Teaching History

The ideas are coming fast and furious today!

Having studied History and Political Studies at the University of Guelph, it is this field that I would most likely teach in a high school setting. I've been doing a lot of thinking about History - the subject - and have been considering how the past is so easily interpreted differently by people from different backgrounds.

For instance, living in Korea has shown me that there can be radically different interpretations about history. The Japanese history textbook controversy is the perfect example. Given such differences in interpretation, I've been wondering why so many history programs tend to teach a certain interpretation above all others. Perhaps it is the case of the winner getting to tell the history. But that doesn't hold true anymore, not in the age of the Internet/global communications. You can no longer say something about an historical event without other people soon setting their eyes on it, and if they disagree with your interpretation, you can bet they will let you and the world know it soon.

So, why don't we teach History in the way Ruth Sandwell of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education does? She provides the raw materials of historical events, has students analyze these raw materials, and then lets them come to their own conclusions about the events. To me, this is the sensible way to try to teach History.

I have a special interest in international history because of my time spent overseas. It is in this field that I feel we must allow students to make their own decisions about events. For example, I do not think that telling students that the Islamists have embarked on a war of terror against the West because they hate freedom is in our best interests if we are trying to understand the causes and effects of such actions. But American textbooks will most likely go down this route.

If I attend OISE in a couple years, I sincerely hope to meet Ruth Sandwell to learn more about her pedagogical theory concerning the teaching of History.

(May 15, 2010)
Here's an update five years in the making: I just completed a course at OISE called History is a Verb, taught by Ruth Sandwell. I'm also working on a curriculum correlation project to connect Ruth's website Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History to the various provincial curricula.