Teaching history
This semester I am taking a course in Middle East History, 1918-1945. The professor is intelligent, knowledgeable and an interesting lecturer. He has a Political Science background, and thus comes from a perspective that I am not used to hearing, which makes the course even more interesting. For all of these reasons, I should have a high opinion of the class. But... The question I am constantly asking myself is, "How does he know this?" I don't think he's trying to deceive us. The professor is giving us an honest account of what he thinks happened. The fundamental question I keep asking myself is, "What are universities trying to teach when they teach history?" If they just want to tell a story about something that happened, then my Middle East prof is an excellent teacher. But I think that it's a misleading way to present history. The story is rarely as clear as he presents it, and if it is in this case, I would be shocked. It's dishonest for him to present a simple chain of events and reasons for them without any documentation or evidence. It presents the discipline of history as a simple one, which it is not. History teaching, particularly on the undergraduate level, should be about critical thinking. Let students grapple with evidence as much as possible. When it isn't possible, at the very least present the evidence. Meh. I can at least hope the class won't be too difficult. And I like stories.
2 Comments:
Jesse,
If professors {speaking from experience} were to teach the way that you propose then we would have no students. Really - how shocking that students would actually want to engage in critical thinking {tongue firmly emplanted in cheek here}.
Honestly, it is refreshing when one comes across a student that does want to engage in critical thinking. You might try to do honors history or something like this - in this fashion you might find what you are looking for.
Blessings
Dr. C.
Jesse, you seem to have run into the lumper-splitter dilemma. Poli Sci people tend to lump -- to look for the general, while Historians tend to split, or pick at every issue like a scab. What you will end up with is probably a very good course in ME politics, but not good history. It's the nature of the disciplines, and perhaps one of the best things you can get out of this course is how people with training in different disciplines approach a subject. The sad part is that you'll get history credit for the class, and that non-historians will be encouraged to think that History is what the class was.
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