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Whether he is comparing how students and historians interpret documentary evidence or analyzing children's drawings, Wineburg's essays offer rough maps of how ordinary people think about the past and use it to understand the present. These essays acknowledge the role of collective memory in filtering what we learn in school and shaping our historical thinking.
List of contents
Introduction: Understanding Historical Understanding Part I: Why Study History? 1. Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts 2. The Psychology of Teaching and Learning History Part II: Challenges for the Student 3. On the Reading of Historical Texts: Notes on the Breach Between School and Academy 4. Reading Abraham Lincoln: A Case Study in Contextualized Thinking 5. Picturing the Past Part III: Challenges for the Teacher 6. Peering at History Through Different Lenses: The Role of Disciplinary Perspectives in Teaching History 7. Models of Wisdom in the Teaching of History 8. Wrinkles in Time and Place: Using Performance Assessments to Understand the Knowledge of History Teachers Part IV: History as National Memory 9. Lost in Words: Moral Ambiguity in the History Classroom 10. Making (Historical) Sense in the New Millennium
Summary
Since ancient times, the pundits have lamented young people's lack of historical knowledge and warned that ignorance of the past surely condemns humanity to repeating its mistakes. This book demolishes the conventional notion that there is one true history and one best way to teach it.
