History Education: It’s about the Journey!

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.