Brendan Sulley

History Through a Child’s Eyes

When looking at history through a child's eye, everything seems much more different in

terms of how you see people, how you think the world works, and how you analyze pictures. The

two first grade students that I interviewed showed a lot in terms of how they think of history and

what knowledge they may have on it. Interviewing them allowed me to take a step in their shoes

and try and begin to understand how they perceive the world and how it works. Going into the

interview, I did not have a strong belief that the students would have much of an understanding of

the questions that they would be asked due to the complexity, but there were some commonalities

in their responses. After finishing the two interviews I was able to make 3 main conclusions; when

discussing people of power, students tend to think of more nonfictional characters and can not

seem to identify a lot of significant people when talked about, students struggle in differentiating

pictures that are consistently black and white, and the students have a small grasp on how the

economy works, but struggle to understand how money flow works.

Looking at the first main conclusion, when people of power or significance come into

conversation, students begin to lose grasp of what is real and what is fake. Some significant

questions from the interview that support this conclusion is when the students were asked to list

some of the most famous people in history, who George Washington is, and who is the most

important woman that they know. When asked about significant people the responses were either

I don’t know or involved their parents. This bit is fair to understand because they have not learned

about many important people yet at such a young age but what was concerning was when they

began listing fictional characters as famous people in history. I do not think their concept of

“important people” has truly developed yet but they do know some historical figures like Martin

Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks. A beneficial instructional implication for this may be to personalize

the subject matter for students. This could be done in a number of ways but one way I thought

might be useful is allowing students to find an important person in history and write about them

and why they think they are cool and what they did that was important. This allows students to

individually find their own person and develop an interest for said person based on something

they did, similar interests, or much more. It might also be effective to allow students to share who
they picked and what they found out about them. This part could be very beneficial because the

student who is presenting has a lot of enthusiasm since they picked their person, and the

audience is able to learn cool facts about people they may have never heard of.

Examining the second conclusion that students struggle in differentiating pictures that are

consistently black and white, I was a bit shocked at the lack of context clues that the students

used when evaluating the pictures. Aside from the cow on the roof and the cars, the students

could not find much in the pictures that would help distinguish their timelines. When asked about

the placement of picture five, the first student simply replied, “I don’t know man”. After trying to

nudge him to look at the photos for clues, even a person, he still could not find anything

significant. The second student when asked the same question replied with, “that’s the honest abe

guy”. This shows the student has some form of knowledge about Abraham Lincoln, but not

enough to establish context clues as to where the picture fits in the timeline. When asked what

things made the activity easier or harder, the first student thought that because four of the pictures

were black and white, they were all in the same time which made the activity easier for him. The

second student thought it was harder that the four pictures were in black and white and could not

figure out the context of the pictures. This demonstrates that the second student has an

understanding that the pictures were not taken at the same time just because they’re all black and

white, however the first student did not understand this concept. The student’s concept of placing

themselves in the picture’s timeline was also a bit lackluster. The first student chose picture five

and thought if he were in their shoes, he would see everything in black and white, he would be

sleeping in a tent every day, and there was electricity to power lights. The second student chose

the first picture and thought that he would be sleeping with cows and farm animals every night, be

living with cowboys and would have a chicken as a pet. An effective instructional implication to

combat this difficulty could be incorporating, “What to know about what to wear” in the classroom

(Lee 298). This implication would involve teaching the students cultural characteristics, more

specifically, clothing. This could be demonstrated in the classroom through the form of a matching

game where the students would try to match the decade with the corresponding clothes. This

promotes the development of cultural characteristics as well as using more context clues when

identifying images.
 Looking at the last main conclusion that students do not have a great knowledge on how

the economy works, they struggle with the idea of money and how it circulates throughout the

world. When asked about buying something from the store, the first student thought the price was

based on the quality of the item and the second student thought the price was based on how

amazing it is. When looking at how a store gets the products they sell, the first student thought

that everything was in the back and if they ever ran out, they just magically got more. The second

student had an understanding that the items had to come from somewhere but thought that stores

just got their products from other stores and then sold it at a higher price. When asked about

taxes the first student had a general concept that you could get money back, but thought that the

money you got back was then used to buy Pokémon cards. The second student did not know

what taxes were and thought it was another form of a taxi that people could ride in. When trying to

explain taxes to him he still did not understand. Both students understood what a bank was and

that people can store money there but did not know that interest could give you more money.

When trying to talk to the students about how they thought money worked they both responded

that, “we can just keep making more”. They did not have a built understanding on inflation but that

is not something I expected them to know being first graders. An instructional implication that

would be efficient in helping the students understand economics would be to improve their

knowledge and skills in economics, maybe through activities such as making the classroom a

store. By creating a class store and setting prices for toys or whatever you may choose, the

students can be given money and buy things they want if they do not go bankrupt. This

allows students to be engaged in the activity choosing items that interest them while also teaching

them about managing their money.

As discussed, looking at history through a child’s eyes is much different from how we see

it. It is viewed in a much simpler way and their understanding on many concepts are miniscule but

existent. The instructional implications listed above are great methods to combat these
misinterpretations on certain concepts but should be done at an earlier grade than later. If you

begin teaching the material in a later grade it might be too late and then the student will constantly

be behind trying to piece things together and why certain things are the way they are.
Notes:

● When asked to talk about people of power, answers either involved fictional characters or

not knowing any or who they might be. Personalizing subject matter for students 301

○ Named all fictional characters when asked about famous people in history

● When pictures are all in black and white or in color it makes it much more challenging for

the student to put them in chronological order. What to know about what to wear 298

○ First student thought all black and white pictures were taken at same time because

they were all in black and white

○ Lack of use of context clues

○ Does not try and examine the photo thoroughly

● Do not have great knowledge on how the economy works ERIC DIGEST

○ Thought stores restocked through bigger stores

○ Thought money was made out of thin air

○ Knew that banks help money but that is it.

 References

Lee, J. K. (2008). Visualizing elementary social studies methods. In Visualizing elementary

social studies methods (pp. 298-301). Hoboken, NJ, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Seiter, D. (1989, February 28). Teaching and learning ECONOMICS. ERIC Digest.

Retrieved February 24, 2021, from

https://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9210/economics.htm