Every four-year Deerfield student takes at least two years of history before they graduate. History, the study of the past, shapes our understanding of the events that have come before the present day. Andrew and John debate on how they believe Deerfield’s history department should teach history, guided by frameworks or free from their inhibition.
Andrew: I think that Deerfield’s mandatory underclassmen history courses don’t really educate students on true critical thinking. Deerfield requires only two history courses, one our underclassmen years and US History during our junior year for all three to four year students to graduate. In my experience, I think these courses are characterized by a stringent structure of themes, central ideas, and values that reflect a selected historic interpretation. What I mean by historic interpretation here is systems of thinking we study frameworks with, such as the seven themes of Honors European History.
I believe a good history course should invite students to form and express their own judgments of history. In general, teachers should take a more non-intervention approach to class, yielding space to students for them to think freely. This could be accomplished with a few changes in class structures. In my opinion, a successful class should be based on seminars rather than lectures. It should also incentivize students to research on their own, instead of simply consuming what the source packets and textbook offers.
John: I agree that the majority of the history courses offered at Deerfield follow some overarching framework. If we take European History for example, the class loosely follows the seven themes that the College Board identifies for the AP European History course and exam. I don’t think these overarching themes limit the course. Instead they act like guardrails for curricula, teachers, and students in the task of undertaking the momentous task of understanding modern European history. Covering all of modern European History in one year is really hard, and without these guardrails, I think the course would be unmanageable. Similarly to European History, while Honors US History at Deerfield doesn’t follow the AP curriculum, the course is still divided into seven themes.
Where I disagree with you is your point that history courses should be a place for students to form and express their own views of history. The foremost goal of history classes should be to teach us students what happened in the past. Especially in content-heavy courses like European and American history where there are hundreds of names, events, and sometimes countries involved in complex wars, revolutions, and relationships, I think classes should prioritize cultivating a common understanding of what actually happened. I don’t see the inherent value of letting students have free reign over forming their interpretation of history if that comes at the expense of not actually knowing historical events happened.
I don’t think learning what happened in history and forming your own opinions about the past are mutually exclusive. But learning the facts comes before forming opinions. Because they’re so many facts in history, frameworks restrict classes to be manageable enough.
A: I agree with you that a framework facilitates a common understanding, but I think that being able to think freely is more important than a common understanding.
From my view, there could not exist a productive framework which does not infringe heavily upon academic liberty. The value of the framework is in the potentials drawn from the subjective lens of perception. For example, Marxism is a valid framework for studying history, arguing that all history is the history of class struggles. Then why do we not utilize Marxism for theming Honors Euro? As you have mentioned, there are seven themes in Honors Euro, and how did we choose those themes? Ultimately, the themes are individual interpretations of history with strong socio-political inclinations. We risk corrupting our education system with political messages through teaching with frameworks.
I disagree with another assumption on frameworks made by the history department, best examined by one of Africa and Latin America’s big ideas: “History is the set of stories we choose to tell.”
I don’t think history translates into a set of stories. Reality is different from books. A literary production has limited content and usually has a set of didactics that serve as its purpose. Here we would analyze the work for a common understanding and take-away. However, an infinite set of events comprises history. With a framework, crucial historic events outside the framework will be ignored, and this would only give more room to politics in history as someone could now choose which events to teach.
In education, I believe it’s crucial to respect students’ freedom and foster their own understanding of history. It’s better to teach skills and leave the stance-taking to the students.
J: I agree that a historical framework can limit what opinions we form about history. But as you say, there’s “an infinite set of events” that make up history. Without a framework, how can we study every single event that’s ever occurred? It’s a worthy sacrifice to be made, to at the very least, make history a bite that we can chew.
I think frameworks become more powerful when you realize that they aren’t comprehensive. Frameworks aren’t the gospel, nor should they be considered as the word of god. Rather, they help highlight the most important historical events and ideas. What’s important is going to differ from school to school and country to country. At Deerfield, a boarding school in Western Massachusetts, learning about Lowell Mills is going to be an important part of history. In a public school in Texas, Texan Independence is going to be more important than mills in New England. We can easily go on a tangent about what events frameworks should consider “important,” but I think you understand what I mean.
I’ll pose a question back to you. You said that, “In education, I believe it’s crucial to respect students’ freedom and foster their own understanding of history.” But if the set of historical events is infinite, then how do we, the students, start forming our own understanding of history?
A: I think the most important point is that students should be the ones who form the majority of the subjective judgements regarding history. I believe the infinite set of history I mentioned before should be presented to students as untainted and as comprehensive as possible, and frameworks taint and limit our perspective of history. The implementation of this in a classroom setting isn’t as complicated as you think it is.
First of all, teachers should select evidence and sources that are as encompassing as possible. Instead of merely presenting students with pieces of writing , I think teachers should host scholarly discussions regarding the readings, so that the rationale behind the readings is not to prove a point.
I also believe in increasing research outside the classroom. Teachers should turn more assignments and essays into open-research writing, allowing students to engage in their own historical understanding. Typically, from my own experiences, many history essays mostly draw on sources from a source packet, so all the essays are more or less written with similar stances under the same framework. It would be almost impossible to produce something remarkably original with the restricted selection of choices. Unfortunately, this form of writing trains formulaic writing more than research skills. Open research essays will force students to conduct research for themselves to prove their own beliefs, which I believe, will be more beneficial for them under the current multilateral society.
J: I agree with you that reading entire essays and documents can help us form more encompassing opinions about history. Research as well. But as a history student myself, I don’t really think I need more history homework… (RIP my double-history junior year sleep schedule.)
At Deerfield, and really in any high school, I think history classes are foremost content-based classes. We learn what happened in the past. If I had time to read the Communist Manifesto, I would love to. If I had time to fully research the origins of the numerous French Revolutions, trust me, I would! But two problems; we don’t have enough time, and we lack the historical context to dive into research.
On my first point on time: We take more than just history. At most we have five other classes. It just isn’t feasible to cover the same content in the same amount of time doing research instead of reading a textbook. As you say, history is an infinite set of stories. I think textbooks narrow down the vast expanse of historical events to a certain story that balances coherence and factual accuracy and saves so much homework time for everyone.
On my second point on context: My favorite part of European History last year was a research project where I chose to look specifically at the politics in the role of the collapse of Weimar Germany. But, this project wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t know the course of 20th century history in Europe. I think history research is like building a skyscraper. Without a foundation of how a certain historical event fits into the grand scheme of things, you can’t build up with nuance.
A: To your point of not having enough time, I agree that at Deerfield we don’t necessarily have the time required for extremely nuanced history research. However, our history classes should be oriented to as much student research as possible to allow students to practice their thinking.
Back to the point of subjectivity in history, I think we should pursue a generally non-opinionated and disinclined class from the teacher, but a vibrant and thoughtful atmosphere amongst the students. The reason is simple: a subjective history course could very easily develop into a tool of propaganda. From personal experiences growing up and attending public schools in China, I know just how dangerous history classes could become. The textbooks are factually accurate by large, but the sheer emphasis on certain historical events and shunning on others turn the textbooks into effective machines of government propaganda. These textbooks also often fuel prejudices, nationalism, and ethnic hatred, so much that the textbooks had already incited multiple instances of ethnic-targeted violence. I am not saying our education system currently holds this issue, but this could become an unfortunate reality if we don’t shed our ill-suited frameworks.