The last article I chose to read this week was “Beyond Best Practices: Taking Seriously the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” by Kornblith and Lasser and I feel it encompasses the meaning(s) of what the scholarship of teaching and learning is. “The scholarship of teaching and learning, then, not only encourages us to bring our skills as researchers into our work as teachers; it also asks us to articulate the core substance and significance of our distinctive expertise as historians.” This excerpt is an excellent point, but the question is how to remedy the predicament of the K-12 system, which does not seem to have a universal standard of ensuring that American high school graduates posses a working knowledge of history by the time the enter the university environment. Because of this, it is the responsibility of the college and university professors to compensate. How can a system be created that involves the scholarship of teaching and learning history at all levels of education and not leave it to the collegiate level to ensure students are not just continuing to learn facts, but creating strategies for which the students can build confidence in, as Pace states, “evaluate claims critically, to see complex questions from more than one perspective, to understand how different groups can view the same situation in different ways, to recognize the long-term consequences of actions, and to master dozens of other subtle mental operations that are absolutely necessary for their success as individuals…”?
I question why there seems to be a disconnect in the research of K-12 students and how they currently learn history and the application of the research results in the K-12 classroom. How can we focus on creating a setting for learning history in the college classroom when America’s K-12 classroom has various methods of teaching depending on the state, county, institution (public or private), and creating divisions within the classroom such as general education and honors classes? By the time students enter college, there is an uneven playing field based on the type of education received in K-12. Therefore, I see it as necessary to focus attention on how to implement learning tools, systematically, in K-12 to properly prepare students for the next level of education – an introductory college course that develops their skills of reading, analyzing, and interpreting that is based on the foundation they developed in their K-12 education. So yes, it is important for scholars to focus their energies on the scholarship of teaching and learning and to make sure their research is implemented in K-12 education, as well as at the collegiate level. Now I say all of this, but I realize this achievement will not occur overnight and current scholars need to develop the scholarship of teaching and learning for those that are currently teaching (or will soon teach) students from multiple educational backgrounds. It does mean that those desiring to enter the field of history have a lot of work ahead of them; and must truly be dedicated to their craft and how to share their knowledge with their students without just lecturing “the facts.”
You identify one of the major points which needs to be worked out, and which we have talked about to an extent. The reality is that it is hard to set a standard goal nationally for any subject, but particularly for history. With a subject like math, there can at least be relative agreement that the ability to process simple equations is a useful tool that can be employed in every day situations.
However, with history, as we have seen, opinions range from the notion that most important should be a familiarity with “important” names, dates, and places to beliefs that content is relative and minor compared with critical thinking skills. Bain seems to the think the critical thinking ideology (one which also embraces an emphasis on content) is gaining some consensus, but even that seems ambiguous and contested. What exactly do we mean by critical thinking? How exactly can this benefit students in the future? Is it right for students of all levels, interests, geographies, economic statuses, etc?
The hard thing with standards is they try to draw the black and white out of the gray world we live in. While benchmarks can be useful as a loose guideline, identifying them is trying and at times dangerous. But defining critical thinking and its benefits seems to be a challenging task.
Comment by Ken — September 19, 2006 @ 12:58 pm
Is it possible that there should be two sorts of History courses available to high school students? One which is required, that centers on the nationalistic facts we should know – something akin to “citizenship;” and another which centers more around research and investigation of History. The second would appeal more to the college bound student and could be offered in tandem with English classes where you learn how to write a research paper and how to cite, etc… The first would satisfy the standardized test hounds.
While we are at it then, shouldn’t we make educational training (”learn how to teach”) a requirement for those who do wish to teach. Even if it didn’t become a full time vocation, the knowledge certainly isn’t without value.
Michelle
Comment by Michelle — September 19, 2006 @ 1:48 pm