Page 137 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

and development of our country and its institutions and traditions; to understand the many ways in which today’s world has been shaped by decisions and events of the past; to understand how these past events have influenced contemporary beliefs, attitudes, and life experiences, including our own and those of the groups with which we identify; to note parallels in comparable situations that developed at different times and places; and to consider the potential implications of all of this for personal, social, and civic decision making.
Historical accounts are developed through study of what has been preserved from the past. Usually this includes not only archaeological remains but books, newspapers, maps, diaries, and other written material (and more recently, audiovisual material). These sources often disagree, especially when reporting on conflicts involving groups with com- peting interests. Usually there is at least some legitimacy to all the different points of view expressed. To construct defensible interpretations, historians need to sift through all of the relevant evidence (from people who were eyewitnesses on the scene versus dependent on reports from others, and those who were seemingly unbiased versus those who were committed to a particular group or point of view), then piece together a reconstruction that is consistent with the most credible evidence. This may include reference to situations in which the same events were perceived differently by different groups.
Historical study sometimes suggests “lessons” in the form of guidelines or cautions to keep in mind in coping with today’s challenges. However, it is important to note the differences as well as the similarities between comparable situations. Also, developments that seem clear in hindsight may not have been very predictable at the time. To understand the thinking and behavior of people of the past, we need to adopt their purview—consider situations within the affordances and constraints of their time and place.
National Standards for History Teaching
In recent decades, the traditional history curriculum has been criticized as too concerned with perpetuating the status quo. Social studies educators who emphasize a global pur- view and world interdependence want to see U.S. history embedded more clearly within world history and taught in ways less likely to induce chauvinistic attitudes in Ameri- cans. Those concerned with multicultural issues want to see a more inclusive selection of topics, treated in ways that represent more diverse points of view. Those concerned with gender issues would like to see more emphasis on social history and the lives of everyday people (especially women), and correspondingly less emphasis on political and military issues. Social critics would like to see more representation of the activities and views of workers relative to capitalists, oppressed or voiceless minorities relative to the establishment, and so on.
These tensions boiled over in the 1980s and early 1990s in a series of highly politicized movements to reform state history standards and eventually establish national history standards (Cornbleth & Waugh, 1999; Nash, Crabtree, & Dunn, 1997; Symcox, 2002). A great many issues were involved, but the conflicts essentially pitted “traditionalists, who favored a single grand narrative celebrating a shared and triumphant national past, against revisionists, who favored a more pluralistic rendering of our nation’s history, with fewer heroes” (Symcox, 2002, p. 3).
Eventually, the federal government commissioned the National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS) to develop “voluntary” standards to guide K–12 curriculum and instruction in history. After several years of development and revision, which included soliciting and responding to feedback from a broad range of stakeholders, the NCHS published sets of standards that the developers believed to be representative of a broad
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CHAPTER 5 How Can I Teach History Powerfully? 109