History is About Stories: Everyone Can Tell Them

I would like to Begin with a short story told by William MacLean on the Halifax explosion.

 

“History teaches us a way to make choices, to balance opinions, to tell stories, and to become uneasy…about the stories we tell.” – Wineburg

“The truth about stories is, that’s all we are.” –Thomas King

During our discussions and reading about the importance of studying History these two passages stayed with me as I pondered further about why we should teach History. History is my favorite subject to study and I believe it is valuable for many reasons. History is interesting and thought provoking because of its stories. I observe a few different History classes lead by two different experienced teachers. Although I see note taking, where students yawn and massage their hands, and text book reading with questions, that make me cringe, there is something that draws students to choose to take History. So what is it then? I believe it is the stories. It is when the teacher begins to capture the class through a story that the student’s eyes light up and they begin to ask meaningful questions. The students begin to tell their own stories, for example students who study History 20 slowly begin to tell their own stories about their grandmother’s war jobs and relatives battle stories. I really like that Wineburg includes that it is important to become uneasy about the stories we tell. History is shocking and painful. But the stories that make us uneasy are the ones we cannot stop telling. For they provoke feelings and thought and act as a way to remember wrongs that society has committed.

When I was asked if the teacher’s geography lesson was boring one day, I regrettably had to say yes. I just couldn’t lie. So how could we liven this lesson up to students who have never travelled and might never get to? I think the key is through stories.  Stories allow you to create pictures and memories more than a map with questions could ever do.  

History seems to have a bad placement currently next to Social Studies in University Education courses. I think this is generally due to Histories own history of being a power filled class where students are forced to learn about facts and about western powers, but it truly has a purpose that interests students. History no longer is about memorisation and minimal viewpoints, for it offers so much more that encourages critical thinking and memorable stories. History is my first teaching area and even though my respect has grown immensely for Social Studies, I am saddened by the fact that it was the last year where it would be accepted as a lone teaching area. If I wouldn’t have been accepted into Education this year I would have not been qualified later to apply with this major and I think that is wrong. We were asked in class, “what reading, writing, questioning skills would be lost if we eliminate history?” What a great question because we would lose so much. I feel like we are making a poor step in losing history already through the education program. I am thankful for the place where I am today. I hope as a young teacher I will learn more and more stories for my future History classes so that I can help students think about making choices, about balancing opinions, get them to tell their own stories, and to become uneasy about the stories we tell because, “the truth about stories is, that’s all we are.”

-Week 6, Sarah

 

Is Knowledge Individual or Social?

Is knowledge individual or social? I believe it is most likely is both, however I do think that knowledge is more of a social creation. I struggled a little bit with this week’s readings so when I went back to study the points that I highlighted during the first readings of Feminist Epistemology I approached the articles asking the individual or social knowledge question.  

This is something that I found:

“Despite the individualism of many naturalized epistemologies, a naturalized approach can operate as a very strong argument for a social epistemology: looking at how human beings know leaves little doubt that the vast majority of our knowing takes place socially. Even if the "socially" is understood in the minimal sense of individuals interacting with each other, exchanging information, the social interaction has the potential to be infused with the dynamics of gender, opening the door for analyses of how gender affects knowledge exchanges.”

(Grasswick, H. 2006, Feminist Social Epistemology)

This passage stood out for me because we spend a lot of time in class discussing articles and ideas with each other in small groups. It is understood that we all might come the conversation with our own “individual” knowledge and together we can grow from sharing with each other.

I feel that we are all different students with different social backgrounds and positions in society and that this affects the way we think, because society has shaped us to become who we are. So even though I am coming to my group with “my own” knowledge it has already been shaped socially by my previous experiences. Then my knowledge grows and reshapes when I am able to interact and exchange information with others. For that reason I value these group discussions because it helps me to see new perspectives, to understand more deeply, and to challenge my own ideas. Some days my group discussions are more valuable than others, for this depends if there is rich discussions happening and if there are diverse knowledge creators in the group, such as both genders represented. Although I used to groan at group work I now see the value in exchanging knowledge with others because others might approach information differently and come to see it in different and new ways.

-Week 5, Sarah