“The goal is not to train a new generation of
historians. Instead, the historical
investigation model is designed to generate student interest in studying the
past, engender competence with a set of thinking skills that will benefit them
beyond the school walls, and promote an understanding of the major events,
people, and ideas that populate the American past.” (p. 73)
Lesh, B. A. (2011). “Why
won’t you just tell us the answer?”: Teaching historical
thinking in grades 7-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse
Publishers.
This passage tidily summarizes Bruce Lesh’s philosophy that
underlies his method of emphasizing text, subtext, and context, to teach historical
thinking. He does not intend to lead his
students through an apprenticeship at the end of which they emerge professional
historians. Instead, he argues for a
more practical approach in which students learn thinking skills that they can
then apply in other areas of their lives. How does he define historical
thinking? Lesh points to a quote from
Linda Levstik and Keith Barton that argues “historical thinking is
fundamentally about judgment – about building and evaluating warranted or
grounded interpretations. History, then,
is not just opinion: It is interpretation grounded in evidence” (p. 21). Lesh advances
this idea throughout the first three chapters of his book as he describes how
he designs his classes around source-based inquiry. He introduces them to sources with
conflicting information, showing them that there is not one correct interpretation
of a particular event. However, this
passage on page 73 also shows that while he places great importance on
introducing historical modes of thinking, he does not limit his instructional
aims to skills. He also seeks to give
his students a better “understanding” of the past. The word understanding suggests that he does
not wish to provide a bank of trivial information students can use to impress
someone at some point in the future, but instead to give them a context in
which they can comprehend their world.
In this passage Lesh hits upon some of my most closely held
beliefs about the purpose of teaching social studies. My goal is to teach students how to think
critically, question the validity of information they come across, and how to use
that information to participate in their communities in a more thoughtful way. I recognize that not every student will
become an historian and many will not formally study history after high school. I know that I will come across students who
have encountered social studies instruction that distilled the content to a
list of factoids to be memorized and that I will need to show them the
relevance of history to their lives. I believe
that we can learn from the past because there are patterns that we can discern
that reveal something about human nature.
I want to introduce my students to this possibility with the hope that
they could finally see some utility in studying what I heard one student refer
to as a story about the “successes and failures of old, dead guys”.
On the other hand, I just might have a few future historians
in my classes. For those students who wish
to pursue history or any social science, I want to give them the tools they
will need to succeed in academic study beyond my classes. While I believe I received a fantastic
secondary education, I was never explicitly taught how to source a document
until a professor took the time to do a think aloud with my class during my
junior year in college. I had developed
some of the skills intuitively but others felt like an empowering
revelation. I do not want my students
who want to pursue history wait until a professor (if any) decides that
students need a basic understanding of how to examine the context and subtext
of sources. I want to make my classes
useful for both types of students: the future historian and the future citizen.
