History isn’t only a story about the key global trends, changes, ideas, leaders, and movements. It is also about their impact on the common people. We are all products of history because all the major disruptions transformed the life of our ancestors, forced them to move out of their ancestral homes and intertwined their destinies in the weirdest possible way.
Therefore, designing a family tree can be a great aide and companion to our history studies. Who else is more capable of teaching history than our closest relatives (parents, grandparents, and their acquaintances)? Our grandparents were born during the WWII or immediately before or after those horrible events. They vividly remember the stories of their grandparents about the empires in the belle époque, the WWI, the interwar years and the rise of communism and fascism, the horrors of the WWII and the reconstruction of the world in the aftermath of the bloody conflicts. So, a family tree isn’t only a boring homework or unnecessary hobby. Each node of the family tree is a person who still yearns to tell us his story or her story, to talk about their ideas, personal goals, challenges they faced, illusions, misconceptions, loves, ambitions, to pass the wisdoms of life to us, and to warn us how to recognize the good statespersons and how to identify the dangerous fanatics.
But, please … Leave the family trees as a voluntary activity of the high school children. There is nothing more harmful for a good project than making it a mandatory home assignment.
I liked this topic as I beleive we need to teach our kids history through our family stories. This will help the kids to build strong indentity, deep patriotism and healthy communities.