The 1619 Project

[Oexmelin]

I'm a little bit puzzled by Sheilbh's insistence that his history was about "making arguments", as that seems like you're trying to use history to in fact teach rhetoric, or first year law school.  Law school was like a revelation for me because it was almost never about getting to the right answer - it was about asking the right questions.  But if you're dealing with high school students (or even 1st or 2nd year undergrads) learning history it should be about the right answers.

That's because there seems to be a misunderstanding about the nature of what a historical argument is - or what the "right" answer is.

The problem with teaching history as a series of "right answers" - is that it creates a profound misunderstanding about the nature of the historian's work. People can, at least, get a vague sense of science evolving because of "new discoveries" - even if that's a reductive view of what scientific work is. That form of popular explanation doesn't work for history - hence the insistence on "new documents" being found often in the media. If no new documents are found, why is history changing? It *must* be because of woke professors brainwashing our kids...

The other element is the conflation between "cause" and "fault", which, because of history-as-civics, is often portrayed as indictment. A historical argument is basically arguing about causes and linkages. Because of the nature of historical knowledge, it is really quite rare that arguments are polar opposites of one another, or about finding the "true" culprit for something. Indeed, most of the time, it isn't about finding culprits at all. While there are disagreements about what constitutes a robust historical explanation, most historians try to produce forms of relative explanations that are liable to be argued: can one read the document this way? Is that the best proxy for the explanation? Is this the best scale? There are no simple answers to those questions, but I would argue you can produce appropriate narratives for primary and secondary school kids that, at least, provide an introduction to these questions without flirting with utter disregard for the truth, absolute relativism, or messes of conflicting stories. 

For instance:

Studying the causes of WWI is very interesting.  There have been debates blaming the Austrians, the Serbians, the Germans, the British as being the ultimate cause of the war.  But before you get there you need a firm grounding on what the war was, who fought it, and what happened during it.

No, you don't. The unfolding of WWI has little bearing about its beginning, and one can really study diplomatic history without knowing the details of the Somme. It really depends on what you want to teach about WWI. Maybe the details of the Somme become relevant once you want to describe interwar politics. You may not even want to make it a national blame game - maybe you want to ascribe its cause to European imperialism, or to an arms race, or the nature of the international diplomatic scene. But it may also be interesting to understand *why* it often was turned into a blame game.

I was trying to find academic articles to reference.  It was really hard to find anything that would be relevant to a 1st year level paper though, and would be even more so in high school.

Times have changed. Now there is google scholar. Thousands of articles are available at the tip of the student's finger.
So is ChatGPT.

In any case, first year of college is all about acquiring the skills to let go of the training wheels (the textbook-style narratives, the reassuring topics) and get your hand in the details of how an argument is made. It's harder to do when students are here for brownie points, but also, when students come in with a passion for history - but for history-as-details-oriented - because their idea of a better argument is one where you get all the uniforms and weapons right...

[Barrister]

but not the events that happened.

Sure, things get iffier the further back we go.  We have far fewer primary sources, and the sources we do have were not reling on eyewitnesses or primary sources.  But even then we know certain events - like the Roman Empire existed, that they and Carthage had a war.

That's quite the handwave. There are so many events where we don't know exactly what happened or the sequence of the events that took place.

How much of a handwave do you want for a forum post?

I mean sure.  And there's "historical events" that are almost entirely known from archaeology rather than primary sources.

I went through Tim Snyder's excellent History of Ukraine podcast last year.  When you're talking about the ancient Scythians - they left no written records themselves.  We know some things from the archaeology, the neighbouring greeks have a few comments (I think our friend Herodotus comes up here), but that's about it.

But still - the fact the Scythians existed is a fact.  If we want to tell middle schoolers or high schoolers our "best guess" about what the Scythians were like, and wait until post-secondary to get into the "well these are the limitations on what we know" I don't think that's a terrible outcome.

(I picked the scythians because they're fairly neutral, but you can think of all sorts of other topics that are more controversial).

[Barrister]

There are no simple answers to those questions, but I would argue you can produce appropriate narratives for primary and secondary school kids that, at least, provide an introduction to these questions without flirting with utter disregard for the truth, absolute relativism, or messes of conflicting stories. 

Now I'm confused, because I agree with this statement.

For instance:

Studying the causes of WWI is very interesting.  There have been debates blaming the Austrians, the Serbians, the Germans, the British as being the ultimate cause of the war.  But before you get there you need a firm grounding on what the war was, who fought it, and what happened during it.

