Liliána Oszlányi

Writing and Teaching American History in the U.S.

Tibor Frank

Teaching History in the U. S.

There are three main factors in connection with learning: the material itself, the teacher as

the primary source of information and the organizer of learning, and the textbook and other

pieces of equipment used in the process. Though overgeneralizing is a common mistake

stereotypes are still alive. Television shows and Hollywood movies claim that Americans are

stupid. From a more academic point of view American school kids are left behind in public

schools, there are problems with the teachers’ methods, the textbooks and the school system

especially when it comes to the teaching of history.

Another perspective is presented by Lendol Calder who is associate professor of

history at Augusta College. According to Calder the problem is that the teaching of history is

wrong; it does not make the subject different from biology or sociology, meaning that only

the data that has to be learned is different. The author of the article “Uncoverage: Toward a

Signature Pedagogy for the History Survey” explains usual methodological steps like

listening to the lecture, reading the textbook and taking a test. The issue is elaborated further

describing negative trends such as problems of teaching and its connection with the

professional rewards system, large classes which are still obligatory and in addition to these

points teaching is rather mechanical. It is clearly visible that in a technically so equipped

world if the teacher cannot engage students, they will seek for “entertainment” on their own.

All of the students possess mp3 players, laptops and cell phones and schools are only trying to

come up with adequate policies to control the usage of them. On the other hand though there

are positive trends as well; teachers do not want to cover everything any more and teachers

realized that circumstances of the past need to be brought closer to contemporary students.
 The author also gives examples of signature pedagogy. For instance in law schools,

professors often use the case-dialogue method which consists of the following steps; one

student is put into the focus of the group, he or she has to present a case, then the teacher

comes up with “hypos” and students are asked to come up with the legal background and

justify their reasoning. The goal of this method is to teach them to “think like lawyers” and

professors also have to make sure that students learn that they do not have to decide if a law is

ethical or not.

Lee S. Schulman, president of Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

claims in the same article that signature pedagogies are more common in fields like law,

medicine, and engineering. On the other hand he find it important to note that signature

pedagogies’ main objective is to make students able to “do things” instead of only “knowing

things”. This is clearly aiming at one of the main questions of contemporary pedagogical

discourse, the question of applicable knowledge versus lexical knowledge. Some other false

ideas of teachers seem to be problematic as well; first teachers want teach students the

necessary facts, then they want to teach kids to think. The problem is the conditionality of this

plan; usually teaching of thinking, this cognitive work never happens. Furthermore, “what to

teach” is often put into focus as opposed to “how to teach”, there is a huge methodological

gap in the whole process. Ideally, both of these factors should be treated equally.

Calder then explains his course in more detail; this course is created to change the

concept of history. This course teaches history not as a rigid collection of knowledge, but it

makes sure that students learn that history can be interpreted in many ways. Another main

goal of the course is to teach asking good historical questions to students. The professor

emphasizes the usage of good documentaries, historical Hollywood drama, period propaganda

films, so in general, reliable audiovisual material. So called “history workshops” are also

organized during this course where each students has to write an essay, has to come up with
questions, the whole group reads documents and students are trained to come up with

historical arguments. From the teacher’s point of view this means a lot more preparation and

planning. A good amount of methodological knowledge and continuous learning is required.

The author of the book Lies My Teachers Told Me: Everything Your American History

Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen is Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of

American Historians, Visiting Professor of Sociology at Catholic University in Washington,

DC, and Visiting Professor of African-American Studies at the University of Illinois in

Urbana/Champaign. According to Loewen a clear sign of the problem is that high school

students put history to the last position of their favorite subject’s list. Students claim that it is

the most irrelevant subject. From another perspective, they do not get bad grades, but they

forget what they have learned in one or two years.

Minority or non-white students do even worse than white students meaning that the

attitude towards history may also be a question of identity. This negative tendency has logical

consequences at the level of higher education; college teachers do not count on a solid base of

knowledge when it comes to history. The problem must be related to history teaching as this

is not a common phenomenon in connection with other subjects. The importance of history is

simple it shows the nation’s journey to the present. Possibly the attitude towars history in

school is also problematic, but outside the school this tendency changes drastically:

Americans love historical novels, historical movies.

Loewen points out that American “history is full of fantastic and important stories”. If the

content is interesting, the problem must be in the way it is transmitted to the kids. According

to the author textbooks are really boring, they never display hardships of the nation but

everything is solved, or about to be solved. This kind of attitude towards the obstacles of live

can be pedagogically criticized. There are also many groups who could not achieve socio-

economic success, that are left behind or alienated, for instance, girls and non-whites. This
over optimist view does not teach children how they should cope with difficulties. Textbooks

contain way too much information; some of them are over 800 pages. There are also huge

numbers of “Skill Activities”, “Key Terms”, “Fill in the blanks” sections and “Thinking

Critically” questions. Students learn what they have to for each test, and then they forget even

the most basic facts.

