Last fall, I sat in a small desk in a third-grade classroom at Lyons Elementary School in Lansing, Michigan, waiting to talk to the teacher, Jo Trumble. The children were lined up to go to gym. One of the boys pointed at the roll of paper in my hand and said, "What's that?"

"It's a very old map of Lansing," I said.

"Can I see it?"

I unrolled the 1866 Bird's Eye map as the line began to move.

"Oh, wow!" he said. "Cool!"

He looked at me. "Hey! You're the history lady!"

Parents' Stories Make History Fascinating  

Young children are fascinated by history that is close to home. They love to hear about their street, their park, their town. They want to know how the people got here, why they came, what jobs they had, what they ate. They will search old directories for names, especially their own, even if it's not part of the student's homework. They will examine historic photos of buildings and ask for details about architectural styles.

To capitalize on this natural curiosity about things they can see, some states have school curriculum requirements. In order to build a better understanding for state and U.S. History, Michigan elementary teachers, for instance, are to emphasize the concepts of economic, geographic, and social development within the local area first.

Rossi Ray-Taylor, deputy superintendent of instruction for the Lansing Public Schools, says, "It's a natural way for children to learn, a natural way to think. It mirrors their development. Until a child is 8 or 9 years old, time is a difficult concept. Unfamiliar things that happened 50 or 100 years ago are hard to understand. This allows them to relate history to their own grandparents." 

Limitations on Local History

Unfortunately, there can be problems. Many teachers, of course, have taught some local history in the past, but now they need a great deal of material. Much of the material, though, is not readily available; it's apt to be scattered in several collections.

Teachers do not have time to do extensive research. And almost none of the material has been written for children to read by themselves.

The solutions can come from you: parents and grandparents. If you have an interest in history, this is an exciting area for participation with your schools. What can you do?

Try the following:

  • Collect information on 10 significant people in your city or county
  • Collect information on the earliest settlers in your area
  • Collect information on 10 locally significant buildings
  • Make a timeline of local history events
  • Offer to be a speaker
  • Find a speaker
  • Find historic photos
  • Lead a field trip to the cemetery
  • Tell stories
  • Write stories

One of the most useful things you can do is make a Local History Resource Box for each teacher who will be teaching local history (probably in third or fourth grades).

Collect information that is available from various historical sources and pack it in a box for the classroom. This will give the teachers immediate access to historical material, from which they can build curriculum units. 

This assistance can be as simple or as involved as you have time for. You may also want to write new materials and find funding for it, as I did. Grants may be available for this and community businesses are receptive to funding such material for the schools. 

Making Connections

At Lyons School, they decided to start by researching the name on their school, and moved out from that central point into related names, street names, maps, family trees, drawings and stories.

Speakers occasionally present material and the children work in small groups in one of the study areas. At the end, they will make reports, read stories, and hang their work in the classrooms.

Excitement continues to run high. When the children who live on Baker Street found out that Luther Baker captured John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, they scored big in the classroom.

They also know that the reward money was invested in a hotel (economic concept). They know that Luther married the daughter of a pioneer family and their house is still standing (social). And they know that the farm on which they lived was sold to R.E. Olds for the Reo Motor Co. (economic and geographic).

They probably will never forget, either, that Luther and his horse Buckskin led every parade in Lansing for 20 or 30 years, and that when Buckskin died he was stuffed and put in the Michigan State University Museum.

And this underscores the concept of learning local history first as a way to better understand state and U.S. History. Local history gives children a familiar framework on which to hang more complex, more abstract learning later. 


 

Linda Peckham is professor of English at Lansing Community College and president of the Historical Society of Greater Lansing.