Recently, I was in Calgary for a teachers’ workshop. This was the fourth day that I had met with the same group of teachers, who are participating in a series of five professional development days focused on integrating historical thinking into the new Alberta Social Studies curriculum. The series is based on my work with the Benchmarks of Historical Thinking Project. I am working on the same project with a group of teachers in the Edmonton area.

After the workshop I had some “extra” time and decided to go shopping. Shocking, I know. Anyway, while I was at shopping mall I stopped for some tea and did some people watching. Outside the coffee shop I saw two twenty-something young men practice stunts on their skateboards. I watched one of them quite closely. Frankly, I didn’t think he was that good, but what do I know about skateboarding? What intrigued me – and inspired this blog post – was that each time he fell off and the skateboard went flying, he kept trying. He remounted the skateboard and approached the concrete steps he’d been trying to master, over and over again. Many people were watching him, and yet he didn’t seem to get discouraged. When I left he was still at it.

So what does my people watching have to do with teaching history? Well, I think it’s all about the willingness to take risks. The young man on the skateboard was ready and willing to take risks and continually tested his emerging skills, despite many unsuccessful attempts and despite performing in front of what was probably a judgmental audience. I think the teachers I’m working with in Calgary and Edmonton are engaging in a similar exercise. It is not easy to change one’s practice, yet these teachers have signed onto a very demanding project knowing that’s exactly what’s expected of them. And some of them have admitted that they have stumbled along the way. Learning to “think historically” – and how to have their students think historically – is a challenging enterprise and does not come easily to most people. As Sam Wineburg says, thinking historically is an “unnatural act.” Yet the teachers keep trying. They persist because, they tell me, their students are learning history in a deeper way than they had before.

I am inspired by these teachers, and those like them, who are taking risks in their classrooms. Taking risks involves changing not only one’s practice, but one’s philosophy of teaching. It involves understanding history as a discipline of inquiry, not a list of “incontrovertible facts” to be memorized. It means learning to accept that students might come up with different answers to a particular question. It means understanding that interpretations of historical events vary and that the textbook may not have it right. It means becoming comfortable with uncertainty and tentative answers that are subject to scrutiny and revision based on new evidence.

It is not only teachers who have to engage in such risk-taking practices. Students, who have been brought up in an educational system that teaches them that there is one “right” answer, also need to learn that a certain level of ambiguity in their learning is a good thing. They need to become comfortable stumbling during their historical inquiries – not to the point of complete frustration and discouragement – but to the point where their assumptions about history and historical events are challenged and debated. Both teachers and students need to be able to engage in such risk-taking teaching and learning in a climate that encourages and supports such behaviour. Establishing such an environment is no easy task, particularly in a society that is driven by standardized tests and piles of curriculum to “cover.”

But perhaps that is a topic best kept for another day…

Until next time, Carla