Why Study History? (Re)Creating Loyalties between Tradition and Innovation for Historical Studies in the 21st Century

When teaching historical methods and social studies pedagogy, the question arises: why study history? The conversation often begins with traditional rationales: to “learn from the past” or to “not repeat the mistakes of the past.” While noble, these responses reflect a loyalty to past intentions to capture some objective truth in understanding and learning from the past.[1] Inevitably, however, this explanation fails to fully capture the nuanced nature of historical study or its true aims as a central component of K-12 curriculum- to develop active, critically thinking, participating democratic citizens.

The purpose of this presentation is to argue for a “new” rationale for studying history in the information age of the 21^st century. Historians have a special and unique role in the academic world as the keepers of the keys into the windows of the historical world. They must navigate historical memory and historical consciousness as they exist in both the individual and society.[2] This dialectical dance requires intense scrutiny, analysis and interpretation of historical records.[3] Historians also provide a mirror of the present as they search for clues of understanding of the current world as it exists. They deploy a range of sophisticated disciplinary skills sets that are greatly needed in today’s world.[4] The meticulous attention to detail, sophisticated depths of analysis, use of imagination, and synthesis of multiple, and conflicting, data are all skills that have been identified in educational goals and objectives.[5]

The stated goal of including history (and social studies) as a core subject in K-12 curriculum has long been to develop democratic citizenship. Citizenship education begins with the study of history.[6] As dollars tighten and the cold hard realities of the bottom line come to bear, historians must remember their unique purpose and role in both the academic and social worlds in developing critical thinkers and writers. In a reimagining of the response to the question: why study history? We ought to remind them because history matters. It is a weapon. It is memory. It is a window. It is a mirror.

[1] Gilderhus, Mark T. "History and historians: A historiographical introduction." (2000).

Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the American Historical Profession. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

[2] Seixas, Peter C., ed. Theorizing historical consciousness. University of Toronto Press, 2004.

[3] Stearns, Peter N., Peter C. Seixas, and Sam Wineburg, eds. Knowing, teaching, and learning history: National and international perspectives. NYU Press, 2000.

Foucault, Michel. The archaeology of knowledge. Vintage, 2012.

[4] Wineburg, Sam. "Historical thinking and other unnatural acts." Phi Delta Kappan 92, no. 4 (2010): 81-94.

Fallace, Thomas, and Johann N. Neem. "Historiographical thinking: Towards a new approach to preparing history teachers." Theory & Research in Social Education 33, no. 3 (2005): 329-346.

[5] AHA standards, NCSS standards Barton, Keith C., and Linda S. Levstik. "Why don't more history teachers engage students in interpretation?." Social Education67, no. 6 (2003): 358-358.

[6] Kahne, Joseph, and Joel Westheimer. "Teaching democracy: What schools need to do." Phi Delta Kappan 85, no. 1 (2003): 34-66.