Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching

¶ … Unnatural Acts:

Charting the Future of Teaching the Past

When someone mentions a historical fact, we more or less accept it as just that -- a fact, without ever questioning the authenticity of the source, analysis and interpretation process applied to it and the accuracy of the conclusion. We assume that since a historian wrote it down carefully after thorough research in a published book, it must be correct and should not be questioned. But do we have to blame ourselves of our uncurious minds. Sam Wineburg thinks not. He believes that it is not our minds that are just too uninterested in history, but actually the way historical facts are transferred to us that completely kill our desire to question them. In other words, he blamed the history teaching methods applied in schools and colleges for our absolute lack of interest in history and the fact that most Americans posses little knowledge of historical past.

Wineburg, author of Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: charting the future of teaching the past (2001) is a highly acclaimed writer who has won numerous honors for his work in the field of history education. He maintains that the reason our children are taught history in the most uninteresting manner is because of lack of training that teaching have in this field. He writes, "History education may be riding a momentary crest of interest, but its roots do not run deep. Many states have minimal requirements for the study of history in the curriculum. And in schools of education, courses are offered to future teachers in the teaching of mathematics, the teaching of science, and the teaching of literature, but we would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of courses in the entire nation that are devoted to the teaching of history." (4)

Wineburg has attacked everything from teaching methods to knowledge assessment tests and feels that many inter-related factors are responsible for students' apparent lack of enthusiasm about this particular subject. Barton (2002) in his review of the book states: "This book is concerned not with cataloging the body of historical facts students know but with uncovering how they go about making sense of the past (and how teachers can encourage them in the effort). Consistent with this emphasis, Wineburg has eschewed reductionist assessment measures such as multiple choice tests or structured behavioral instruments and instead relies on naturalistic classroom observations and "think-aloud" interviews, in which participants verbalize their thoughts as they read, analyze, and compare historical documents."

The author is mainly a "cognitive psychologist" who wants to explain why changes are required in the way history education is imparted. (Drake, 2002) He believes that history is highly useful branch of knowledge, which must be studied analytical in order to reach the most authentic and plausible conclusions. How many times do we feel the need to question a particular historical 'fact' but decide not to raise a question simply because the teachers do not encourage active classroom discussion. This lack of enthusiastic participation in teaching history makes this potentially interesting subject a highly dull one, where facts are not worth retaining for long. Wineburg refers to this attitude as, "...our psychological condition at rest, a way of thinking that requires little effort and comes quite naturally" (19).

It has also been noticed that history is usually taught in a "monolithic" style, which requires no specific skills. He feels that history is an important subject as "...there is a growing recognition by educators and policymakers that questions of historical reasoning carry implications well beyond the curricular borders of history" (51). For this reason, history education must be equipped with critical thinking skills and students should be encouraged to "to comprehend and ponder the key ideas, events, concepts and interpretations of their discipline" (170).

Wineburg feels that the two important concepts, which are missing from history education in our schools today, are the "sourcing heuristic" and the "corroboration heuristic." Historians use these two methods when studying historical documents. Sourcing heuristic technique is used to "contextualize" documents by questioning the author's intentions, his skills, credentials etc. Historians do not just rely on the fact presented to them through other history writers and therefore with various approaches, they try to distance themselves from past authors in order to conduct an objective research. Corroboration heuristic on the other hand enables historians to establish links between various documents on the same subject or event. This helps them in separating established facts from self-drawn conclusions. (Drake, 2002)

While attacking our current history teaching strategies, Wineburg also admits that history is not an easy subject because many wonder why is it being taught at all. What's the point in knowing about what happened say ten years ago? Hays (2002) comments on this problem and writes, "Another problem, Wineburg points out, is that it is extremely difficult to engage students in the study of history because they do not see its relevance. People who think last month is the distant past don't easily connect to events from a generation or more ago. And finally, perhaps more than anything else, what is presented in textbooks is often selective, its importance established by its placement in the "user friendly" format, and it is presented as though spoken by the oracle. Wineburg, in designing strategies for teaching history, is particularly concerned that students frequently do not have an opportunity to evaluate the original materials of history-documents such as letters, newspaper articles, and speeches."