No, you don't. The unfolding of WWI has little bearing about its beginning, and one can really study diplomatic history without knowing the details of the Somme. It really depends on what you want to teach about WWI. Maybe the details of the Somme become relevant once you want to describe interwar politics. You may not even want to make it a national blame game - maybe you want to ascribe its cause to European imperialism, or to an arms race, or the nature of the international diplomatic scene. But it may also be interesting to understand *why* it often was turned into a blame game.

But why study the causes of WWI, why even care about it, if you don't know what it was?  You understand "why it is a blame game" only with knowing what the Somme was.

I was trying to find academic articles to reference.  It was really hard to find anything that would be relevant to a 1st year level paper though, and would be even more so in high school.

Times have changed. Now there is google scholar. Thousands of articles are available at the tip of the student's finger.
So is ChatGPT.

Perhaps I wasn't clear.

It wasn't entirely that it was hard to find academic articles, but rather that what I could find were on such specific or nuanced points it was hard to find any relevant to a more general 1st year paper.

But yeah, the whole nature of research is totally changed now.

I'm one of the last generations (if not the last generation) of lawyers that was trained in researching caselaw from books and papers.  Sure we had the first generation of online caselaw but most of the time it was from hitting the library.  You'd start with a general textbook, find the case or cases it relied upon, then hit up the Case Citators to see if other cases have noted it up, then individually find those cases.  On the negative side it was all very laborious, but on the positive side it was all curated - in order for a case to be reported someone had to decide it was significant enough to be reported.

Nowadays it's almost all online.  Finding a case can be as simple as following a link.  The problem is the curation is almost entirely gone.  If someone orders a transcript of a case it goes online.  So now you can find a case that will say almost anything - but it's a low-level case that doesn't cite any of the proper authorities...

Anyways that's all a disgression.

[Oexmelin]

Now I'm confused, because I agree with this statement.

See, we can build on an argument without it being utterly opposed. 

But why study the causes of WWI, why even care about it, if you don't know what it was?  You understand "why it is a blame game" only with knowing what the Somme was.

Yes. But knowing about the Somme, or about the blame game, or about the place of WWI makes sense only if you know what end point (telos) you are trying to reach. What you say about WWI really depends on the narrative you want to use it for - which means you can have multiple WWIs being presented - one where the details of the Somme matter a great deal, one where it doesn't. The problem is that people will claim that if you don't know the details of the Somme, you don't know WWI at all. It doesn't work that way.

Perhaps I wasn't clear.

It wasn't entirely that it was hard to find academic articles, but rather that what I could find were on such specific or nuanced points it was hard to find any relevant to a more general 1st year paper.

I got it. This is what I meant by leaving the training wheels: that general 1st year paper is often understood precisely as what you did - summarizing the argument given in a single book. The main mistake 1st year students do is to cast much too broad a topic, without a clearly defined argument of their own. Learning how to do that is what you'd expect students to do. Unfortunately, a lot of first year courses have a lot of students, and you can't always spend the time necessary to bring everyone up to speed.

(And there are some professors out there who care little for 1st year classes and are rather more committed to students they get in specialized seminars)

[Valmy]

Yes. But knowing about the Somme, or about the blame game, or about the place of WWI makes sense only if you know what end point (telos) you are trying to reach. What you say about WWI really depends on the narrative you want to use it for - which means you can have multiple WWIs being presented - one where the details of the Somme matter a great deal, one where it doesn't. The problem is that people will claim that if you don't know the details of the Somme, you don't know WWI at all. It doesn't work that way.

I have certainly seen my share of histories of World War I, sometimes very voluminous ones, where entire fronts and belligerent nations are not mentioned at all. They are just not relevant to the story of World War I that history is trying to tell.

[grumbler]

But there is truth in history.

The US exploded a nuclear bomb over Hiroshima.  Millions were killed in German concentration camps.

The "whys" and Hows" can be up for debate - but not the events that happened.

Sure, things get iffier the further back we go.  We have far fewer primary sources, and the sources we do have were not reling on eyewitnesses or primary sources.  But even then we know certain events - like the Roman Empire existed, that they and Carthage had a war.

Now you might have an experience like you did with AP Physics - that the facts you learned initially are more nuanced (a lot of what we know about Julius Caesar was from biased sources) , but you have to have the starting point.

You seem to be confusing facts with "truths."  The study of history does concern itself with facts, but it doesn't teach that there are Capital-T-Truths, because there is only one:  that we will never know all of the facts, and so all of our conclusions are provisional. We can't know all of the facts, because attempting to learn them would take up 100 percent of our time for the rest of our lives.  So all narratives are at least somewhat "squishy."

