This Tuesday, July 15, journalists from the GSPost visited the Historical Analysis focus area. The scholars in the class had each researched a time period they were interested in, and created a doll inspired by the American Girl Doll brand. The overarching purpose of this project, according to teacher Hayden Osborne, is to analyze history through the perspective of children. He created the American Girl Doll project as a way for students to explore that idea in a very interactive way. “I was talking with Madeline in the office one day when we were at half-price books, and I saw an American Girl doll book [and said] ‘Oh, this would be cool for GSP, like for a general studies’, and she was like, “You know, you could do it with your focus area, and so that’s what kind of [inspired it],” Osborne said.
The scholar-created dolls originate from all over the world, not just within the United States. “We’re calling them American Girls, but they’re doing them from all over the world. There’s some from Ireland. There’s some from Cuba. There’s some from Scotland. ‘American’ was not a requirement. It was just that they created all in that style from a historical area they were interested in,” teacher Hayden Osborne said.
Caderyn, one of the scholars, created a doll named Jolene who worked as a ranch hand in Arizona during the 1800s. “Her story is that she wants to be a scientist, and a man who is a geological landscape bear falls in love with her and tricks her into hanging out with him under false pretense that he can help to be a scientist, and then they have a falling out, and he ends up lighting her house on fire, killing her family, and she returns and kills him in revenge,” Caderyn said.
Earlier in the program, during the second week, the class took a field trip to Nashville, Tennessee to visit the American Girl Doll store. “So it was mostly just to expose us to American Girl Dolls… a lot of people in there didn’t grow up with American Girl Dolls or didn’t really know what they were, so it kind of showed them the magic that can have on little girls,” scholar Claira said. The brand was celebrating its 40th anniversary at the time of the class’s visit, so the class was able to explore the brand’s historical collection. A store employee led the class on a miniature tour of the exhibit, and shared a bit of each doll’s history. “[The employee] took us around to all of the historical dolls and talked a little bit about their characteristics and their history, and like where they fit into the American brand and how it’s evolved over time, which is exactly what we wanted. I wanted everybody to be able to understand how the historical construction functions as both an educational tool and an entertainment piece for kids kind of globally, and that’s really what we’re doing,” Osborne said.
When asked to sum up their experience with the class in one word, scholars had a variety of answers.
Gavin called it “entertaining”, because of the activities the class has done, while Claira said it was “impactful”, because of its effect on her perspectives. Grady said it was “exploratory”, and Gracie said it was “creative”, because the class is led by scholars’ interests, which has exposed them to different viewpoints. Over all, the scholars have been given the opportunity to approach historical analysis from a new perspective, and expand their worldview.
