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A look at how to teach history in the age of easily accessible-but not always reliable-information.
Let's start with two truths about our era that are so inescapable as to have become clichés: We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percent of it is inaccurate. Some of the bad info is well-meaning but ignorant. Some of it is deliberately deceptive. All of it is pernicious.
With the Internet at our fingertips, what's a teacher of history to do? In Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone), Professor Sam Wineburg has the answers, beginning with this: We can't stick to the same old read-the-chapter, answer-the-question snoozefest. If we want to educate citizens who can separate fact from fake, we have to equip them with new tools. Historical thinking, Wineburg shows, has nothing to do with the ability to memorize facts. Instead, it's an orientation to the world that cultivates reasoned skepticism and counters our tendency to confirm our biases. Wineburg lays out a mine-filled landscape, but one that with care, attention, and awareness, we can learn to navigate.
The future of the past may rest on our screens. But its fate rests in our hands.
Let's start with two truths about our era that are so inescapable as to have become clichés: We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percent of it is inaccurate. Some of the bad info is well-meaning but ignorant. Some of it is deliberately deceptive. All of it is pernicious.
With the Internet at our fingertips, what's a teacher of history to do? In Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone), Professor Sam Wineburg has the answers, beginning with this: We can't stick to the same old read-the-chapter, answer-the-question snoozefest. If we want to educate citizens who can separate fact from fake, we have to equip them with new tools. Historical thinking, Wineburg shows, has nothing to do with the ability to memorize facts. Instead, it's an orientation to the world that cultivates reasoned skepticism and counters our tendency to confirm our biases. Wineburg lays out a mine-filled landscape, but one that with care, attention, and awareness, we can learn to navigate.
The future of the past may rest on our screens. But its fate rests in our hands.