Making History in the Classroom
Helping students understand what historians do, reimagining Bloom's Taxonomy, and bringing in bicycles to help us burn all those calories from eating and drinking...
Inspired by Sam Wineburg’s Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone), in the last newsletter, I started explaining how I approach the teaching of history. I wanted to pick up on that and offer some additional thoughts, for this is something I think about A LOT.
The discussion that follows is a little lengthy, so here is the tl;dr…
If you’re a student in one of my courses, there is one major point I want you to come to grips with: history doesn’t exist out there. It is produced. Sources don’t tell us anything. We exorcise answers from them—and the ghosts we get from that depend on the questions we ask.
What do I mean by that?
One of the things I discussed last time was that a history course’s primary goal should not be to produce students who know a bunch of historical facts. Instead, it should seek to awaken in students the ability to “think historically.” I then explained how one of the basic ways I do so is by having students narratively map a particular key term (might be an event, individual, concept, etc.). In short, they begin with the easy task of identifying the term, then move to the more difficult task of contextualizing it, and then finish off with the very sophisticated task of arguing about its significance. The identification part is only the most elementary part of the process, and not really what matters the most (the significance).
Identification isn’t terribly important because, as Wineberg’s book title asserts, facts are easily available on our smart devices. But so is a lot of other crap... The question then becomes: how will students discern between valuable information and noise (which includes blatant lies)?1 And how are they to craft narratives that offer some kind of coherence to critically engage with the world?
Well, at a very basic level, that’s what historians do—we go to archives, cover ourselves up to the head with evidence, and try to craft an argument from this chaos. (Seriously, for my current project I have tens of thousands of photos from more than a dozen archives in France, Brazil, and the United States and, as you can see, am running out of storage space).
This is where another pedagogical pillar that sustains my courses comes in: the collaborative case studies. Long story short, I present students with a curated archive of primary sources (the evidence historians work with) and a scholarly article by a historian who has engaged with the topic at hand (an argumentative source). I then provide them with a couple of “challenge questions.” Their mission is to sift through this archive, analyze the evidence, and develop a presentation that answers the challenge questions and engages with the scholarly article. Ideally, they go beyond just answering the assigned challenge questions (already a complex task) and frame the presentation with their own overarching thesis.
The collaborative case study assignment ends up achieving several things. First, it exposes students to what historians actually do: the kinds of questions we ask (hence the challenge questions), the kind of material we work with (the primary sources), the way we construct our arguments (the scholarly article). But it goes even further. It asks students to do what historians do: they have to analyze the evidence, engage with other scholars’ arguments, and produce their own original interpretation of the material.
Students get overwhelmed. Their curated archive is not the typical tens of thousands of pages that a professional historian must go through before constructing an argument, but somewhere between fifty and one hundred pages (plus images, oral histories, and other types of sources). This is more than what the usual undergrad is used to, especially given the time constraints they face. But this is where the opportunity arises to discuss the relationship between reading and analysis—how they are practices that mutually shape each other. A scholar reads with certain questions in mind, and that helps her decide whether something is worth skimming or if she should read it carefully. And as she reads, she not only starts crafting an answer to the initial question, but the question itself starts changing and new ones emerge.
So it becomes clear to students that a guiding research question helps make the evidence manageable (something that is obvious to scholars but not to those uninitiated in the craft). They also start to realize that this is why there can be so many different arguments made from the same set of sources. Scholars ask different questions, which in turn produce different answers.
There are other reasons students get overwhelmed. They get anxious about “arguing with” an established scholar (the scholarly article they read). When they bring that up, I explain that, sure, while they don’t have the same level of expertise as Dr. Smart from Fancy Pants University, they can practice similar skills, and that’s the whole goal of this enterprise. I want them to demystify the research process for themselves and realize that expertise is always under construction—even in Dr. Smart’s case.
By the end of the experience, students realize that they have been practicing skills that are useful for much more than just the writing of history. Sifting through a mass of information and crafting a coherent argument—what does that sound like? Writing an executive summary, right? And if you end up in a managerial position you will probably have to do so! Evaluating arguments in relation to the data at hand? Well, that’s necessary to engage politically as an informed citizen. I know that the chances of me having a student who will go on to become a professional historian are exceptionally slim at a place like Singapore Management University, so I really want them to realize that these are translatable skills.
From “consumers” to “producers” of knowledge…
Pedagogically speaking, I also find this approach interesting because it proposes reframing the student experience. Students become “knowledge producers” rather than “knowledge consumers.” Perhaps some of you are familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy? In short, it’s a visual resource that posits that the learning experience can be organized hierarchically into six different stages. In the classical formulation, “knowledge” stands at the base of the pyramid —a necessary component if students are to rise higher and perform more complex acts, the highest of which is “evaluation.”
The pyramid kind of makes intuitive sense, right? Good “evaluative” judgments only come after the “understanding,” “application,” “analysis,” and “synthesis” of “knowledge.”
