Chapter 12: Ways Of Knowing and the History Classroom: Supporting Disciplinary Discussion and Reasoning About Texts

History education has always been justified on the grounds that it prepares students for democratic citizenship, yet proponents disagree over what, exactly, constitutes effective citizenship (Hertzberg, 1981; Thornton, 1994). To some, citizenship requires student mastery of a shared narrative that provides a cohesive national identity. To others, citizenship demands an awareness and stake in contemporary social problems; the past, in this view, provides us with lessons that should inform our decisions. In this chapter, we present the findings from a curriculum intervention that suggests a third argument for the importance of history instruction. We propose that the skills of disciplinary historical reading—the ability to read and interpret written text; the ability to evaluate and reconcile competing truth claims; and the ability to temper one’s rush to judgment in the face of competing worldviews—constitute the heart of participatory democracy. In a history classroom where students regularly practice such disciplinary reading skills and wrestle with the antiquated worldviews of their predecessors, wholeclass discussion emerges as the site for reasoned deliberation (Dewey, 1985; Habermas, 1990). It is during classroom discussion that we would hope to see students develop consciousness of their own historical subjectivity, and transcend it in an effort to understand others.