One of the things that is taught in critical thinking skills is that every interpretation of the facts is created by a person, who includes only the facts that they think are important or which support their case. Evaluating the source of an interpretation (who wrote it?  for what purpose?  in what context?  who was the audience?  how might it be shaped by the author's POV?) As a history teacher, I use the AP evaluation criteria, but I do the same in my non-AP courses (just not nearly as often in non-AP).

Does this teach the student that "risks teaching students that there is no "truth", just arguments?"  Yes.  And that is the point. Someone with the awareness that one needs to evaluate the sources on one's information, and to be aware that the best-reasoned and best-supported arguments may be rendered moot by new information, is much more likely to be a good citizen than one locked into the belief that they possess "the truth."

[Sheilbh]

So things are hazy at this point, but I feel like until UK equivalent of Year 6 - we mostly did state focused history (so Oregon Trail, Gold Rush, Donner Party, the cozy side of the Mission system in California and Pilgrims, Revolutionary War in MA) over and over again. There was also light dusting of broader American history as I can remember worksheets about Washington/Jefferson/Lincoln and MLK Jr (which I think was always part of Black History month/his recognised birthday) in elementary school.

Then we started expanding more into broader American history and World history but never more modern than WWII. As I mentioned to Oex, by year 12 I was in a class that engaged with more complicated history (plus combined with literature) where there would have been room to look at that Douglass speech.

That makes sense and sounds relatively similar. I think in primary school we did big picture world stuff too - I definitely remember having a school inspired obsession with the Egyptians for a while

Then moving into more detailed - I think the first few years of high school were more narrative before shifting to the "skills focused" approach. Although that did go modern - I did a unit on the Troubles, plus there was a long period and local study components. Mine was "medicine through time" and I think the local study was basically like doing a coursework project on the history of a local building. That's both GCSE (14-16) and A-Level (16-18).

Looking at new GCSE specs because I know they get changed and there are options covering Mao's China, the USA 1954-75 ("conflict at home and abroad"), the Cold War, post-war Germany, apartheid South Africa - and "British thematic studies" (e.g. migration, power or war) which all go up to the 2010s.

The model you describe, Sheilbh, is the sort of model many historians have suggested over the years - basically something about "developping critical thinking skills".

I think it is laudable. It was mostly developped as an answer to strong mythical/national history narratives, and it has largely developped out of the rise of social history.

However, in the recent years, I think we have seen that it also runs the risk of leaving aside some basic building blocks of institutional history - esp., i.e., trying to understand how our societies "work". I remember David Hall, the great historian of the Puritans, having this sort of epiphany in a conference, that our critical narratives were continuously revising a baseline that was less and less understood.

It can also tend to leave unattended another purpose of history-as-civics, which is to provide the context for some shared cultural landmarks. At some point, for instance, you kinda have to learn some elements of, say, Catholicism, to make sense of the Reformation and its impact on British history.

The challenge, therefore, are to provide both a moment for history-as-narrative, and a moment for history-as-critique. In North America, at least, the old consensus was to (mostly) keep history-as-narrative for primary and secondary education, and leave history-as-critique for college. That broke down somewhat. I couldn't assume my American students had a firm grasp on the events of colonial America - even as they knew the beats of revisionist history, while the many of the more passionate history students had to turn to popular history (the bloody Presidents...) to provide them with more complex (but oh so problematic) narratives.

Of course, history-as-critique was always subjected to criticism, either because what was taught didn't fit well the old narrative model ("they don't know the names of our Prime Ministers!") or because it directly attacked the more mythical parts of national history (which is what Trumpians are targetting now, with their version of official, authorized history).

This is interesting as this is exactly what's happened here to an extent.

When I was growing up we were at the peak of "skills-based learning" and over the last 25 years Labour and Tory governments have significantly reformed education, including the curriculum to make it more "knowledge-rich". Partly for the arguments you make - that we were learning skills and issues in the abstract without the knowledge of facts to really exercise them. Also it's been argued that a "knowledge-rich" curriculum helps level the playing field for kids whose parents aren't or can't engage in the same way with these subjects - there's less place for background ambient knowledge to show off. This goes beyond history - for example I never learned English grammar in a systematic way and it's now taught very systematically. I think the evidence from international comparisons and other results is that it has been very successful and effective (in particular at improving the results of minority and working class kids) - but it's quite unpopular with teachers and some of the reforms are also unpopular with local government. Worryingly some key elements of those cross-party reforms are now being picked apart by the current government which is a little bit of a concern for me.

