Teaching History in the Digital Classroom

D.Antonio Cantu, Wilson J. Warren

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315290638
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Technology

While many methods texts have an add-on chapter on technology, this book integrates the use of technology into every phase of the teaching profession. Filled with decision-making scenarios and reflective questions that help bring the material to life, it covers the development of teaching technologies, developing lesson plans, and actual instructional models in history and social studies. An appendix provides sample lessons, sample tests, a list of resources, and other practical materials.

Part I

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Historical and Hidden Curriculum

Chapter 1

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Origins and Rationale for Teaching History and the Social Studies in the Middle and High School Curriculum

Never have ideas about children, and never have ideas for them.

—George Orwell

Origins

The teaching of history occupied a central place in the American secondary curriculum throughout the nineteenth century. However, history teaching in the nineteenth century was largely focused on myths about ancient Greece and Rome as well as national patriotic narratives that bordered on mythology. Because so few young people went through the secondary grades, it also tended to be a rather elitist subject, emphasizing ancient and classical studies often taught primarily to help students study for university entrance examinations. ¹

“Social studies,” as defined simply as the secondary level subject that focuses on social issues by extracting from both history and the social sciences, emerged during the Progressive era. Several factors contributed to this emergence, particularly the role of historians, the special concerns of many Progressives who felt social problems could be solved if studied closely, and the firm belief of historians, social studies advocates, and a variety of reformers in the power of citizenship education.²

By the late nineteenth century, history as a discipline had become more scientific through hypothesis testing with more rigorous attention being paid to factual source material. Professional historians, especially those associated with the American Historical Association (AHA), founded in 1884, and who had often received Ph.D.s in Germany where “scientific” historical studies originated, wanted to infuse history teaching at all ranks with a more methodologically rigorous approach to the subject. The AHA wielded tremendous influence among not only historians and history teachers, but also among the fledgling social sciences. Historians were the accepted “spokespersons” for social scientists in general, with the AHA occupying a “preeminent position in shaping social science.”³

The AHA’s Committee on History, Civil Government and Political Economy, one of ten subcommittees of the so-called Committee of Ten formed by the National Education Association (NEA) in 1892, wrote one of the strongest statements of the “new” historians’ perspectives at the turn of the twentieth century. The Committee of Ten was primarily interested in rectifying problems between secondary level and university programs and standardizing curriculum, but also ended up promoting work that led to deeper changes in American education. Led by Charles Kendall Adams, professor of history at the University of Michigan, the AHA committee’s members, including Albert Bushnell Hart, a young Harvard history professor, and Woodrow Wilson, a young professor of political economy at Princeton University, wanted to make history a subject that would train students to critically think and avoid “mere lists of lifeless dates.” The committee recommended that instead of haphazard study, history should be taught in all grades from five through twelve. To increase the amount of time devoted to history, the committee suggested that history, political geography, English, and/or civil government and political economy be combined as subjects. Instead of general history lessons, the committee wanted specific courses on Greek, Roman, English, American, and French history taught along with a general European history. Younger children should start by being exposed to biography and mythology along with other historical readings. The committee said that civil government should be allocated about half the time recommended for history. If possible, government should be integrated with history. The committee also stressed the importance of writing and critical examination of primary documents.⁴

Although few schools adopted the committee’s recommendation for history at all grade levels, it seems that the report started the dominant twentieth century trend in social studies, though this term was not commonly used until after World War I, of making history the core social studies discipline. Subsequent AHA committee reports, particularly the one issued in 1899 by the so-called Committee of Seven, reinforced the importance of history in each grade level. The 1899 report urged that ancient history be taught in the first year of high school, medieval and modern history during the second year, English history in the third year, and American history and civil government during the fourth year. As many social studies educators would advocate later, both the 1892 and 1899 AHA committee reports emphasized how history courses would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach, or at least from drawing upon other disciplines.⁵

Social efficiency experts and their educational allies, who were typically followers of John Dewey’s educational philosophies that advocated a more utilitarian approach to social education, laid the foundation for the citizenship education approach to social studies. Fundamentally, these reformers wanted education to produce social progress. They were skeptical of the professional historians’ emphasis on intellectual development and reflection; they wanted a curriculum that addressed current social problems and needs. While arguably less central to social studies’ origins than that sparked by professional historians, this approach has wielded a great deal of weight in the field since the early twentieth century. As the numbers of students attending and graduating from high schools increased rapidly during the first two decades of the twentieth century, social efficiency experts stressed that subjects offered should contribute to the social welfare of the nation. Many felt that young people needed to be better prepared for the travails of modern life. Subjects such as Latin, algebra, and even history, heralded during the nineteenth century as crucial for mental development, particularly for college-bound youngsters, were seen as impractical. Instead, the masses of new students attending high school needed subjects that would better prepare them for life and active participation as citizens. By the World War I era, many Progressives saw history as useful for examining problems of the present, but not particularly important as a subject in itself.⁶

