Facing Fear in the Humanities

Photo by Waldemar Brandt

To be siloed means to be isolated.
It's a feeling many can relate to as the pandemic stretches into its second year. 
In education we argue against subject silos because we know deep learning happens when it is interdisciplinary.

I want to say I have a magic formula for how I created a project that combines psychology, sociology, economics, geography and history, but mostly it all just fell into place. The glue holding it all together is historical empathy. This is my third year successfully implementing a Civil War journal and like most of my ideas, it's much stronger now. 
Do my students love it? No. Most do not because it is stretching them and stretching can be uncomfortable. I can tell that it is what they need right now and here's why:

Our connection question is relevant: How do we deal with conflict?
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Our essential question is relatable and helps them connect to what is happening in their world: How did the Civil War transform America?

Our geography focus: What is sense of place and  how does where you live affects who you are?

Our sociology/psychology focus is: What is self-identity and in what ways does our identity affect our perception, our decision-making and our behaviors?

Our economic focus is: How do scarcity and opportunity cost affect decisions?

As the Civil War begins, each student looks at scarcity and chooses a path for his or her character. What is the benefit of joining the fight and what is the cost?
What is the benefit of staying home and supporting the communities that must continue to survive and grow?

Along the way we analyze primary sources like speeches by Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens, who felt certain that as the leaders of the Confederacy they were patriotic heroes and not traitors. They felt 100% justified in their white supremacist beliefs and that history would admire their courage to start a new nation built on inequality and subjugation. We analyze how their context made them who they were and how their desire for power and supremacy made blinded them to injustice.

My students are maturing in a time of upheaval and change. They will likely chart a different course than those before them. Giving them a space to wrestle with questions about who they are by allowing them to experiment with historical fiction is part of pandemic learning. Ruini et al, (2020) found that when elementary children study fairy tales focused on fear their creativity develops at a faster rate than when they study happy or sad fairy tales. Fear is not a comfortable space to live, but in pandemic learning, denial of fear is dangerous. It is my hope that this exercise in unsiloed learning through creative historic fiction builds up a storehouse of strength for my students.

​Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor E. Frankl

Reference: Ruini, C., Albieri, E., Ottolini, F., & Vescovelli, F. (2020). Once upon a time: A school positive narrative intervention for promoting well-being and creativity in elementary school children. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.