|
Summary and Objective
Students will understand that the Enlightenment affected people's attitudes about how to raise children by analyzing images and written documents from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Students should already have a background in basic Enlightenment ideas and thinkers.
Teaching Plan
Step 1.
Ask students to brainstorm: What does our society value for children today? Consider play, learning, safety, etc. The students could include images of objects that symbolize these ideas in their brainstorm.
Step 2.
Predictions: Ask students to predict what people valued for children in 18th century North America.
Step 3.
Use Multiplication Table Rhyme (see web link below) to investigate the American/European pre-Enlightenment values about childhood. Have students read excerpts of this in groups and list the values for and attitudes about children that the document presents.
Step 4.
If the following ideas are not covered by analyzing the Multiplication Table Rhyme, explain to the students that the Enlightenment impacted people's ideas of how to raise children in the following ways:
1. Children should not simply be treated as little adults.
2. Children need toys and education.
Step 5.
Object Analysis: Present the images of objects from the American Centuries site listed above to students in small groups or pairs. Students should analyze their object image and decide if it reflects pre- or post-Enlightenment ideals and why.
Step 6.
Project images of objects and share group analysis to the class. Information about the objects from the website may be helpful once the whole class is looking at them via a projector.
Step 7.
Debrief: In 200 years from now, what childhood patterns in our society today might lead people to be surprised or horrified?
|
