Monday, October 28, 2013

Purpose of the Blog




"For the narcissist sees the world-both the past and the present-in his own image. Mature historical knowing teaches us to do the opposite: to go beyond our own image, to go beyond our own brief life, and to go beyond the fleeing moment in human history into which we have been born." - Sam Wineburg. (24)

This blog is designed to generate discussion on Sam Wineburg's Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past. Each of the four posts are designed to coincide with one of the four Parts presented in Wineburg's book. By laying out the basics of each section, the blog can be used to share issues, controversies and ideas in connection with Wineburg's ideas of teaching history.

Historical Thinking was written in 2001 by Sam Wineburg, a professor of education and history at Stanford University. He has been widely published and praised for his pragmatic and systematic approach to teaching history to younger students. He is also the director of the Stanford History Education Group, a website devoted to helping teachers work with historical source material in the classroom.


Sam Wineburg is a professor of  history and education at Stanford University. Wineburg is also a  psychologist. This background allows him to  analyze the cognitive aspect of historical knowing and interpretation. In his book Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts, Wineburg presents case studies which compare various methods of historical thinking and teaching. He does so in a manner that does not numerate the ways in which history is incorrectly taught, but compares various methods in the form of case studies.

For more information on Sam Wineburg and the Historical Thinking Matters Project, visit

http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/why/




No comments:

Post a Comment