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Reflections on Forty-Odd Years of Teaching History and on Training Prospective
PhDs to Do So*
Philip L. White
University of Texas at Austin
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I
NEVER WON a teaching award. Evaluations of my teaching were at best
rarely much higher than average. So why should anyone have any interest
in my reflections on forty-odd years of teaching history at the
college level? Two reasons. First, because my average ratings suggest
that most college-level teachers of history are not significantly
more gifted naturally than I was. Second, because I assume that
most of those no more gifted than I was would like to improve their
effectiveness—and their ratings as I did, however modestly.
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How did I achieve my modest improvement?
The chief mode I chose was agreeing thirty years ago to conduct
a graduate seminar on how to teach history at the college level.
As with too many of my colleagues then and now, my graduate program
had included no training at all in how to teach, but by that time
(1972) I had had about seventeen years of not altogether happy experience.
These limited qualifications were a problem at first in conducting
the seminar, but not in winning the opportunity to do so. There
was, as I recall, absolutely no competition; it was not something
others wanted to do. Admittedly, such an avenue to improvement is
not open to many. It requires employment at one of the rare "research"
or PhD-training institutions which is willing to offer such a course.
To use the opportunity, furthermore, requires a willingness to take
time away from the mad rush for publication, the principle path
to professional advancement, to do what I did. Furthermore, too
many historians still disdain training for teaching, making the
unwarranted assumption that they have nothing worthwhile to learn
from experts in the field. I found that I could and indeed did learn
a lot that helped me significantly, from reading about teaching
and from talking—or listening to—professionals whose expertise
was teaching. Here is some of what I learned and what I tried to
pass along to the PhD candidates in my seminar. |
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By far the most important thing I learned was that instructors should make clear to their students at the beginning of any survey course what it is that they expect the students to learn. As one of my pedagogical mentors once explained to me, students are a lot more likely to learn something if they know what it is they are expected to learn. It is hard to argue with the force of that simple statement. Yet few of the historians I have observed do in fact make their teaching objectives explicit. Many of the PhD candidates who took my seminar on teaching history, having formed their perception of the teaching function from such models, were extremely resistant to the idea that they might communicate explicit course objectives to their students. I suspect that part of the reason for such resistance is that the implicit objectives, the ones so many instructors do not choose to express, do not stand up well under examination. For too many instructors the major aim in teaching a survey course is to get the students to learn facts about what happened in a given society in a particular period. The legions of undergraduate students who adhere rigidly to the idea that the way to survive a college course in history is to memorize facts did not acquire that view without reinforcing experience. Indeed the question students put to me most often when I taught a required survey course, a question which came in infinite variations, boiled down to: "What is it you want us to memorize?" In time I simply referred students who asked that question to my syllabus which set forth course objectives with reference to my modified version of the Bloom taxonomy as explained below. |
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So what course aims should be communicated to the students at the beginning of a survey course? All those who teach a college-level survey course in history will of course have their own preferences, influenced by their values, tastes, and interests or strengths. It seems clear to me, however, that all should give some thought to Benjamin S. Bloom's hierarchy of educational objectives set forth almost half a century ago (Benjamin S. Bloom, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: the classification of educational goals. New York, 1956). This work is very well known in the field of education, but still too little known to most people who teach history at the college level, most of whom got their degrees, as I did, from a "research" institution which afforded them little or no training in how to teach. |
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Confession is in order here. I have never read Bloom's massive tome. I have looked around in it enough to be sure that I would have understood little of it if I had in fact read it. I have instead relied upon brief summaries by his fellow experts. Still another confession. I have also modified the summaries of Bloom by other experts to adapt them to my own beliefs as to how history might be taught more effectively. Thus what follows is a much modified form of what is generally called the Bloom taxonomy of educational objectives. |
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The first is knowledge. In the study of history it seems evident to me as to most others in the field that facts are the essential foundation. Included in the conception of fact, however, are not just ideas, events, names, and dates, but also the interpretive conclusions of historians, whether generally agreed upon or in conflict. |
