Sam Wineburg
Autor(a) de Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past
About the Author
Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and History at Standford University and the author of Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts.
Obras de Sam Wineburg
Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past (2001) 228 cópias
Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History: National and International Perspectives (2000) — Editor; Contribuinte — 47 cópias
Reading Like a Historian: Teaching Literacy in Middle and High School History Classrooms (0) (2011) 38 cópias
Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online (2023) 19 cópias
What Can Forrest Gump Tell Us about Students' Historical Understanding?(motion picture): An article from: Social… 1 exemplar(es)
像史家一般閱讀：在課堂裡教歷史閱讀素養 1 exemplar(es)
Associated Works
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Data de nascimento
- 20th century
- Sexo
- male
- Ocupação
- professor
cognitive psychologist - Organizações
- University of Washington, Seattle
Standford University
Membros
Resenhas
I was expecting it to concentrate on the history angle but this book is mostly about teaching.
I was hoping for one thing but got another: a rant against Howard Zinn.
He argues against strawmen with such ahistorical ideas as "[Zinn] places Jim Crow and the Holocaust on the same footing, without explaining that as color barriers were being dismantled in the United States, bricks were being laid for the crematoria at Auschwitz." I'm sorry, but who exactly was dismantling Jim Crow? The whole US? That's nationalist myth. Obviously the point that history is not black/white or good/evil went over Wineburg's head. Many of this other take-downs are similarly misconstrued or cherry-picking.
Zinn's not above criticism, but 1. do it in a book about that, and 2. do a better job of it.… (mais)
He argues against strawmen with such ahistorical ideas as "[Zinn] places Jim Crow and the Holocaust on the same footing, without explaining that as color barriers were being dismantled in the United States, bricks were being laid for the crematoria at Auschwitz." I'm sorry, but who exactly was dismantling Jim Crow? The whole US? That's nationalist myth. Obviously the point that history is not black/white or good/evil went over Wineburg's head. Many of this other take-downs are similarly misconstrued or cherry-picking.
Zinn's not above criticism, but 1. do it in a book about that, and 2. do a better job of it.… (mais)
The author is famous for his much-needed takedown of the over-used Howard Zinn People’s History of the United States, which describes a simplistic Holden Caulfield-like “our-elders-are-all-hypocrites” attitude toward history and this book is worth reading for that section alone, which points out the many serious errors (especially of omission) in Zinn’s accounts of McCarthyism (Soviet archives later revealed that many of Zinn’s heroes really were spies), Allied bombings in World War II (Zinn distorts the timeframe to suggest both sides were wrong), but mostly Zinn is guilty of uncritically treating history like it’s an open-and-shut case. Yup, such-and-such happened and no need to dig any further.
But real historical inquiry requires us to ask why to everything. As he shows in an example of people examining an 1892 New York Times article declaring a holiday in honor of Columbus, good historians should start with “Okay, it’s 1892”. Instead of launching into a tirade against Columbus, ask about the circumstances that would have led people in 1892 to think Columbus was worthy of honor. That will bring more insights than simply regurgitating facts you learned outside the source material itself.
I think you can skip parts 3 and 4, unless you’re interested in the history behind how the author set up his current research project to improve education. The section “Why Google Can’t Save Us”, is a depressing account of how hard it is — even for experts — to tell truth from falsehood on the Internet.
The author dissects a George Washington speech to show how easy it is to read today’s values (about religion, for example) into a past that was much more complicated and nuanced than our lazy minds might hope. But similarly I wonder if the author himself realizes how much he is a product of his own time and whether some of his observations will seem quaint and outdated in the future. As he says:
Good words that apply to the present as well. Understanding history is hard because it teaches us understanding the present is hard too.… (mais)
But real historical inquiry requires us to ask why to everything. As he shows in an example of people examining an 1892 New York Times article declaring a holiday in honor of Columbus, good historians should start with “Okay, it’s 1892”. Instead of launching into a tirade against Columbus, ask about the circumstances that would have led people in 1892 to think Columbus was worthy of honor. That will bring more insights than simply regurgitating facts you learned outside the source material itself.
I think you can skip parts 3 and 4, unless you’re interested in the history behind how the author set up his current research project to improve education. The section “Why Google Can’t Save Us”, is a depressing account of how hard it is — even for experts — to tell truth from falsehood on the Internet.
The author dissects a George Washington speech to show how easy it is to read today’s values (about religion, for example) into a past that was much more complicated and nuanced than our lazy minds might hope. But similarly I wonder if the author himself realizes how much he is a product of his own time and whether some of his observations will seem quaint and outdated in the future. As he says:
History humbles us when it acquaints us with our ignorance. Even the most esteemed historian cannot possess the knowledge needed to reconstitute the past in every era and region. Yet the awareness that we cannot take at face value words from other times and places inspires a sobering caution. At its best, this caution cultivates respect for others, who may have spoken the same language as we do but meant something entirely different in doing so. Words, too, are steeped in history. Shorn of knowledge, we become caged by the present and turn the past into a faded and inferior copy of the world we already know. Our ignorance gladly issues invitations to stereotypes to fill in the gaps. These impostors are more than happy to oblige.
Good words that apply to the present as well. Understanding history is hard because it teaches us understanding the present is hard too.… (mais)
Prêmios
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Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 11
- Also by
- 1
- Membros
- 443
- Popularidade
- #55,291
- Avaliação
- 3.7
- Resenhas
- 9
- ISBNs
- 18
So one of my criticism is that it isn't really written for Dutch teachers (which is a dumb point to make, i know). One of the most things I noticed comparing this book to books my fellow countrymen have written, is that we seem to get to the point a lot faster. So while reading this I got fed up many times because of the, at times, lyrical writing. The many examples felt pointless at times.
What I did enjoy is the fact that this book talks about teaching history not from a historian viewpoint. This book could have easily become just another book about something the author know nothing about but still is a bit condescending to teachers because they don't know how to teach history the 'right' way. This book doesn't do that at all. It shows through research how different people look at history and how they dig into it. What students to do in real life and what we hope they would do. At not time I felt the author was talking down to teachers but more like they were sharing their thoughts based on their research.
So while I didn't agree with many things, this book engaged me every time I was studying it. It gave me many good points to take with me into my own research. It even made me think I would want to recreate one of the authors researches to see what the outcome would be in my country. Although that will never happen because what studying this book reinforced to me is: I hate doing research in an academic setting.… (mais)