Or does it?
As Wineburg explains, historical knowledge is not the base of history—it’s the end goal. Furthermore, it’s always provisional. Historical thinking demands that students come to grips with that. Historians work with messy evidence that tells contradictory stories, points in different directions, and leaves a bunch of holes open. And they have to craft a story with that beautiful ugly mess. In that sense, a historian’s initial moves are to “analyze” and “synthesize” the material. Only then will she be able to make sense of what she is working with (“application”), begin to “understand” its significance, and discover (or as I prefer, produce) something new. In short, craft “knowledge.” As Wineburg explains:
For students of history, [Bloom’s] pyramid is upside down. Putting knowledge at the base implies that the world of ideas is fully known and that critical thinking means gathering accepted facts in order to render judgment. Bloom’s pyramid endows knowledge with all the glamour of a dank basement: necessary for a house’s foundation but hardly the place to host honored guests. Such an approach inverts the process of historical thinking and distorts why we study history in the first place. As a result, newly discovered knowledge, the prize of intellectual effort, gets locked in the basement.
Now, I’d go as far as saying that the whole pyramid image is deceptive. After all, “knowledge” is the end point, but it’s also a starting point. We need some kind prior knowledge to start framing our inquiry toward new knowledge.2 And I actually think Wineberg would agree. As he writes, “[o]f course, knowledge is a prerequisite to critical thinking.” The process, therefore, is iterative.
Perhaps a better image is that of a series of concentric circles that keeps expanding outwardly? I don’t know. I’m not the most visual of thinkers.3
In case you’re curious, here is an example of one of the Collaborative Case Studies in “Situating the Machine: Technologies, Politics, and Societies”:
Notice how the Challenge Questions are “how” questions that speak to one another (so they demand interpretative answers that engage in some kind of dialectic), how they are presented with a scholarly argument (a chapter in David Nye’s American Technological Sublime, a classic in the field), and how the evidence comes from a variety of different perspectives (including civic organizations, early marketing specialists, and utility companies). A nice, polyphonic mess for them to make sense of…
Of food…
A couple of updates on life in the Lion City.
COVID-19 restrictions remain relaxed, and Emily and I have been taking full advantage of the indoor dining (and drinking) options. Recently, for her birthday, we went to Jigger & Ponny, which is a staple in those “Best Bars in Asia” lists.
It was quite good, and the ambiance is very swanky—but I still think Native is our favorite. Those cocktails are magical…
Because the food scene here is so great, it is hard to keep track of things to send in the newsletter, so if you want to stay more up-to-date with what we are eating and drinking, follow us on Instagram. Yes, we are now insufferable. I’m sorry. But the account really is to help us keep track of what we enjoy (and what doesn’t quite work out)!
The Mid-Autumn Festival is upon us, so Emily and I decided to embrace some of the tradition and buy some mooncakes. These are Chinese pastries usually filled with red bean or lotus seed paste and salted duck egg yolks. To be honest, we were definitely intrigued by the mooncakes themselves, but it was the boxes they come in that really convinced us to spend some money on them (because they’re not particularly cheap). The cases can be so elaborate! We got ours from the Capitol Kempinski, a fancy hotel near my work that also houses a beautiful bar that specializes in rum drinks. The case (which also serves as a jewelry box) features motifs that evoke a couple from the hotel itself and CHIJMES, a former convent that is now a historic dining complex in central Singapore (it’s where the wedding takes place in Crazy Rich Asians).
The mooncake itself was interesting, but I think our palate still needs to get a little adjusted to it. Cuisines in the United States and in Brazil really embrace the use of sugar in their pastries, so we are still getting used to more savory treats.
… and bicycles.
Finally, during “lockdown” we started renting bicycles from our condo and going on short trips. Well, we got really into it and have purchased a pair of folding bicycles, which are convenient because we can take them on public transit and, who knows, maybe one day travel with them and do some bicycle touring in other countries. Here I am putting the rear rack to use and serving as the designated pizza delivery man…
As you can see, we also enjoy our trash food and occasionally go for some Little Caesar’s…
It’s not just young students who struggle with this. I’m sure you all have a parent or uncle who has a hard time discerning what is legitimate news and what is propaganda or “fake news” on Facebook or WhatsApp. Media literacy is an intergenerational issue…
It’s precisely because students need to engage with some “established” knowledge in order to produce their own knowledge that I include the scholarly article in the Case Study.
To be completely fair, I should note that there have been countless critiques of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and I think very few teachers subscribe to the classical formulation nowadays.
Again, great to read your writing. Teaching History is not as easy as I imagined. I bet trying to get lessons together, even for elementary children, can be taxing and a professor must work hard to communicate “the truths”.
Always enjoy most the personal doings of you and Mrs. Emily! Makes me feel a bit closer to you two!