ABSTRACT
Rebecca Valbuena begins a unit on immigration by portraying her grandfather, a Latvian who immigrated to New York as a 10-year-old in 1910. She places photographs of him around the room, plays Latvian music on a tape recorder, and explains why he came to the United States. The challenge for the teacher, then, lies in deciding what aspects of important historical content match up with elements of students’ lives. Tina’s and Rebecca’s classes show how the lives of students’ families can introduce them to important and meaningful topics in history. Rebecca’s classroom provides a clear example of such an approach. Her school’s textbooks don’t start with a comparison of contemporary immigration to Irish and Chinese immigration in the 1800s; like most texts, they start with Native American life and early European explorers and proceed through time in strict chronological order.
