The following statement was written for the Klingenstein Summer Institute, a
two-week residential program on curriculum development and classroom practices
for teachers in independent education. I attended the institute in the Summer
of 2003 and the experience continues to shape my teaching to this day. Visit www.klingenstein.org
for more information about this amazing center.
I
make art – not luxurious oil paintings or even sensuous watercolors.
I make string art. My students and I begin each year
with a pile of pegs and some key thematic threads and set out to make sense of
it all.
Understanding
in context is the goal of historical inquiry. I view my
role in the classroom as a sort of bibliographer-facilitator. My
academic training enables me to select a series of texts that my students can
use in discussion to gain a personal understanding of history. Historians
know that we all see the past through a lens shaped and shaded by our own
experiences. If my students leave the class with a sense of
how to think historically, I have accomplished my mission.
In
order to achieve this goal, a classroom environment conducive to such learning
is crucial. I believe that a discussion based,
seminar-style classroom provides the surest road to success. When
students have an arena in which to sound out their ideas, they can learn from
the text, from me and from each other. No blackboards or
overheads are necessary – just books and a table.
It
is in this environment that students learn to think historically. They
learn to analyze the evidence in primary sources. They
learn to make connections across time. In this context I am
more of a facilitator than a teacher. As their minds
evolve, I try to show them different ways of looking at the past in order to
make sense of the present.
The
power of schooling, especially in this environment, becomes evident during the
casual conversation in the hall or on a bus to a sporting event. When
students take ownership of their knowledge and engage in a conversation that
proceeds along the lines of “Here is what I think and this is why I think it
is so,” the power of what we do really hits home. They
are thinking, reasoning and discussing. They are
articulate, confident and informed. That’s what this is all
about.
After
a year of placing pegs and stringing threads, my goal is for my students to
be able to stand back, take a look at their work and say, “Oh, it’s a . . .
!!!” String art – that’s what I do.