Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone)

Wineburg, Sam

ISBN 10: 022635721X / ISBN 13: 9780226357218

Published by University of Chicago Press (edition First Edition), 2018

About this Item

It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Seller Inventory # 022635721X-8-1

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone)
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press (edition First Edition)
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022635721X
• ISBN 13: 9780226357218
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Let’s start with two truths about our era that are so inescapable as to have become clichés: We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percentage of it is inaccurate. Some of the bad info is well-meaning but ignorant. Some of it is deliberately deceptive. All of it is pernicious.

With the internet always at our fingertips, what’s a teacher of history to do? Sam Wineburg has answers, beginning with this: We definitely can’t stick to the same old read-the-chapter-answer-the-questions-at-the-back snoozefest we’ve subjected students to for decades. If we want to educate citizens who can sift through the mass of information around them and separate fact from fake, we have to explicitly work to give them the necessary critical thinking tools. Historical thinking, Wineburg shows us in Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone), has nothing to do with test prep–style ability to memorize facts. Instead, it’s an orientation to the world that we can cultivate, one that encourages reasoned skepticism, discourages haste, and counters our tendency to confirm our biases. Wineburg draws on surprising discoveries from an array of research and experiments—including surveys of students, recent attempts to update history curricula, and analyses of how historians, students, and even fact checkers approach online sources—to paint a picture of a dangerously mine-filled landscape, but one that, with care, attention, and awareness, we can all learn to navigate.

It’s easy to look around at the public consequences of historical ignorance and despair. Wineburg is here to tell us it doesn’t have to be that way. The future of the past may rest on our screens. But its fate rests in our hands.

About the Author

Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education, Emeritus, at Stanford University, and the founder of the Stanford History Education Group, whose state-of-the-art curriculum on digital literacy has been distributed freely to schools all over the world. He is the author of Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone), also published by the University of Chicago Press.