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The second is comprehension. What this connotes is essentially the lowest level of understanding, but it extends to extrapolation, the ability to see implications, consequences, or corollaries. |
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The third is application. In history this seems to me to be chiefly the ability to apply learned material to new situations, to see historical analogies and contrasts. |
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The last three of Bloom's points are much more sophisticated and much too rarely emphasized as objectives in a survey course. |
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The fourth is analysis. What this means to me is the ability to explain cause and effect relationships. Long before I learned of Bloom's work I had made it a practice to announce on the first class day of a survey course that mine was to be a "why and so what?" course. My lectures and my exams generally focused on those questions. I was terribly shocked, however, when I read someone's assertion that we had made little progress if we had advanced merely from asking students to memorize concrete facts to asking them to memorize interpretations or interpretive conflicts: which historian took which position and with what arguments. A more useful aim is to help students improve their intellectual skill, first by pointing out to them explicitly that the instructor's presentations and the required or recommended readings have provided thoughtful models of analysis, and second, by requiring students to make their own analyses or to criticize those of others in response to exam questions calling specifically for the exercise of that skill. |
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The fifth is synthesis. Synthesis strikes me as one of the most important intellectual skills which college courses in history should help students to develop. In an historical context I construe synthesis to mean essentially extracting a valid generalization from a large body of facts. Whether or not our generalizations are valid, we all do that almost constantly. In fact synthesis is one of the most important ways in which our brains work. They sort out facts, eliminate most of them from memory, but retain a generalized conclusion derived from the original perception of the facts. Exams in history courses afford a great opportunity for students to practice doing this. History courses also afford lecturers or discussion leaders a great opportunity to provide an instructive model of such behavior. Required or optional readings can do the same. |
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The sixth is evaluation. At one level evaluation suggests merely assessing the validity of an argument. Has it stated facts accurately? Has it omitted one or more relevant facts of major importance, the most common and most disastrous fault? Is the reasoning solid or does it have logical flaws? At this level questions calling for evaluation should be part of almost any exam in history. At another level, however, evaluation is for historians perhaps the most controversial of Bloom's points. At that level evaluation calls for a conclusion as to whether or not a particular historical development was to be desired. That raises the question whether instructors in history should expect their students to be scrupulously objective or openly partisan. It raises the same question about the instructors themselves and the required or recommended readings. I shall address these questions at some length below. |
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But before doing so I want to state
specifically why I urge prospective college instructors in history
to reflect on these adaptations of Bloom's ideas when considering
the identification of objectives for a survey course. The basic
reason is that I believe those who teach survey courses, especially
courses required of all students, have an obligation to help their
students improve their intellectual skills, not merely to memorize
and regurgitate facts, most of them soon-to-be-forgotten. For that
broader purpose it seems to me it would be useful to include in
the course syllabus a concise statement of the Bloom objectives,
perhaps further modified to suit the wishes of the individual instructor,
and an explicit affirmation that the course will aim to improve
the performance of the students at all of those skills, specifically
including the last three. The most obvious way to help students
improve those skills is through exam questions, preferably a number
of possible questions announced in advance of the exam in order
to provide guidance to the study efforts of the students. Without
such guidance, study efforts are likely in too many cases to be
ineffectual, limited to frustrating efforts to memorize facts. With
such guidance students are much more likely to give serious thought
to those matters which the instructor regards as important. Grading
should provide helpful suggestions on improving performance. Distributing
copies of outstanding answers by class members—with the student's
permission—can also be instructive. |
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There is another reason, I have told my seminar, why instructors may find such an idea appealing. At least some of the numerous students who will resent being required to take a course in which they have no interest, which they see as contributing nothing to their career goals, and which too often they already had in high school may be induced to perceive the course in a new light. It has been my experience that at least some of the more mature students will recognize and even welcome the opportunity to improve their skill at analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. This is more likely if they can see clearly that exam questions do provide them help in developing such crucial skills and that the grading provides constructive feedback toward that end. It helps still more if they can see that lectures and readings provide useful models of the exercise of such skills. |