I'd add the other problem in the UK has been Britain and the world - and I don't what the right answer is (I don't think there is one) of the balance of a national story, a Britain in the world story and just straight up world history. I had a mix but it was still very Eurocentric. I'm just looking at the possible options for 16-18 year olds now and there's a free choice essay, one unit on British history, one unit on non-British history and one on "continuity and change over a substantial period" which could be British or non-British. And some of the options sound fantastic and stuff at 17 I'd have loved to study: rise of Islam, African kingdoms 1400-1800, rise and decline of the Moguls, Japan from Meiji to 1937. But I think there is a balancing act that I don't envy writers of curricula or teachers in pulling off.

The big challenge with all of this is that history (in the UK) is optional from 14. There's very limited time on curriculum each week and there's a lot you could study so there are always choices and things will always be cut. I believe the only 100% mandatory (so pre-14) things students must learn about are the Holocaust and trans-Atlantic slavery, which I can understand but also feels like it might create a particular sense of history as a subject.

I do always get annoyed when some historic injustice or crime gets into the news and you have people saying they've never heard of it and don't know why they weren't taught it at school. Because there is limited times and we don't have to stop learning or reading at the age of 18 I do think some people view education as basically being about giving the knowledge you "should" know as an adult rather than trying to spark an interest that can continue as long as you want it.

[crazy canuck]

But there is truth in history.

The US exploded a nuclear bomb over Hiroshima.  Millions were killed in German concentration camps.

The "whys" and Hows" can be up for debate - but not the events that happened.

Sure, things get iffier the further back we go.  We have far fewer primary sources, and the sources we do have were not reling on eyewitnesses or primary sources.  But even then we know certain events - like the Roman Empire existed, that they and Carthage had a war.

Now you might have an experience like you did with AP Physics - that the facts you learned initially are more nuanced (a lot of what we know about Julius Caesar was from biased sources) , but you have to have the starting point.

You seem to be confusing facts with "truths."  The study of history does concern itself with facts, but it doesn't teach that there are Capital-T-Truths, because there is only one:  that we will never know all of the facts, and so all of our conclusions are provisional. We can't know all of the facts, because attempting to learn them would take up 100 percent of our time for the rest of our lives.  So all narratives are at least somewhat "squishy."

One of the things that is taught in critical thinking skills is that every interpretation of the facts is created by a person, who includes only the facts that they think are important or which support their case. Evaluating the source of an interpretation (who wrote it?  for what purpose?  in what context?  who was the audience?  how might it be shaped by the author's POV?) As a history teacher, I use the AP evaluation criteria, but I do the same in my non-AP courses (just not nearly as often in non-AP).

Does this teach the student that "risks teaching students that there is no "truth", just arguments?"  Yes.  And that is the point. Someone with the awareness that one needs to evaluate the sources on one's information, and to be aware that the best-reasoned and best-supported arguments may be rendered moot by new information, is much more likely to be a good citizen than one locked into the belief that they possess "the truth."

Yeah, well said.

Whenever this topic comes up, I think back to the first time I had to advise a decision making body of academics.  They recoiled in horror when I told them it was their job to make findings of fact because they interpreted that as me telling them they had to determine what was "true".  When I explained they were not determining "truth" but rather making a finding of whether something was more likely than not to have happened, they felt a lot better.

After that initial experience I have chosen my words with more care when advising those sorts of decision making bodies.

[Oexmelin]

I do always get annoyed when some historic injustice or crime gets into the news and you have people saying they've never heard of it and don't know why they weren't taught it at school. Because there is limited times and we don't have to stop learning or reading at the age of 18 I do think some people view education as basically being about giving the knowledge you "should" know as an adult rather than trying to spark an interest that can continue as long as you want it.

This is such a pet peeve of mine. And often, yes - they *did* learn it in school. They just weren't paying attention then.

[crazy canuck]

I do always get annoyed when some historic injustice or crime gets into the news and you have people saying they've never heard of it and don't know why they weren't taught it at school. Because there is limited times and we don't have to stop learning or reading at the age of 18 I do think some people view education as basically being about giving the knowledge you "should" know as an adult rather than trying to spark an interest that can continue as long as you want it.

This is such a pet peeve of mine. And often, yes - they *did* learn it in school. They just weren't paying attention then.

The first time I learned about Viola Desmond is when I went to the Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg.

[Sheilbh]

I'm a little bit puzzled by Sheilbh's insistence that his history was about "making arguments", as that seems like you're trying to use history to in fact teach rhetoric, or first year law school.  Law school was like a revelation for me because it was almost never about getting to the right answer - it was about asking the right questions.  But if you're dealing with high school students (or even 1st or 2nd year undergrads) learning history it should be about the right answers.

