American Frontiers in Global Perspective

FAIN: ES-50412-11

Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4301)
William H. Katerberg (Project Director: March 2011 to April 2014)
Carol Higham (Co Project Director: March 2011 to April 2014)

A three-week institute for twenty-five school teachers on frontiers in the American South, Midwest, and West in a comparative international context.

This teaching institute focuses on rethinking the uniqueness and nature of US frontiers and ideas of American exceptionalism by looking at these aspects of US history on their own terms and from global, comparative, and trans-national perspectives. It offers high school teachers dynamic new approaches to the general curricula of their social studies and US and world history classes. The history of US frontiers from a global viewpoint is not just of interest to scholars. High school teachers can better meet their goal of educating the next generation-as Americans, world citizens, and participants in a global economy-if students can learn about US history in a global comparative context and if students can see how world history relates to that of their own nation. Many students in US high schools are themselves immigrants (or their children) and they can more easily see how their experiences fit into the American story when it is taught in ways supplemented by global perspectives.