Historical Knowledge: A Challenge to Standardized Testing

If U.S. students perform poorly on tests that measure their grasp of things historical, blame it on the test, says  Marc Turner, a lead teacher at Blythewood High School in Blythewood, South Carolina. Turner, named the 2005 Secondary Teacher of the Year by the National Council for the Social Studies, states that if you "look at 100 years of social studies testing, our kids have scored low," but it’s just the nature of the discipline, he says. Indeed, Turner just isn’t persuaded that a history assessment tells anyone very much about what students know.

Turner came to this realization after reading what Professor Sam Wineburg had to say about how we come to understand history. Wineburg has noted that, because of mediocre tests results, many Americans are convinced that students don’t know history. The truth, Wineburg is quoted as saying, is that students haven’t memorized the lists of facts that test makers have determined are important to know.

So, have students write historical narratives instead of taking tests, says Turner. "We should be promoting history as an interpretive experience," suggests Turner. "There’s nothing wrong when kids reach potentially different conclusions about an event," he observes—historians disagree all the time. What’s more, once students have written their narratives, they can "compare their interpretations to those of other scholars in the field," making for a rich learning experience.

Authentic assessment, such as those Turner recommends, is a hot topic this year at the ASCD Annual Conference—as previous blog entries have shown. You can also find sessions on effective instruction in social studies -- instruction that takes students beyond rote memorization into the realm of critical thinking. Take a look at the following sessions:

#1104 Teaching Social Studies in a Broad, Balanced, and Relevant Curriculum Saturday, April 1, 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. Presented by Ruth Garner, Patricia Bonner and  Michael Fuller, all affiliated with the Newsweek Education Program.

#1133 Understanding History by Design: The Museum Reader and the History Illustrator Saturday, April 1, 8:00 to 9:30 a.m. Presented by Barbara Radner, DePaul University, Chicago; Heidi Moisan, Chicago Historical Society, and Carolyn Hale, Nobel Elementary School, Chicago.

#2164 Challenging History: Essential Questions in the Social Studies Classroom Sunday, April 2, 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Presented by Heather Lattimer, Michael Paredes, and Rob Meza-Ehlert, Kearny High School, San Diego, Calif.

#3120 Building Background Knowledge for Student Success in Social Studies Monday, April 3, 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. Presented by Dianna Roberge, Capital Region Education Council, Hartford, Conn.

(This post submitted by Kathy Checkley, author of several Professional Development Online courses, and the book, Priorities in Practice: The Essentials of Mathematics K—6.)