So argument is maybe framing it wrongly (but it was always how it was described to me). Here at least, it's an essay subject and the point that was hammered home into us (at least that I remember) was you need to have an argument. You can't just go "on the one hand...on the other" for the entire essay - you need to have a conclusion that answers the question and that you've tried to support with evidence, while acknowledging alternative views. It was the same point for English too (and I was part of a tutoring scheme and this was the big wisdom I imparted to kids, to great exam success ).

But in both history and English it was normally framed there's no such thing as a right or wrong answer - it's what can you show evidence for, what can you demonstrate.

Studying the causes of WWI is very interesting.  There have been debates blaming the Austrians, the Serbians, the Germans, the British as being the ultimate cause of the war.  But before you get there you need a firm grounding on what the war was, who fought it, and what happened during it.

Yeah it was a standalone unit - as I say I think because there's loads of competing primary and secondary sources and it's a really contested area. So back then we definitely had the alliance, naval arms race, mobilisation timetables and railway schedules - and it was less who caused it than ultimately was it avoidable?

But that - from my school experience - that sort of question that's basically about the level of contingency is the classic sort of history exam question, like "continuity or change": balance lots of factors and come to a conclusion. All of that works with the origins of WW1, in a way it wouldn't with the origins of WW2 - where you'd have a pretty short, simple answer. That's possibly why the big unit there is the rise of the Nazis.

Don't think I learned about WW1 (or any "war" in the sense of how it went, battles, fronts etc) in history at school. The only battle I definitely remember studying was Hastings because we did the school trip to Normandy and look at the Bayeux tapestry. Did the WW1 war poets in English though.

But there is truth in history.

The US exploded a nuclear bomb over Hiroshima.  Millions were killed in German concentration camps.

The "whys" and Hows" can be up for debate - but not the events that happened.

I'd put it a different way - those are facts.

I think I'd say more the truth is inaccessible (and wasn't even accessible by participants). History is in the how and why - and the argument around those.

FWIW I think by A-level (16-18) we did also have to have at least a very, very glancing awareness of "theory" as well - so a little bit of Marxism. Same in English when it was very shallow but you'd have to be aware of, say, feminist criticism when looking at Macbeth. Again in English you will not get a good grade if you can't cite other critics or interpretations of a text (eg film or famous performances).

Edit: Reading responses it sounds a lot like basically it's the same until 14 - at that point history becomes optional in the UK curriculum and then it sounds a bit like AP. Not sure if it stays compulsory in the US but that sounds about right - once it becomes optional and you have to have an interest the sophistication steps up.

[Barrister]

I'd put it a different way - those are facts.

I think I'd say more the truth is inaccessible (and wasn't even accessible by participants). History is in the how and why - and the argument around those.

So I feel like this is a very Languish answer (in all the best and worst possible meanings) - turning into a debate over the definition of words.

Fine - if you want to say there's a distinction between "truth" and "fact" - go ahead (although I would say that in order for something to be a fact it needs to be true).  But yeah in my line of work we talk about facts not truths because I guess there is a bit of a metaphysical element to the word "truth".

"making arguments" - that was a very "english class" type of assignment.  Yes the whole thesis sentence, argument, conclusion...  But then that was the lesson they were trying to teach you - at that point in english you're no longer learning spelling and sentence structure.

My recollection was history was still much more about, well, history.  While you might have to do a written assignment, you still needed to get your facts right - or at least be able to source them to reputable sources.

[Sheilbh]

I think that's probably right especially at the 14-16 stage. Which would be a bit like what does this source mean, how do you know that etc.

By the 16-18 you do need facts (in the same way as in English you need quotations) but it's framed to get an interpretation, like the famous [striking quote] "Discuss"

For reference I looked up a paper for that age group on the American civil war given the Douglass quote - and the questions in a recent exam were either (1) or (2) here. That's what I mean by in both cases you're being asked to make an argument with reference to facts and evidence and sources - and I was always told the easiest way to lose marks is to not answer the question and just cite a list of facts:

1 (a) Which of the following was the greater threat to the Union in the years 1850–1861?
(i) The Kansas Nebraska Act
(ii) The Dred Scott decision
Explain your answer with reference to both (i) and (ii).
1 (b)* How important were improved communications for the opening up of the West?

2 (a) Which had the greater consequences for Native Americans in the years 1861–1890?
(i) The 'Indian Wars'
(ii) The Dawes Act
Explain your answer with reference to both (i) and (ii).
2 (b)* 'The leadership of Lincoln was the main reason for Union victory in the Civil War.' How far do you agree?