Another crucial problem is that errors in textbooks usually stay uncorrected as teachers do

not even go through them. If students are required to learn from textbooks that contain

mistakes, clearly, this can have a disadvantageous effect on their performance. Writing,

rewriting textbooks is not a low-prestige activity among historians. Within the circles of these

professionals this is simply a waste of time compared to real research. When authentic

materials are examined, textbooks unfortunately lack original material like speeches, songs,

diaries or letters. By this phenomenon, history is once again interpreted by kids as a lot of

facts that have to be learned.

According to Loewen this “godlike tone” leads to the phenomenon that students do not

question the content of the books; they do not have additional questions. There is no

analytical perspective or curiosity which would be beneficial in the learning process. In

general the vast majority of American citizens do not learn history outside high school, so the

quality of history teaching is crucial. These people do not acquire the necessary skills that

would enable them to discuss important issues of the society in a meaningful way.

In great contradiction to the above mentioned scholars, the investigative journalist and

consumer reporter put students into focus of the problem in his 2006 television show titled

Stupid in America. The show belongs to the 20/20 series that deals with sociological issues

aiming at the public for further discussion. Obviously, a television show is always primarily
about profit and the number of viewers; this fact also explains the provocative title itself. On

the other hand, these media products can contain relevant point as well as very biased ones.

The show starts with the stereotypical image of the participants of the learning process;

the students who are wild, the students who are stupid and the teachers who are simply

boring. All of these stereotypical images are often displayed in Hollywood movies

strengthening the statistically not provable picture. The reliability of the sources in the report

are often controversial, in the following paragraphs the arguments of John Stossel will be

analyzed.

Some of the students testimonies in connection with their schools like “This is a hell-hole”

are extremely one-sided as there might be other students with other opinions, perspectives.

The scenes filmed by students cannot be used as a reference either as there is no justification

for either the place or the people starring in them. The reporter mentions studies without

telling specifically that he is talking about the PISA. Development of children is measured

worldwide; the Program for International Student Assessment was initiated by OECD in

2000. The survey measures applicable knowledge of 15 years old children. Another generally

accessible test often mentioned is the SAT, Scholastic Assessment Test, is well-known to the

average viewer in the United States. In some cases the placing of the focus is what can falsify

the whole sentence: Monopoly as a learning tool could easily be used to cool down the class,

to get the students focused, but the creator’s aim is only to shock and “prove” that there is no

real going on in the classroom. After a few seconds, the reporter adds that the scene was

filmed after the finals and every teacher knows that discipline gets harder and harder for

teenagers as the summer break approaches. Even though, these are only hypotheses, the

sentence stress is unambiguously on the shocking factor. The statistical data, namely that 57%

of the parents give their kid’s high school an A or a B, seems to impress, but unfortunately the

critical questions related to the conductor of the survey, or the name of the survey remain
unanswered. The comparison with the Belgian kids cannot really mean anything to the

average American viewer as they are not familiar with the educational system and the

regional differences with the country. If it is not representative to pick one student group from

New Jersey and draw conclusions based on their achievements about the United States, then it

is not representative to pick one student group from Belgium and come to way too broad

conclusions either. These easily falsifiable and shocking ideas, like a brainstorming, are

designed to catch the viewers’ attention and to make them stay in front of the television set.

School officials, teachers, parents and other experts interviewed in the report claim the

lack of money for the failures of the public schools. To prove this reason to be wrong Stossel

mentions a Kansas City high school that managed to get extra funds but in the end students

could not meet the state requirements, the school lost its accreditation. This story is without

any reliable reference once again. For further reasoning the reporter asks Jay P. Greene,

Author of Education Myths, who is actually a professor of education reform at the University

of Arkansas, so his relevance in this debate cannot be questioned. This expert tells the

audience that greater funding results in greater administration, greater sport facilities and

extra-curricular programs, but it does not have any effect on the students’ achievements.

As counterexamples, two alternative schools are shown next; this particular school has no

computers, no cleaning staff, no cafeteria staff, no security guards, no gyms or pools. Saving

money is a positive result of this system, involving them in organized work is also beneficial,

but sport facilities could help students’ health education. The principle is present in the

classrooms, but his presence definitely an ambiguous presence. The fact that he is not some

kind of phantom in the school who cannot be seen or contacted is once again, a positive

feature of this construction, but giving students money for good answers is more problematic.

Rewarding scholar achievement with money is a much deeper pedagogical issue, it does not

surely transmit an exclusively positive message. The other alternative school, Miracle
Academy, lead by Teresa Middleton has a very different attitude. As the principle says:

“Learning should be fun” so children should be made enthusiastic about studying. As Stossel

says, this school is an independent one, what he misses to mention that it is a religious school

with a “unique Bible-based curriculum for children K5-12th grade”. Omission of this very

important piece of information is clear bias.

