Why Learn History // Week One Questions  

We are excited to start our book club conversation on Why Learn History (When it’s Already on Your Phone) as we make our way to Sam Wineburg’s August 4th keynote address in the OER Conference for Social Studies. Post your thoughts and answers to the questions below or add your own question. Erik Christensen will be leading the discussion and will be checking in throughout the day to respond to the conversation.  

In Chapter 1 "Crazy for History" Wineburg gives a critical analysis of American testing systems (and their effectiveness) and reaches the conclusion that "...no national test can allow students to show themselves to be historically literate."  Further, Wineburg makes the claim that multiple choice tests "convey the dismal message that history is about collecting disconnected bits of knowledge..., where one test item has nothing to do with the next, and where if you can't answer a question in a few seconds, it's wise to move on to the next. [These] tests mock the very essence of problem solving."   

• How should teachers of history in 2022 test our students?   
• How do you determine if your students are learning history?   
• How do you, to paraphrase Wilfred McClay, make those hard choices about what gets thrown out of the story so that the essentials can survive?  

Post your comments below and let's get the conversation started!  

I'm familiar with Wineburg's work with SHEG and have been trying to emphasize historical thinking skills for some time now. Even as I'm reading Chapter 1, I'm thinking to myself that I have long ago drank this kool-aid. The tests we give don't measure much. I find his writing in this chapter all the more compelling - assessment has really become a dispiriting exercise for both teachers and students.

I'm struggling most with the 2nd question - how we determine if students are learning history? And the reason for that struggle is this...  We are so conditioned to teach and learn this way. This is the way I learned history in school. This is the way my students come into my class expecting to learn. Sometimes I think that if and when I start to de-emphasize the testing/assessment and talk about the skills, my students even seem to be a little irked. It's like as if they've been driving down a road following one set of traffic laws and suddenly I'm telling them that they're not important... and that actually we're driving down the wrong road. And not only that but at least in New York State (and I'm sure we're not alone) at the end of the day, we still have that regents exam hanging over our head. And while the prompts in the test have improved somewhat ... at the end of the day it is still a standardized test. 

So my question / pondering / worry is... Wineburg is right on with this chapter and has been for some time - BUT - this is a systemic issue. Can this possibly be changed or shifted by one teacher or one classroom? What it would look like for students to walk into the high school history classroom and actually expect to learn usable skills, rather than having to attempt to de-program years of standardized testing and filling in bubbles. 

Back in 2000, I attended a conference put on by the California League of High Schools in which our superintendent of education unveiled the California high school exit exam. He talked about it for quite some time. The subsequent speaker Alfie Kohn talked about “if somebody told us that we needed to raise the bar”, we probably got the wrong guy, that juxtaposition was super interesting. Standardized testing as a classroom practice doesn’t give the kids voice, isn’t how they communicate learning in a meaningful way, and won’t tell us what you need to know about whether a kid learned or not.

We need to take stock of where the kids are at the start ofthe course, it’s kind of like going to the gym and getting on the scale at the end of the week year and saying that you gained weight, how do you know? 

Back in 2000, I attended a conference put on by the California League of High Schools in which our superintendent of education unveiled the California high school exit exam. He talked about it for quite some time. The subsequent speaker Alfie Kohn talked about “if somebody told us that we needed to raise the bar”, we probably got the wrong guy, that juxtaposition was super interesting. Standardized testing as a classroom practice doesn’t give the kids voice, isn’t how they communicate learning in a meaningful way, and won’t tell us what you need to know about whether a kid learned or not.

We need to take stock of where the kids are at the start ofthe course, it’s kind of like going to the gym and getting on the scale at the end of the week year and saying that you gained weight, how do you know?