link to their own interests and passion.

As a historian of the American Revolution, I could not really resist the desire to have students learn more about the Revolution. The issue was how to make sure I did not force students to read more just because it is my favorite area of history. I ended up assigning students to read Andrew Schocket's book review of Remembering the Revolution: Memory, History, and Nation Making from Independence to the Civil War. They were thus prepared to write a book review by actually reading an academic one. (So they know what a book review should look like.) Also, I asked them to reflect their own historical memories of the founding of this nation and how those memories were constructed and subject to challenges. Students came out with many meaningful and insightful discussions.       

A lot of times, in my previous experiences back in college, we did not take advantage of the money we spent on textbooks. Many textbooks are actually well-designed, otherwise why do we choose them in the first place? I decided to make sure students READ their textbook by designing weekly assessments around the textbook and also using the primary source excerpts in the textbook as the material for our discussions. I did not want to overburden them with lengthy primary sources, especially considering the fact that they are not history majors. These excerpts did serve my purpose: making sure they had chances to read the perspectives from different cultures. So far students have heard the voices of African slaves, European intruders, Africans, Muslims, Chinese, Russians, Karl Marx, Nazi, and Americans. And their response were great. They were able to understand what happened to other cultures and how cultures responded and reacted to one another. In this process, they also started to rethink the role that "western civilization" played in world history. Considering the variety of the voices we "heard" in this class, I think the students are truly learning "world history."