Historical Literacy - Fact vs. Fractured!

For the past decade I have been working with public school teachers engaged in a variety of Teaching American History projects. In some years we targeted elementary teachers. In other years we focused on middle school and high school teachers who had a specific American history class on their teaching schedules. We looked at creating instructional units using the Understanding by Design framework developed by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. (http://books.google.com/books/about/Understanding_by_design.html?id=N2EfKlyUN4QC). In another project we used the Shared Inquiry method created by the Great Books Foundation as a way of addressing primary documents (http://www.greatbooks.org/). In yet another project we concentrated on increasing student reading literacy and comprehension through historical content.

While the particular format or target audience varied and the instructional framework changed, the overall goals were the same. We sought to increase teacher content knowledge, enhance instructional practices and engage students in meaningful tasks and habits of mind surrounding the learning and thinking about history.

In too many classrooms, teaching (and I would say memorizing not learning) history involves the relating and regurgitating of facts with little context or deeper understanding. The old adage claims that elementary teachers teach children, and secondary teachers teach content. The first sometimes results in too thin a treatment of historical content while the second tends to focus on content over student understanding. As a recovering secondary English teacher who traveled a rocky road to achieve some balance between the two, I can attest to the naive nature of the belief that covering a great deal of information equates with rigor.

If anyone should doubt the effectiveness of "covering" content, check out "The World According to Student Bloopers" compiled by Richard Lederer of the St. Paul School (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~norman/Jokes-file/StudentBloopers.htm). The Internet fact checker site snopes.com indicates that perhaps not all of the bloopers are original with Lederer, but anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time in the public school classroom can recognize some of the misinformation that swirls around in the mental stew of many students. If this fractured vision of history and culture is even remotely the result of time spent covering facts, then I hate to think what history it is that we are doomed to repeat if we do not learn our lessons well!

Over the years of my career in teaching and professional development, I have participated in many workshops on brain hemisphericity. (Say that fast three times and see what part of your brain you use!) In reading through the articles on right brain/left brain, I was reminded how much our teaching strategies are informed (and formed) by our own brain preference. In every right brain/left brain assessment I ever took, I am far to the left leaving me as an almost no-brainer on the right side. I can see this preference in the way I prepare materials for instruction. Lots of linear instructions. Lots of handouts. Lots of prescribed structure. In an increasingly hyperlinked world, I have had to struggle at times to adapt both my thinking and my instruction. I am sure that in many situations in my classroom and workshops, predominantly right-brained participants struggled to adapt to my format.

And speaking of format, one of the most interesting uses of right/left brain research in instruction is the system of lesson development created by Bernice McCarthy called 4MAT (http://www.aboutlearning.com/). McCarthy takes the two sciences of learning styles and brain hemisphericity and combines them into a lesson design that incorporates all four learning styles with a brain preference within each style to create eight lesson segments. By incorporating these elements, McCarthy hopes to engage all students in both their learning comfort zones as well as providing them with activities that stretch their learning and thinking.

Taking the 4MAT assessment to determine my learning and brain profile helped me consciously work to include the other styles to create an instrucitonal whole over the course of a lesson or unit. My profile also helped me understand how I worked with colleagues who did not share my preferences but brought different strengths to our professional discussions and collaborations.

This is just a brief introduction to my blog. I am serving as a Curriculum Consultant for this Teaching American History project, Keystones of the Federal Union. So...the name of the blog is Kathy's Keystones.

I spent 20 years teaching secondary English during which time I directed plays and musicals, coached speech and debate teams and served as advisor for the school newspaper...not all at once, thankfully!The last 15 years of my educational career I served as a curriculum director for the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit (CSIU) in Montandon, PA. With three years of retirement already behind me (that's right, you do the math and you will discover my approximate age), I was enticed to return to work part time at the CSIU to lend a hand to some special projects. This is one of those projects.

As with the other years of my career, I am already learning many new skills as I work along with all of the other participants in the project. Nothing like a life in education to ensure that you will be a lifelong learner.