Students Must Be Taught That History Is Not Static

Teaching History -- Learning History

Teaching history -- as the quote from "Teaching History" correctly states -- is by way of cultivating respect among students for the way in which knowledge was gained and used in the past, and how it impacted society. This paper reviews the way in which teaching history can be most effective, and how a teacher can make history interesting because of its relationship to today. And because students really need to acquire necessary skills so they fully understand the significance of how and why what has gone on before impacts what is happening today.

Zeroing in on Solutions -- The Challenges of Teaching History

In the website www.tolerance.com (a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center) Jonathan Gold, a middle school teacher, makes a key point by asking students to approach this question -- "What makes something or someone in history significant?" This is an excellent way to stir good discussions, rather than just ask students to memorize or otherwise write the facts of an historical moment or person. This lesson helps to "push students' thinking past the static concept"; in other words, students should understand that the significance of an event brings it to life and that history isn't inert and stagnant.

For example, yes, by studying the Industrial Revolution students learn that it paved the way for the U.S. to become a world power. However, studying the Industrial Revolution also reveals the "harsh working conditions ... the mistreatment of immigrants," and it brings into focus for students how the women's rights movement was "catalyzed" (Gold, 2015). Are there serious immigrant issues today? Yes, of course, and this links today with the past.

Gold uses the chart to the left -- and I will use this chart too -- with 28 different phrases to choose from to help students find appropriate language as they look for ways to express historical cause-and-effect. The Emancipation Proclamation, for example, "set the stage for" a ban on slavery and "helped bring about" the end of slavery (both phrases from Gold's chart). Eschewing teacher-centered learning by working in small groups and setting "collaborative goals" that foster "intergroup relationships ... student-driven inquiry" is very positive (Gold, p. 3).

National Strategy for Teaching History

Meanwhile, a national strategy for teaching and learning history is presented by the National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS) in collaboration with UCLA Department of History. A very common yet serious problem when it comes to helping students "become thoughtful readers of historical narrative" is the obsession students have with finding "the one right answer" (NCHS). These issues result from the "conventional ways" in which textbooks are printed: a "succession of facts" that lead directly to a "settled outcome" (NCHS).

What the NCHS wants teachers to do is help students understand that there is no direct line from the past to the present; instead, history should be seen by students as a "dialogue among historians" about more than just what happened. That dialogue embraces what happened, why it happened, and how "events unfolded" (NCHS). So the challenge for teachers is to show students how to engage in "historical analysis and interpretation"; skills the students need to acquire include examining several historians' narrative of the same historical event.