Investigating History in 9th Grade at Kimball Union Academy
History has traditionally been taught through textbooks that have a healthy dose of bias or point of view, which can flatten out the ambiguity and mysterious nature of events in the past. We are all witnesses and are thus all historians.
The key to empowering students to see history as a game and a mystery that they can solve is using primary source documents and testimonials written in the time period we are studying. It allows students to trace some of the nuances that aren’t found in the textbook, and consider a different analysis of an historic event. Although we see most document-based inquiry that requires primary and secondary document analysis as upper level material worthy of an Advanced Placement score, I would argue that investigating history is an active, all-age approach to understanding human nature as part of our world history. To give students a healthy dose of skepticism about the motives and audience of any historic document leads them to practice critical analysis (historiography) in a compelling way.
For instance, why do both Hatshepsut and Nebuchadnezzar write their own self-glorified versions of their leadership? In their own words, they are glorious, chosen by the gods and this message was sent out through the empire. For Hatshepsut it was because she was only the regent mother an infant boy, not her son, for whom she was ruling, and wanted to continue for as long as possible. For Nebuchadnezzar, it was because he was not a true Babylonian but had appropriated the Babylonian title after conquering the region. These understandings give us an entirely new perspective on their reigns, including their desperate measures to remain legitimate.
This fascinates students not just because it’s more interesting than reading a textbook, but because it can applied to events today, and they begin to discover that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Using primary and secondary documents to discover history allows students to piece together a puzzle of human motives and strategies, and since human nature doesn’t change, this gives them profound insight into their own history, present and future.
