It was interesting to reflect on this week’s reading alongside my own experiences in learning history, especially before I decided to pursue the field. In line with the question of external expectations about teaching, the conceptualization of history as merely a series of rote facts was always evident even when some curriculums tried to emphasize specific human elements, to the detriment of actual classroom engagement. Calder and Steffes note that unfortunately a common conception of history among the wider American populace is “what really happened, that is, a single, so-called right story of settled truths,” which is only true in an oversimplified sense that fails to account for the importance of historical thinking (“Measuring College Learning in History). Sam Wineburg’s criticism of traditional models of standardized testing underscores this academic sacrifice of deeper models of thinking in favor of easy-to-read multiple choice exams: “in addition to handicapping students who possess different historical knowledge from those in the mainstream, it means that no national test can allow students to show themselves historically literate” (“Crazy for History”). I can sympathize with the aggravation of seeing multiple-choice questions on topics that I am not well versed in while those that I am knowledgeable of get left out of the testing equation, and from Wineburg’s account of almost a century of poor testing results, I think this example can serve as a microcosm of how not to teach history effectively. Instead of trying to impart monumental amounts of information to students, much of the reading highlights how the processes of historical thinking are the foundations that history classes should be teaching at the minimum; although this kind of analytical thinking cannot be as easily measured by testing, it is fundamental to both history and overall critical thinking. Caldor and Steffes explain that knowing how to think historically “fosters critical thinking and analysis skills that are useful for work, citizenship, and individual efficacy,” adding that such a mindset ideally “fosters perspective taking and empathy, and, because it requires students to wrestle with the limits of knowledge, historical thinking is a training ground for solving problems when definitive answers are elusive” (“Measuring College Learning in History”). As with other skills, historical thinking extends beyond the classroom setting as an essential part of understanding one’s own historic position in time and space –  or an appreciation for how the past is fundamentally different, while inextricably connected to modern circumstances. Mills Kelly expounds on the applicability of historical thinking by explaining “Without the correct understanding of the nation’s past, the argument goes, our children cannot become the kinds of citizens we want and need for the future of our country… But in these debates factual knowledge is often conflated with correct understanding—we assume that if our children know the facts, they will understand the facts” (Chapter 1). From these excerpts, it is clear that the rote facts-based conception of history reinforced by these kinds of exams do not merely oversimplify history into an unchanging record of facts to be memorized, it also fails to inculcate critical thinking skills within students that effect far more than the history classroom.

While attempts at standardized testing have endured over the last several decades, the core elements of historical thinking have endured (in importance at least), and the possibilities offered by new digital tools have the potential to realign the history classroom in a better direction. Mills Kelly’s simplified list of common pillars of historical thinking, including source analysis, chronological thinking, evidence-based argumentation, and the fundamental understanding that the past is different and often conflicting, provides a solid grasp of the process itself, but their combined importance is conveyed by Calder and Steffes: “History is a constructed explanation made from fragmentary evidence that is always incomplete and subject to revision. Constructing these narratives, historians draw from a discipline situated at the intersection of humanities and social science, with a distinctive set of ideas and practices that guides how we interpret and use evidence, weigh and evaluate plausible explanations, and think about the past in relation to the present” (Chapter 1; “Measuring College Learning in History”). Far more than just a timeline of facts, history is a monumental collection of narratives, evidence, information, and perspectives that requires constant study and evaluation; to reduce it to a question with four potentially correct answers is a disservice to the immense human aspect in both understanding history and history itself. In modernity, mass communication is faster, easier, and more effective than ever before thanks to electronic media, and the digital forms in which information can be structured and shared are multitudinous, but these advances are met with dangers in understanding such a fast-paced environment. In many ways, the day-to-day navigation of this information sphere invokes historical thinking. Recalling the fallout from Carl Becker’s 1931 AHA speech, Edward Ayers explains that “Even more than in Carl Becker’s time, when powerful and seductive electronic technologies had begun to emerge, shared memories and private memories can easily fuse. Our private, interior history and the artificial memories that constitute history morph into one another, boundaries blur and disappear. Everyone has become their own historian, their own curator and archivist and narrator.” Then as now, historical thinking is imperative to understanding both oneself and one’s place in history – Ayers expounds that “The story of Mr. Everyman shows that we all do history every day, that we sometimes get it wrong, but that chastened by a reliable documentary record and the will to use it, we can come closer to the truth” (Everyone Their Own Historian). To return to the history classroom itself, it is essential to build this foundation of thinking and to convey why it is important, and digital tools provide ways of visualizing content that is not limited to non-engaging textbooks. The intersection of historical thinking and digital tools is summarized by Kelly, stating that the “best way to use digital media to teach them to see history as we see it is to create learning opportunities that make it possible for our students to do history—to practice it as we practice it—to help them make history, using their own creative impulses, rather than simply giving us what they hope is the correct answer to a question we have posed” (Chapter 1). This is how the best history classes I took operated, and thus it is the approach I hope to design my project around, as well as to carry into any potential classrooms in the future.

Sources

Ayers, Edward L. Everyone Their Own Historian. Journal of American History Volume 105, Issue 3, December 2018, Pages 505–513, https://doi-org.mutex.gmu.edu/10.1093/jahist/jay276

Kelly, T. Mills. “Thinking: How Students Learn About the Past” Chapter 1 in Teaching History in the Digital Age. 2013.

Wineburg, Sam. “Crazy for History” The Journal of American History 90, no. 4. March 2004.

Calder, Lendol, and Tracy Steffes. “Measuring College Learning in History.” Social Science Research Council. May 2016.