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For those who, like so many of my graduate students, cannot bring themselves to communicate Bloom-like aims to their students, I suggest distributing copies of final exam questions on the first class day. This seems to me a good practice even for those who do choose to convey explicit course aims to their students. Some who do this will prefer to use questions from previous terms, questions they do not intend to use in that class. Others may prefer to distribute on the first class day a list of essay exam questions from which those to be used for the final exam will be taken. Such a policy gives students a reasonably clear idea as to what they are expected to learn. |
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Many experts in teaching at the K-12 level recommend communicating objectives for each class day. I never did that. To me it smacked of the "tell-us-what-to-memorize syndrome." I have thought, however, that one might make it a practice to require students at the end of each class period to analyze cause and effect relationships with reference to a specific set of historical circumstances, to draw a conclusion (synthesis) from the facts in that day's presentation and/or readings, or to evaluate the long term consequences of a particular historical development. In the last years of my teaching, instead of stating a conclusion to my presentation each class day I asked the students to write a conclusion themselves. I gave them half a sheet of notebook paper and instructed them to write at most three or four sentences and never to use more than one side of the paper. I read and wrote comments on their answers, but did not grade them. I returned them the next class period and entertained brief discussion on them, sometimes calling on a student who had written a particularly good conclusion to read it to the class. Students found this a useful exercise. I think it helped just about everyone get the point. It also helped improve skill at synthesis. |
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Turning now to the controversial aspect
of evaluation, I come down firmly against scrupulous objectivity
and in favor of avowed partisanship. Why? Objectivity has, as I
see it, two main supports, but one overriding drawback. The case
for objectivity arises in part from the fact that it was a fundamental
commitment of those who first professionalized the writing of history
in the late nineteenth century. They saw the historian's obligation
as to report facts with "scientific" objectivity and to avoid interpretation.
Many historians still cling to that ideal. The second argument for
objectivity is to avoid appearing unfairly to indoctrinate impressionable
students and thus inevitably to offend not only some students but
probably many parents, some administrators, and probably most potential
donors. The overriding drawback to objectivity is that it impedes
whatever effort the instructor might choose to make to help students
improve their skill in evaluation, deciding what is—or was—desirable
and what is—or was—undesirable. Decisions of that sort
are fundamentally important and all students deserve help in learning
to make them wisely. |
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How then can an openly partisan instructor avoid appearing to indoctrinate students and still help them improve their skill at deciding whether or not a particular development is or was desirable? This often troubled my PhD candidates. It is not easy, but I think it can be done. Even more important, I think it should be done in order to help students improve their skill at evaluation, the very highest level of Bloom's taxonomy and a crucial skill for voters in any democratic society. My thinking on this issue was much influenced by a former colleague at the University of Chicago. Kermit Eby was a Mennonite minister and a former labor union official who held the title, Professor of Social Science. When I asked him what he taught, he replied that although the titles of his courses varied, he taught only two: "elementary me and advanced me." He began each course with what he called a "Confession of Bias." When I recovered from my shock, I thought long and hard about what he had said. The ultimate result was that I decided to begin any required survey course I taught with a full period lecture which I called a "profession" rather than a "confession" of bias. I disliked confession because it carried a note of apology. I preferred profession because I was proud of my biases and felt no need either to apologize or to suggest that I needed forgiveness for them. |
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I gave students two reasons why I devoted an entire lecture to my personal biases. The first was that my lectures would be highly interpretive and I thought they deserved to be made aware of my major biases so that they could make whatever allowance they thought warranted for them in assessing my views. The second arose from my recognition of how preoccupied most undergraduates are with self-discovery. I thought explicit statement of my biases might be useful in helping them to recognize their own. A good many later affirmed that it did. What factors did I consider in my profession of bias? I began with religion, explaining my religious heritage and the biases it imparted but also making clear that I had no current religious affiliation or beliefs. I touched also on my family history, stressing both the regional and the occupational background, explaining how those factors biased my understanding of history. I mentioned also how the historical circumstances of my youth, the