Teaching History in the Digital Age

Because this course centers around teaching, it is of course necessary to talk about how we will accomplish that task. However, when choosing History as a field of scholarship; do all students need to be trained to eventually also teach History? Then, if one is going to teach History as a subject (at whatever level); what sort of training should they have?

Our readings for this week attempt to answer the sorts of training History teachers (and eventual Professors) should have. Mostly though, I came away thinking that perhaps, students of History should examine first their motivations for embarking on an academic career in History. Maybe many really just want to do the research, and find that they are thrust into the role of instructor by accident or financial necessity. Other than teaching History, what ways are there to finance a truer love of research, investigation, and writing? Since so many will find themselves expected to guide novice students, should there not be some sort of requisite course in teaching?

The readings assume that Historians will most likely become teachers in some way or another. Pace’s article points out that there are many rules about collecting and evaluating evidence (for use in research) but there are only annecdotes on how to teach others how to do these things. The title of his piece, The Amateur in the Operating Room, only highlights the difficulties experienced by new instructors. I would imagine this is how new GTA’s feel.

The article by Axtell was very refreshing, and I hope that there are many like him out there. He teaches because he loves his subject and the reward of inspiring students. I would guess he can almost see the lightbulb above a student’s head when they “get” it. How much of his experience is annecdotal though? The points he makes about engaging students to think of themselves as historical beings and fostering communications across disciplinary boundries certainly make sense…but I believe he found out about these tactics by trying them out, not because someone said, “here, look in this manual of how to teach history.”

Nobody has yet told a story where students didn’t enjoy exercises which fostered true historical thinking. Eveyone also seems to agree that memorizing facts is boring and non-productive. The question then becomes, how do we satisfy the dual goal of having students knowlegeable about some historical facts and develop skills useful for historical inquiry? A measurement tool other than standardized tests needs to be developed which can satisfy a way to gauge achievement.

History comes to students at the elementary and high school level as stories about the past. According to VanSledright, students at these levels are not encouraged to debate, argue or revise what they are told. Yet we know from him that they do posess the ability to develop these skills when allowed. If historians acknowledge that these skills are necessary for the proper study of History, they why are they not exposed to them earlier than the college level? Is it a recent phenomena that students are arriving in their introductory History classes so unprepared? Was there a time in the past when students were allowed to question popular notion and look for the story of another party?

After reading this week’s articles, I understand that stepping outside the textbook comfort zone is necssary in order to teach the skills required for serious historical inquiry. However, no one gave any insight on how to do this in an atmosphere which loves standardized testing. The students might love the courses and sign up en masse for them, but what will the administrators say? Will they be able to pass the Jay Leno pop quiz?