Teaching

Hello and welcome! I’m Dr. Max Shmookler (PhD, Columbia University), a middle and upper school World History teacher. I have extensive experience designing and teaching classes for secondary school students, college students, and adults. Prior to my work in independent schools in NYC, I have taught in programs for middle and high school students from diverse backgrounds, designed and taught nearly a half dozen college courses, and served as a volunteer teacher for the refugee and migrant communities in the Middle East as well as the greater NYC area.

These experiences have introduced me to learners of every age, from more than a dozen countries, with highly-variable levels of formal education and divergent learning goals. In such diverse classrooms, I’ve learned to plan my lessons around interactive activities, scaffolded projects, and student-led discussions. Across the board, the deepest, most abiding lesson that I have attempted to teach is how to struggle patiently and methodically with complex ideas. While the ideas evolve as students move from middle to high school to college and beyond, in my classes I emphasize how to occupy multiple viewpoints, evaluate different forms of evidence, and practice the writing, speaking, and research skills that help students to succeed.

Below you'll find a selection of my lessons, including key reflection questions, skill building activities, and projects for a variety of grades and topics. I have designed these materials to be accessible to students learning in-person, remote, or in a hybrid manner.

Dressed up as Humbaba from the Epic of Gilgamesh for Halloween 2020 at The Brearley School.

Teaching Experience

Poly Prep Country Day School

2019 (leave replacement) and 2021 - Present

History Teacher, 9th - 12th grade

At Poly, I teach 9th grade world history as well as electives and advanced courses of my own design. Our world history curriculum spans the key moments in social, political, and economic history that has formed the modern world from the 15th to the 19th century. One of my electives, open to 10th through 12th graders, is “Feminisms of the Modern Middle East”. This course takes students through the history of four generations of feminist intellectuals, activists, educators, and professionals in various parts of the Middle East. We draw on written primary and secondary sources as well as film clips, feminist memoirs and autobiographies, excerpts from literary works, and contemporary art installations. Another course that I have introduced into the Poly curriculum is “The History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict”, which invites students to explore the complex roots of the tensions we see today.

The Brearley School

2020-2021

6th & 8th Grade World History

Since September 2020, I have been teaching 6th and 8th grade World History at The Brearley School. The 6th grade curriculum spans from 3500 BCE to roughly 500 BCE, and revolves around ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China. I have also taken an active role in developing age-appropriate curricula about Nubia, the Niger River Valley, and elsewhere in Africa and the Americas. We introduce key skills, especially reading and interpretation, note taking (which we reinforce often!), drawing inferences, and reading maps.

The 8th grade World History curriculum spans the early 15th to the late 19th century. Building on my colleagues’ work in preceding years, I have introduced teaching-facing unit plans, redesigned the slides, and with my co-teacher, rethought the larger course structure and goals to explore questions of identity and power in the early modern world. We have reorganized many of the readings, and added an emphasis on rich but often-excluded voices, especially from the Indigenous societies of the Americas and Africa. In addition to building on the research and writing skills, we’ve been considering historiographic questions, studying some fascinating sources of legitimacy, and exploring the interconnections between art and political power.

1.8 What does the legacy of Mughal Emper

2.2 The Kangxi Dictionary and the legiti

Earlier Teaching Experience

Queens College, CUNY

Department of History

Teacher | Early Modern Europe, 1500-1815 | Summer 2020
Teacher | The Emergence of the Modern Middle East | Spring 2020
Teacher | The Origins and Development of Islam, 600-1258 | Spring 2020

WEB DuBois Institute, Princeton University

Summer intensive program for middle and high school students from diverse backgrounds

Teacher | Fictions of the Modern Middle East | Summer 2016
Teacher | Contemporary Issues In the Modern Middle East | Summer 2015

Columbia University

Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies

Teacher of record | The Arabic Novel and Its Others | Spring 2017
Head TA | Contemporary Islamic Civilization | Spring 2016
TA | Introduction to Islamic Civilization | Fall 2015
TA | Arabic Language | 2014-2015

Sample Slides

These slides highlight some of my recent work to make our 6th and 8th grade World History curricula into an accessible online format. I designed this online curriculum to be engaging, visually appealing, and clear.