This approach to social studies emerged most forcefully from the landmark NEA’s 1913–16 Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education’s Committee on Social Studies’ report. Unlike the 1892 and 1899 committee reports composed by professional historians, professional secondary school educators comprised most of the twenty-one members of the Committee on Social Studies. Many of the members were sociologists, including the committee’s chair, Thomas Jesse Jones, the originator of the term “social studies” and a student of sociologist Franklin H. Giddings of Columbia University. Interestingly, David Warren Saxe, the foremost scholar on the 1913— 16 social studies committee’s significance, notes that the first use of the term “social studies” in the United States was in the title of an 1887 book on the plight of urban workers. However, Saxe credits Jones with consistent use of the term for educational purposes after 1904. Two of the other four leading members of the committee, Arthur William Dunn and Clarence Kingsley, also were sociologists, and James Harvey Robinson was the only historian among the most influential committee members.⁷

The committee issued three reports, but its final report from 1916 defined citizenship education as the central focus of social studies education. This report stressed both social welfare and social efficiency for society’s general improvement as the main rationale for social education. It also advocated the use of social education for making productive and contributing individuals. Jones’s contributions to the report included an emphasis on teaching social problems and methods for dealing with them. Dunn’s main contribution to the report was the notion of “community civics,” a sort of precursor to contemporary ideas about service learning. Like many of the municipal reform advocates of the era, he wanted local governments to serve the health and welfare needs of communities. He also wanted students to see that civic education should be primarily concerned with responsibilities rather than rights. Arguably the most influential author of the 1916 report, Dunn felt that history, geography, and civics should be treated as integrated subjects with emphasis on giving young people training in how to live as citizens. James Harvey Robinson, the leading historian on the committee, wanted to dispense with traditional emphases on memorization of facts and dates and instead encourage students’ understanding of historical methods of research and criticism.⁸

The core elements of the country’s social studies curriculum emerged from the 1916 report. To date, most states still follow fairly well the subject matter scope and sequence advocated in the report: geography and history in grades seven and eight, civics in grade nine, followed by a repeat of this cycle in high school plus a new integrated course, Problems of Democracy, for grade twelve. The report stressed the teaching of modem history as more pertinent to students’ needs. However, the new scope and sequence emphasis and the problems of democracy course irritated the AHA. The 1916 report did not include four years of required history courses. Instead, it advocated study of European, English, and American history for one-half to one year each depending on local curricular needs. More disconcerting to historians, the 1916 report focused on selectively using historical issues to study specific present-day problems. The problems of democracy course also downgraded history relative to government, economics, and sociology. The report was also precedent setting because it consistently used the term “social studies” to describe an integrated approach to social education related to the organization and development of human society.⁹

Although the problems of democracy course became widespread throughout grade twelve offerings in the country by the mid-1920s, the integrated approach to social studies education underlying its development has received only an episodic and half-hearted following among social studies practitioners. The contrast between the theoretical perspectives of social studies educators and actual classroom practice related to integration of disciplinary approaches is quite striking, yet two other trends clearly emerged from the World War I era. One was an instrumentalist approach to the teaching of history. Specifically, history should be used for the purpose of teaching citizenship. A second was an erosion of interest among historians in participating in social studies education for much of the rest of the twentieth century. It seems many historians saw little value in supporting this instrumentalist approach to the discipline. Instead, educators became more central to the profession, especially through participation in the newly founded National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).¹⁰

Edgar Bruce Wesley, Alan Griffin, and, perhaps most important, the Rugg brothers, especially Harold, all leading members of the NCSS, were among the most prominent of the post-World War I generation of social studies advocates who downplayed history and stressed an integrated approach to social education. Wesley, a secondary social studies teacher in St. Louis before joining the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1931, was famously misquoted as saying social studies are social sciences “simplified for pedagogical purposes.” Nevertheless, he did stress that both history and the social sciences should not be taught per se but should be used in teaching social studies courses. Griffin, a successful secondary school teacher before becoming part of the faculty at Ohio State University in 1940, was the leading scholar in America in the development of reflective theories of teaching social studies. His reflective theories were grounded in his democratic ideals. Griffin felt history was primarily useful only if pursued in a “so what?” fashion. Otherwise, he believed it was only good for the acquisition of trivial knowledge.¹¹

Harold and Earle Rugg were the most prominent conveyors of social studies as citizenship education during the 1920s and 1930s. Both brothers were important social studies educators, but Harold became the leading advocate of integration of the social science disciplines into social studies teaching during the post-World War I period. Rugg’s ten principles of curriculum design, outlined in the NCSS publication The Future of the Social Studies in 1939, illustrate his approach to social studies education. Principle nine of his design stated that social studies “builds around problems and controversial issues, training in problem-solving and generalization.” Principle ten focuses on the use of history for understanding contemporary problems. Rugg also stressed the value of using “dramatic episodes” in making a social studies curriculum more meaningful. According to Rugg, focusing on dramatic episodes that bear upon contemporary events and issues would make the past more relevant to young people.¹²

Ironically, Rugg’s emphasis on cont...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• History, Humanitites, and New Technology
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Worksheets
• Preface
• Part I Historical and Hidden Curriculum
• Part II Intended Curriculum
• Part III Taught Curriculum
• Part IV Learned Curriculum
• Appendices
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Authors and Contributors
• Index