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Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone)
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About Why Learn History
Product Description 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 percentage 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 always at our fingertips, what’s a teacher of history to do? Sam Wineburg has answers, beginning with this: We definitely can’t stick to the same old read-the-chapter-answer-the-questions-at-the-back snoozefest we’ve subjected students to for decades. If we want to educate citizens who can sift through the mass of information around them and separate fact from fake, we have to explicitly work to give them the necessary critical thinking tools. Historical thinking, Wineburg shows us in Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone), has nothing to do with test prep–style ability to memorize facts. Instead, it’s an orientation to the world that we can cultivate, one that encourages reasoned skepticism, discourages haste, and counters our tendency to confirm our biases. Wineburg draws on surprising discoveries from an array of research and experiments—including surveys of students, recent attempts to update history curricula, and analyses of how historians, students, and even fact checkers approach online sources—to paint a picture of a dangerously mine-filled landscape, but one that, with care, attention, and awareness, we can all learn to navigate. It’s easy to look around at the public consequences of historical ignorance and despair. Wineburg is here to tell us it doesn’t have to be that way. The future of the past may rest on our screens. But its fate rests in our hands. Review "Explores the way we teach history to students and the dismal consequences for political and social life in the internet era. . . . Wineburg's work is vital." ― Commonweal "Today's students might be 'digital natives,' but that doesn’t make them responsible consumers of digital information. . . . According to Wineburg, the issue is not that students are ignorant of names and dates. In fact, as he points out, even the most accomplished specialists in the discipline could flunk a multiple-choice test on an area of history they are unfamiliar with. It’s more of a tragedy, he argues, that students are made to memorize facts instead of learning the critical-thinking skills that equip their minds to discern context, sniff out biases, and employ reasoned skepticism when evaluating sources. . . . Confronting the reality that even professional historians can make mistakes reading sources on the internet, Why Learn History provides clear advice to history teachers about what they can do to improve digital media literacy." ― Perspectives on History "Sam Wineburg is a true innovator, who has thought more deeply about the relevance of history to the Internet--and vice versa--than any other scholar I know. Anyone interested in the uses and abuses of history today has a duty to read this book." -- Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money "A sobering and urgent report from the leading expert on how American history is taught in the nation’s schools. Wineburg offers a set of timely and elegant essays on everything from the nuttiness of standardized testing regimes to the problems kids have, in the age of the internet, in knowing what’s true, and what's not--problems that teachers have, too, along with everyone else. A bracing, edifying, and vital book." -- Jill Lepore "If every K-12 teacher of history and social studies read just three chapters of this book--'Crazy for History,' 'Changing History One Classroom at a Time,' and 'Why Google Can’t Save Us'--the ensuing transformation of our populace would save our democracy." -- James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me "At a time when we are overwhelmed with information and vulnerable to malign influence,
