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

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

Letâ€™s start with two truths about our era that are so inescapable as to have become clichÃ©s: 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.

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With the internet always at our fingertips, whatâ€™s a teacher of history Â to do? Sam Wineburg has answers, beginning with this: We definitely canâ€™t stick to the same old read-the-chapter-answer-the-questions-at-the-back snoozefest weâ€™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 Itâ€™s Already on Your Phone), has nothing to do with test prepâ€“style ability to memorize facts. Instead, itâ€™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 experimentsâ€”including surveys of students, recent attempts to update history curricula, and analyses of how historians, students, and even fact checkers approach online sourcesâ€”to paint a picture of a dangerously mine-filled landscape, but one that, with care, attention, and awareness, we can all learn to navigate.

Itâ€™s easy to look around at the public consequences of historical ignorance and despair. Wineburg is here to tell us it doesnâ€™t have to be that way. The future of the past may rest on our screens. But its fate rests in our hands.
Country USA
Manufacturer The University of Chicago Press
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2022-12-22
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	The University of Chicago Press
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2022-12-22
Format	Kindle eBook

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

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