As
I researched materials for a U.S.
survey course one summer, I came across a reader called Major Problems in
American History. A
phrase in the introduction became the mantra for my courses.
Students
could, and often did from what I am told, mutter it in their sleep.
Historical
thinking is understanding in context.
Two
other texts - Samuel Wineburg's Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural
Acts, and How People Learn by National Academies Press - helped
me focus my thoughts further. Wineburg's focus on the craft of historical
inquiry and the examination of how our brains function in HPL gave
depth and further meaning to the phrase from Major Problems.
The
process begins with the recognition that the past is, as David Lowenthal
reminds us, a foreign country - they did, indeed, do things differently
there. We have to explore the who, what, when and where before we can attempt
to digest the real sustenance of the historian's diet - the why. To
understand the "why" students must have a firm grasp of the context. They must
ask the right questions, know how to get the answers and be able to explain
their findings clearly and persuasively both verbally and in writing.
If
it is the "why" that sustains the historian, it is a food gathered primarily
by reading, writing and discussing. That is how we will be spending our days
as we learn to think historically. It is an ambitious agenda to be certain
but I am firmly convinced of the importance of students learning the skills
required for historical inquiry before heading off to college and beyond.
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As
Nobel laureate Herbert Simon wisely stated, the meaning of "knowing" has
shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to
find and use it. The goal of education is better conceived as helping
students acquire the knowledge that allows people to think productively about
history, science and technology, social phenomena, mathematics and the arts.
Excerpted
from How People Learn, pg. 5.