| Review | The History Teacher, 37.3 | The History Cooperative

Review

History in the Present Tense: Engaging Students Through Inquiry and Action, by Douglas Selwyn and Jan Maher. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 2003. 182 pages. $19.50, paper.

Historians often worry about the errors inherent in studying the past by using the perspective of our present selves as the starting point. Presentism limits what we may discover about the past because it puts so much stress on how history influences today that it screens out parts of the story that do not look immediately relevant to us. It hinders us from seeking to utilize the perspectives of past times in our analysis and thus works against a fuller understanding of people who lived before us. Lynn Hunt served as president of the American Historical 9+Association in 2002. In May of that year, her article "Against Presentism" appeared in the pages of AHA Perspectives. Hunt defines presentism in part as "the tendency to interpret the past in present terms." Presentism robs history of any chance of objectivity, since presentists invariably judge the past in terms of the present. Hunt suggests that we should cultivate a respect for the past, which will enable us to "see beyond our present-day concerns."

This book by Selwyn and Maher wears its presentism on its jacket and reinforces it throughout. For example, in the introduction section the authors state, "Each unit begins with the here and now, using students' present concerns and circumstances...." (p. 7) Like others in the teaching field today, the authors assert that interest is best or more readily tapped when teachers present topics as extensions of students' needs and selves. That bringing an interest to the subject for its own sake—be it history, math, or chemistry—is part of a student's job, has to a large extent fallen by the wayside for many educators.

Although the book title accurately signals a presentist perspective, the first word is somewhat misleading. Following a brief introduction are seven chapters containing lengthy unit plans, only three of which could be adopted readily by teachers of history. The last four chapters concern mainly contemporary global economics; the mass media; photo documentaries, or "a picture of our times;" and current events using "documentary theater projects." All of these projects are quite time-consuming and the descriptions of them leave it unclear as to how, as promised early on in the book, a teacher could use them, as a "reference and scaffold" (p. 6) to historical content distant from the present.

Selwyn and Maher claim that learning content information is important but that the "standardized test mania" (p. viii) currently imposed on students is far from the best way to inspire mastery. Yet, as noted above, they too often leave the reader wondering about when students will get down to learning what happened in the past. Instead, the authors appear to want to develop in students affinities for social activism and civic engagement. These are both admirable goals and they deserve to be stated more directly as purposes of the book. This book has more to do with making active citizens than with learning history, and often relates more closely to the philosophy of a civics or consumer economics class than a history class.

The best parts for history teachers are in the first three chapters. Here the authors present generally fine, creative ideas developed in useful ways. Chapter Two is especially inventive. It takes on the nagging problem of getting students to understand how plausible explanations are constructed from available primary sources. First, the teacher has students write a short history of the class since its beginning. She then collects these one-page histories and explores in discussion the likelihood of any but one or two surviving long enough to be found by future researchers involved in writing a history of the class. By pretending that only a couple of them survive and by reading them aloud to the class, she gets students to see right away that historians must work with the evidence remaining from a period of time and that, therefore, there is much about the past we cannot recover. At this point the teacher pretends that more and more of these histories have been found and adds them to the discussion. A goal of this part of the lesson is to help students distinguish facts from opinions by hearing how their classmates' versions of history differ from their own. Chapter One consists of a time line project and Chapter Three seeks to guide students to understand the preconceptions and biases they bring to their studies.

Taken as a whole, this is a learning-by-doing manual that can be useful to teachers of a variety of social studies subjects who want to include more active learning in their lessons.


State University of New York, Cortland	John Shedd

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