great depression and World War II, had influenced my perception of history. I set forth candidly my record as a "bleeding heart" liberal Democratic activist. Finally I explained some of my pedagogical biases, notably that the most useful education is self-education, that which results from efforts to satisfy the individual's own curiosity. More on that below. Some years later I included reference to the Bloom hierarchy of educational objectives and my concern in particular to help students improve their skill at analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. I always ended the lecture with the assertion that agreeing with my interpretations was not required, that I reserved the highest grade for the occasional student who could change my mind, that in any case, as mentioned above, an answer to an exam question which was 1) factually accurate, 2) omitted no relevant fact of major importance, and 3) was free from errors of reasoning was an A answer even if diametrically opposed to my own view. What reaction did I get? Somewhat to my surprise, the reaction was consistently favorable. |
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Another novelty in my teaching, shared with my seminar, was the policy of allowing students to pick their own supplemental reading. In keeping with my belief that the best education is self-education I distributed long topical reading lists and encouraged students to choose what seemed to them the most interesting books to read. Premed students often chose books on the history of medicine, but I did not require students to choose books that related to their prospective careers. In each exam during the term I asked that all students answer a general question about the book they had chosen for that exam. I varied the queries. I suspect that this policy made students marginally more likely to do the reading, to get something they valued from it, and in some cases to discover for themselves that history could be a lot more interesting than they had thought. |
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Another pedagogical policy I have mentioned is using questions instead of topics as lecture titles in the course syllabus. For example, on the American Civil War topics might be "Secession" and "The Civil War." Questions could be "Why did the South secede?" and "Why did secession fail?" Using topics seems to me to reinforce the all-too-prevalent idea that here is a subject on which students are expected to memorize facts. Using questions on the other hand seems to me to have two advantages. First, it almost inevitably creates some curiosity in the mind of the students as to how to answer the question. Second, and more important, it suggests implicitly, if the questions are carefully framed, that the goal is not mere memorization of facts, but the exercise of one or more of the higher level cognitive skills in the Bloom formulation of educational objectives. In the above examples the skill called for is clearly analysis. Slightly different questions could put the emphasis on synthesis or evaluation. |
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How to frame exam questions was another topic on which I had a tough time winning converts among doctoral candidates. Most of them, again following the example set by their instructors, showed a strong inclination to begin at least some of their exam questions with the verb "discuss." My objection to that word, as the reader will probably have deduced already, is that it seems to call for mere recitation of facts. The word is so vague that a good student might well go beyond mere recitation of facts, but it seems to me far preferable to begin exam questions with a verb calling for the exercise of one or more of the higher level skills in the Bloom taxonomy, e.g., why, justify, criticize, evaluate. |
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A seemingly irresistible compulsion to impose an overload of facts was another problem for most of the doctoral candidates who were my seminar students. Having learned so many facts themselves they seemed to feel an obligation to convey to their students all the information that they had accumulated on a particular topic. Not possible for almost any instructor on almost any topic. Nor would it be desirable if it were possible. It conveys implicitly that the basic goal is memorization of facts, the more the better. Too many facts, especially if undifferentiated, can create confusion which defeats the teaching effort. Most experts on lecturing agree that one should attempt to make no more than five significant points in any lecture and limit the facts presented to those important to establish the major points. Although I frequently had trouble following his recommendation myself, I cherish Peter N. Stearns' three words of advice to beginning lecturers: "Dare to omit." ( Peter N. Stearns, Meaning Over Memory: recasting the teaching of culture and history. Chapel Hill, 1993 p.133) |
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To draw upon Peter Stearns again in conclusion, I admire the advice implicit in the title of his book. Instructors in history, it seems to me, ought to stress the importance of the search for meaning and downplay the too often-expected emphasis on memorizing facts. For those who wish to encourage their students to search for meaning I urge that they consider each of the recommendations above, but especially those relating to the Bloom taxonomy. |
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*For the years
of help they provided, I wish to thank (and absolve from responsibility
for my idiosyncratic views) Marilla D. Svinicki, Director of the
Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Texas at Austin,
and her colleagues Karron Lewis, Joy Lynn Reed and Joanne Holliday.
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