The tragic story of Dorian Cane the 18 year old student who can barely read on a fourth

grade level is supposed to involve the viewer emotionally. The situation when parents and the

school cannot adequately cooperate can easily be imagined. On the other hand, from the

pedagogical point of view, the fist question should be if Dorian has any kind of learning

disabilities that could easily explain the fact he is left behind. On top of this superficiality, the

television show takes him to a special private learning center, where his reading improves two

grades in a 72 hours course. What the creators forget to mention is the price of this course,

and possible qualification of the special staff.

The next important issue addressed is the freedom of choice that parents lack in the

American education system. It is true that the American system is district-based, but on the

website of National Center for Education Statistics all sorts of information is available from

student/teacher ratio to the ethnical composition of the schools. Unfortunately, this

information may simply be useless for an average middle-class parent and even for an

educated one as well.

The comparison with Belgium is controversial again, as there is definitely greater freedom

of choice when it comes to choosing a school for the child, but the examples are a little bit

shaky. Public schools, Christian schools and Muslim schools are fine, but Montessori school

is once again, an alternative school. Reform pedagogies are very popular nowadays, experts

argue for and against them, and just like in the case of the two previously mentioned

examples, these cannot be dealt with the same way as ordinary schools. Reform pedagogies
like the Waldorf-method or the Montessori-method focus on the student, encourages skill-

development by other ways than the original fact-based education.

The next idea comes from the ideology of consumer society: competition. Stossel

investigates and finds out that Belgian public schools have to please the parents; these

institutions have to compete for the students, they have to come up with extracurricular

classes and extras. According to Kevin Chavous, education reformer “Shutting down schools

is healthy”, this is the most reasonable idea in the whole report. The inequalities of social

background cannot only be measured like the documentary states; by wealthier kids’ ability to

move to better school districts. The socio-economic status of a child is a great factor of his or

her life in general; poverty, domestic violence, general insecurity are major problems even if

they live in a good school district.

One of the most shocking phenomena in the report is the aggression and unbelievable

pressure of the Teacher Unions. According to teachersunionexposed.com the two most

problematic teachers’ unions are the National Education Association and the American

Federation of Teachers. On the contrary, according to intervied students, some teachers work

for health benefit, others simply do not care, and others come into the class intoxicated. This

is once again, over generalized, because as in the case of every profession there must be good

professionals and bad professionals, but such a sharp image simply cannot be drawn.

Another crucial point is the question of firing incompetent teachers. According to

teachersunionexposed.com firing these unprofessional professionals is an up to date problem,

but the case mentioned on the show is irrational. Joel Klein, the longest serving school

chancellor of New York City, still in office at that time must have seem many interesting and

important cases. The one mentioned in the report, concerning a teacher molesting a young

girl, who could not be fired because of all the protection achieved by the unions simply

crosses the line of rationality. Viewing the story with an essence of common sense this
teacher should be imprisoned not fired as a story like this is about committing a crime, not

about being incompetent.

The last part of the show is focused on charter schools that are state financed and serve as

an alternative to public schools. These schools have to reach certain level of academic

progress that is the base of their existence. The people interviewed in Friendship Collegiate

Academy, Washington D.C. state very important and pedagogically necessary things.

Students say that they love learning there, because teachers make learning fun. Teachers say

that they do well, what they do, they can get bonuses and those who are bad teachers can be

fired. The principal himself knows that they cannot settle for “good enough”, they have to be

improving continuously. From the pedagogical point of view, this is the most adequate system

displayed in the documentary. Motivation is not only a key factor for children in the learning

process, but it is essential for a grown ups professional progress as well; this is how human

mind and psyche works.

Teachers of American history have to rethink their methods of teaching so that students

can acquire certain necessary skills such as historical thinking and critical thinking. The

selection of subject material is the teacher’s responsibility and the essentials should be

presented in interactive ways. Textbooks, as the main resources in the learning process, also

need to be changed. A greater competition could be beneficial for not only the students but the

teachers as well.
Works Cited:

American Federation of Teachers. American Federation of Teachers. Web. 23 May 2011

Association Montessori Internationale. Association Montessori Internationale. 2011. Web. 23

May 2011

Calder, Lendol. “Uncoverage: Toward a Signature Pedagogy for the History Survey”. Journal

of American History. 7. April 2011. Web.

Jay P. Greene’s Blog. 2010. Web. 23 May 2011

Kevin P. Chavous. 2011. Web. 23 May 2011

Loewen, James W. Lies My Teachers Told Me. New York:The New Press, 1995. Print

Miracle Academy Preparatory School. Miracle Academy Preparatory School. 2009. Web. 23

May 2011

National Center for Education Statistics. U.S. Department of Education. Web. 23 May 2011

National Education Association. National Education Association. 2011. Web. 23 May 2011

Newman, Andy. “Hearst Official to Replace Klein at Helm of City Schools”. New York

Times. City Room. New York Times. Web. 23 May 2011

Teachers Union Exposed. Center for Union Facts. 2011. Web. 23 May 2011

Why Waldorf Works. Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. Web. 23 May 2011