History Education: It’s
about the Journey!
“If students can overcome
this perception that there is a ‘right answer’ and gain confidence in their
abilities to interpret historical sources, address the commonalities and
disparities among those sources, and formulate and defend an interpretation,
then they will be on their way to gaining proficiency in thinking historically”
(Lesh, 2011, p. 39).
Lesh, B.A. (2011). “Why won’t you just tell us the answer”:
Teaching historical thinking in grades 7-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers
For decades, history has
been taught in terms of timelines, names, and dates. History tests have long been built upon
multiple choice, map skills, short answer with an essay question, which usually
requires students to repeat or regurgitate a portion of the prescribed
narrative. This practice has perpetuated
a subconscious understanding in American schools that in your history class,
memorization is the key skill to acquire.
Lesh calls for students to reject this notion that a students’ goal in a
history class should be to search for the right answer to assessments. Instead, Lesh encourages students to move
beyond the traditional teaching of names and dates to deciding how and why
historical events occurred and how or why we remember these events in a
particular way. For Lesh, this means
students must “question authority” (2011, p. 38) whether this be a teacher,
textbook, source, or narrative. In
order to encourage students to move past end of section review questions and
rote memorization. Lesh, Barton and Levstik promote teaching students to
undergo the same review as professional historians through a process called
historical thinking. Barton and Levstik
(2004) identify the historical thinking process in four steps: identify,
analyze, respond morally and display.
For Lesh, as a student progresses through each of these steps, the emphasis
is placed on questioning. Lesh calls
upon skills used in other disciplines such as Science in order to encourage
questioning in his own history class. By
integrating skills used in the instruction of other educational subjects, Lesh creates
“history labs”. For Lesh, “a key
component of a laboratory experience in history is what students do with the
historical sources once they have analyzed the text, placed sources in to
context, and addressed the questions of subtext” (2011, p. 62). Lesh argues that this method of instruction
encourages students to develop the necessary historical thinking skills for
students to transcend the superficial comprehension of history into a deeper
understanding of historical events and people.
In our society, the
manner and purpose of history education is in desperate need for review. The culture of standardized testing only
intensifies the dichotomy of right and wrong and the importance of a single
right answer in students’ minds. As
adults we understand that answers are not always as simple as right or
wrong. In many instances, the choices we
make are based upon what is best given the present circumstances. Far more important than the decision one
makes is the thought process and reasoning one goes through in order to make
the best decision with the information at the time. For students to simply learn what decisions a
historical figure might make does not get at the substance of how one comes to
make the decision. Therefore, for
students to understand history as a series of events without studying the deliberations
presents a superficial understanding of historical events. As a history teacher, I feel that it is my
responsibility to convey to my students not just an understanding of historical
events but the reasoning, which led to the occurrence of these events. It is for this reason that I agree with and
admire Lesh’s method of teaching History.
As stated above, Lesh’s method is strengthened by Barton and Levstik’s
four components of historical thinking.
I especially like the organization of a “lab” in order help students
develop historical thinking skills. The
notion of a lab is inherently inquiry/discovery based which assists teachers in
developing lesson that encourage students to develop their understanding of a
particular event for themselves as opposed to the teacher developing the idea
for them. I especially like the natural
development of hypotheses, which occur from a lab-type framework. Furthermore, this method of instruction also
promotes the development of life-skills such as group work.
