Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Catalyst or caterpillar?

Hi friends... I did my review on Ken Osborne's article "Catalyst or caterpillar? On the state of history in Canada".

One of the greatest concerns with Social Studies education is the separation between teachers, historians, and those interested in teaching history. Ken Osborne discusses the disconnected reality of teaching history in Canada. Osborne states that until the 1950s, Canadian historians were heavily involved in the schools by speaking at conferences, publishing teachers’ journals, writing textbooks, and advocating for history in the schools because “they saw history as a vital ingredient of education and civilization” (Osborne, 2000). As both history and education became more and more specialized, scholars moved away from joint involvement in the system. Emphasized by the new style curriculum in schools and the professionalization of the disciplines, historians and teachers have become almost entirely isolated from one another.

Osborne's argument touches on something important: our undergrad degrees hardly make us capable of teaching a coherent, dynamic, well-informed Canadian history to our students. Furthermore, it does not contain a complete framework for teaching any sort of history. In fact, history should not be limited, at all, to a framework. Unfortunately for us, the separation between historians and teachers makes it even harder for us to connect with the history of our pasts because HUMAN resources that are historians are not readily involved or available to the education process. Therefore, we need to be both conscious of our inadequacies but aggressive with our tactics to stay informed. This might require seeking out historians on our own but the reality of Canadian Social Studies seems to be simply that we can never know enough and it is our inherent, blessed RESPONSIBILITY to our students, our peers, and our world to deliver this material in the best possible way. If anything, Osborne's article simply inspired me to realize that as the disciplines of education and history are becoming more and more polarized from one another, we have to be the new teachers who attempt, as best we can, to bring it back together.

Read the article.

Cheers, Kate

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