Everything Old is New Again

I’m feeling really challenged in my current graduate class. I have always considered myself someone who has a strong reading level, but I’m starting to feel frustrated by my inability to read interpretative work as critically as I should. On many of the assigned readings this term I feel I’m missing the point, taking the material at an overly literal level, missing the deeper questions, connections and themes that others in the class seem to be drawing out of the material.

I’m thinking that I need to step back and apply some different reading strategies in order to have a more critical stance toward the material. On a number of the articles, I have followed Lisa’s suggestion to find background material on the author, as an understanding of the philosophical and methodological foundation of the writer will help to unpack the purpose or slant of the piece. I have seen this to be particularly true of the historical pieces, on the Tompkins and Hodgins pieces early on. I have found this to be a useful way to start an article, one I should have been applying before Lisa’s recommendation.

While this approach has been useful, I need to begin adopting some other critical ways to unpack the material in our readings. So, over the next few posts I want to attempt a synthesis of some of the readings we had covered, and try to pull out some of common themes or strands that have emerged throughout the course so far.

The first theme that emerges for me is the cyclical nature of teaching practices in education. In my short time in profession, it has been often pointed out that education suffers from pendulum swings in guiding principles and theories, and the articles we have read in class have confirmed this notion. As teacher at an inquiry-based school, I find it interesting to go back to the ideas of Dewey, over a 100 years old, and see that his philosophies of inquiry and democracy are sound as fresh and alive today as when they were first penned. I also found it fascinating in the von Heyking article that Alberta was once a hotbed and leader in radical and progressive ideas about teaching and the child. The idea of “enterprise” learning sounds so contemporary to my ears, and it’s description as “a series of purposeful activities arising out of the pupil’s needs and interests and revolving about one central theme,” reminds me of cross-discplinary inquiry projects called “Quest,” that became the foundation of our school’s charter in its early years. Many of the same debates and ‘new’ ideas still surface, such as the first category of the ‘integrated’ Programme of Studies which stated that “students should develop thinking and reasoning as opposed to unrelated memorization of facts.”

I see an interesting connection with one of the current ideas in education, “21st Century Learning.” As someone who in embedded in the world of technology and education, I see and hear the notion of 21st Century learning being batted around (and like many trendy theories, used to sell all sorts of educational tools and materials). While I’m not personally comfortable or sold on the idea of a new 21st century student or learning model, I find a connection between some of the language that is being used today and some of the progressive approaches of the first have of the 20th century.

In her article, Von Heykins writes about Dr. Donalda Dickie’s address at the Alberta School Trustee’s Association Convention. In her address, Dickie argues that the political and economic deadlocks of the day required students to be able to think for themselves in order to survive the unknown world ahead, and that “modern politics was characterized by conflict and debate.” Von Heykins then quotes from Dickie’s address, writing:

“ What does the individual need for successful living?” Well he needs courage and humour and to be able to get along with other people; he needs initiative, imagination, self-reliance, judgment, the power to co-operate. Where is he to get these things? Not sitting in his seat learning facts by heart. If educations is really to count, it must affect the nature and character of the child and it can do that only if he does something, if he is provided with opportunities for experience.”

And where do we see the parallels today? The “Partnership for 21st Century Skills” is a well-funded organization in the United States that promotes itself as, “the leading advocacy organization infusing 21st century skills into education.” They believe that significant change must come to education in order to prepare students for an unknown and rapidly changing world. What I find interesting is some of the statements that are part of their framework for 21st Century Learning:

o Learning and innovation skills are what separate students who are prepared for increasingly complex life and work environments in the 21st century and those who are not, including: Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, and Communication and Collaboration

While some of the language is different, I see parellels between the ideas. Are the foundations ideas behind Progressivism in Alberta 70 years ago that different from the ‘emerging’ trends today? What is also interesting is that among documents that are available for download on the Partnership for 21st Century Skills' website is a white paper entitled, "21st Century Learning Environments." Skimming through the document, I found it so interesting that Dewey's name came up numerous times. In my opinion, it seems the cycle has just come round once again.

Struggling with the Grand Narrative

Response to Timothy Stanley

One of the articles that has resonated with me lately is the supplemental reading by Timothy Stanley, on the role of grand narratives in the study of history. In this article Stanley argues for three positions: 1) that grand narratives in Canada (and other colonizes countries?) start with the arrival of European explorers, 2) that grand narratives follow, almost exclusively, the expansion and settlement experiences of Europeans, and 3) that grand narratives are not the objective “truth” from the past, but rather one interpretation among many.

As I have written before, my teaching position this year is a grade seven Humanities teacher, which puts me in a position of teaching the “entire” history of Canada. My own background has very little deep training of Canadian History. I have only one direct university course in Canadian History, so I feel my understanding has been derived mostly from the public history that surrounds me, what Stanley has labeled “the most widely circulated, common-sense representations of the past, of the CBC's "Canada: A People's History," of beer commercials, of the Canada Hall at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and of innumerable high school history textbooks and speeches by political leaders.”

Due to my own experience with Canadian History, I feel I rely on the grand narratives that make it easy for an immigrant (which I am) to understand and make sense of the history of this place. I realize that the grand narrative of which Stanley speaks is easy and comfortable for me, because I am a white, male. I can pick up and make sense of the public history, with little trouble. Additionaly, because the narratives are a comfortable way for me personally to make sense of Canada’s history, my role as a history teacher flows naturally out of the common-sense view of our past.

Part of me doesn’t see a problem with teaching a form of Grand Narrative. My current line of thinking is that students need a unified or cohesive model of history to follow, in order to make sense of the place where they live. I understand that the grand narrative is not the experience for a number of groups of people within our population, and that a history that focuses on the decisions and power struggles of dead, white males, marginalizes and excludes certain voices. However, I do see a place for these events and a history that weaves together the significant (and by significant, I am using Levesques criteria of Profundity, Quantity, Durability and Relevance) historical events from our past. For myself, it is important that students have a factual and detailed understanding of how our current country came to be.

However, I do realize that the study of our past cannot focus solely on the “winners” or the dominate group. A history that is overly romanticized, or uses the narrative for power and authority over other groups is a dangerous narrative to be teaching our students. In my own teaching, I am striving for a balance between a form of the grand narrative, one that traces the ‘significant’ political, social and military events, while attempting to weave in the voices and experiences of the excluded voices.

But part of the issue for myself, and for a number of other teachers who I have spoken with about the issue of teaching history, is that our content knowledge or experience drives much of how we see our past, and then what we past on to our students. How do we include the marginalized stories when they are not our own, and even more so, how do we honour them when, most of the time, we don’t know those voices exist? I need to come back to this issue - I feel I have much more to figure out about being a "history teacher." There is so much of my daily teaching experience that centers around my understanding of history.


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