The Washington Post ran an article in September of 2023 about a teacher in South Carolina who was worried. Her decision the previous year to teach Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates had landed her in trouble with parents and school officials, even though she had alternate assignments for students who felt uncomfortable reading the book. She planned to teach it again, conceding that it was unnerving to not know whether her students would turn on her or turn her in again.1 While she was teaching AP Language, not history, it does frame one of the challenges of teaching historical thinking. Political and social divisions are creating tension between what and how history is taught at all levels of education.
The history taught in schools, as Linder explains, can be considered as the somewhat official story of the country. The facts and how they are presented make up how the nation tells a coherent story of its past, present and future. In spite of the external pressures, the wide availability of digital resources offers the opportunity for teachers to encourage historical thinking and teaching critical thinking about history. Primary source material and additional resources are more readily available for students to review, understand, evaluate and synthesize. Empathy may be further developed as looking at the people in history and their circumstances, especially through digital projects such as Slave Voyages, which not only provide sources and context, but helps humanize the data.
Changes in technology have changed not only how educators can teach history, but how they are able to evaluate understanding through methods beside the traditional paper. Digital projects as student products also help develop historical thinking skills. Including digital projects as both sources and products also offer another way to engage students. Events such as Virginia History Day — Science Fair for History — allow students from elementary age to high school to develop websites, videos and podcast productions to explore subjects that interest them while learning digital skills. The platform for demonstrating understanding may be different, but the basic skills remain the same.
The Second Piece of the Puzzle
The “Adventures West” project includes both a game and accompanying Omeka site targeted at late middle school and early high school students. The idea is as they work through the game, players evaluate primary and secondary source material about the Laura Ingalls Wilder novels about her family. Links to sources and media drive the storyline forward and require understanding and evaluation of her writings. The Omeka site will include additional resources on the thornier issues raised by Wilder’s writing and the criticism of her writings in recents years.
