I like the idea of using history to train students to just question, full stop. Whether this questioning leads to community organizing or stay-at-home-mom-ing, I'm not interested. It's not my place to dictate how a student should use their skills or make their choices (unless of course, they are doing something which is outright harming themselves or others). Students are individuals who make their own choices and, in the end, will choose to do as they will. I am uncomfortable with Barton and Levstik assertion that the goal of social studies education should be to train students to deliberate over the public good. I’m not a world changer. I just want students to think. In a world of Jersey Shore and Real Housewives of (insert city here), someone certainly needs to. But for the public good? I think it is a little presumptuous. "The public" is so broad and ambiguous, our country so big and diverse, how is anyone to know what is best for everyone, or even most? Can't we say that history educators should train students to be critical consumers of information, to read well, and express themselves amiably? I'm perfectly happy to leave it at that. But tacking on "for the future purposes of the deliberating on the public good" makes me a little uneasy. After a 14-week reality check in Title 1 schools, I'll be honest. I'd be happy if young people just deliberate ANYTHING courteously, respectfully, and with evidence to support their view. Start small and go from there. They are, after all, children. They should be treated with respect, but don’t forget that, if given the opportunity, they will draw boobs on the board and eat pop tarts and Coke for every meal.
I responded much better to Wineburg’s article on historical thinking. I liked the idea of viewing the past as a foreign country, needing “culture shock” or being uncomfortable. I appreciated his assertion that the past is a difference place because people saw differently then: “Much as we try, we can never fully cross the Rubicon that flows between our mind and Caesar’s.” Poetic.
I also agreed with his warning that while it is important for students to find something to identify with or relate to when looking at the past, it shouldn’t be presented as so foreign that kids just throw up their hands. Really, people from the past weren’t SO different from us. They were people; they were no better or worse than we are now. I think we dwell so much on differences, but similarities can be helpful in getting kids to look at the past and connect in some way. If one goal of history education is to deepen or expand one’s view of humanity, this is essential.
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You know, I'm ok with Barton and Levstik advocating that critical thinking needs to be pursued "for the common good". I don't actually see a difference between the kind of critical thinking that you advocate- skills to enable one to evaluate some more complicated topic than Snooki's pouf- and thinking "for the common good".
ReplyDeleteThe idea of "the common good" is a catchall, so it can be extended to community organizing or being a stay at home parent or a CEO or a bus driver. Any of those occupations benefit the common good. Being a better *citizen* is for the common good. I don't think that the idea of working "for the common good" means you need to be racing around shouting ¡Sí, se puede! on behalf of the ACLU. Extending your mental faculties is good for the common good. Didn't Van Sledright conclude by saying it's what TJ would have wanted?
And as to a rationale for the common good, I actually found during my own Title 1 reality check, that there was no easier explanation (nor more rational one, to my mind) than "the common good". Students before graduating high school remain pretty optimistic and philanthropic; the idea of doing a particular thing becuase it helps themselves and others I found was always a satisfactory answer to the question "why are we learning this?". I actually found that if I could connect any exercise we undertook to some way in which it would make the world a better place, it was much better received than if I tried to explain that it would make help them pass a test, and get into a good college, and make tons of money. But I was teaching 9th grade and as I recall you had 12th grade, so maybe during those intervening years students lose that big-heartedness. I'd like to think not.