Addressing the Overlooked Past: Developing a Resource on Byzantine History and Culture for American Middle and High Schools

Despite its significance, humanities and social studies curricula in the United States rarely include much information concerning Byzantine history and culture in Global and World History courses in public and private schools for grades 6-12. If the subject is included at all, it is often treated as an isolated aspect of the late Roman Empire’s legal contributions or in relation to the medieval Crusades. Additionally, the increasing number of primary sources that have become available in English translation and related visual representations remains largely unknown. To address this need, Hellenic Link, an American community-based organization of academics in New York City, established a grant-funded collaboration with the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens. As a result, a team of Byzantinists and educators has published a thematic and classroom-oriented teacher resource entitled: "Byzantium: The 'Missing Link' to Understanding the History of Civilization". The presenters will discuss the challenges and issues the team faced in making Byzantine subject matter relevant to American students within their society’s multicultural context through the use of carefully selected, engaging primary sources and themes. For example, each of the selected topics also had to include essential and focus questions designed to relate them to “big ideas” common to all cultures, to show how Byzantium served as a bridge between cultures and worlds, and to link each topic to American humanities and social studies thematic and content mandates. The overview of this innovative educational resource will also address the project’s next steps to support teachers in using it and integrating it into the technology-based context of twenty-first-century classrooms.