ARTICLE: A Better Way to Teach History (+ Cool Program Links)

[Ryan Goble]

Some quotes from The Atlantic article..

The field of history is often dismissed as dull, but educators like Moss are experimenting with innovative teaching strategies to teach history in a way that is effective, exciting, and productive.

Perhaps the most major current-day divide falls along the lines of content versus skills: Should history classes be about acquiring facts and information, or should they emphasize historical thinking abilities and processes? And if the latter, which skills and how might they best be taught? While a positivist view of history—the 19th-century notion that history was akin to a science, and that the accumulation of historical facts would eventually lead to an objective understanding of events—fell out of favor long ago, this idea seems to remain the operative assumption behind traditional history curricula that emphasize content, chronology, and comprehensiveness.

One of the reasons American children often appear to struggle in history, Bain (@ UM's Big History Project) says, is because their knowledge is primarily assessed through multiple-choice tests. Multiple-choice assessment, by nature, often privileges factual content over historical thinking. “If you’re testing historical content out of context, that might explain why they don’t do so well,” Bain says. He advocates embracing the use of narrative—even if that narrative is flawed or one-sided. “The grand narrative is pejorative to many in the historical profession—people say that it tries to inculcate a particular viewpoint in kids. But having a big picture or story is cognitively critical to historical knowledge.”

See also @ the HBS Alumni Magazine "David Moss is Rewriting History: Can one HBS professor change how ...

Programs Mentioned:

• The Big History Project @ the University of Michigan

• Reading like a Historian - based at Stanford "which explicitly hones the ability to take primary sources and interpret, construct meaning, recognize competing narratives, and contextualize as a historian would."

• Reacting to the Past started at Barnard College by Mark Carnes, is a student-centered college curriculum consisting entirely of role-playing games."

• Facing History and Ourselves - "which grew out of a course focused on the Holocaust, uses a multi-pronged approach to get young people in grades six through 12 thinking about the ramifications of genocide and mass violence as a way of reflecting on moral choices they themselves face in their own lives."