Education Reform: History

In every subject in school, the goal is skill-based learning.  In English, the goal is to gain the skill of reading and writing proficiently.  Gaining the skill to solve the problems presented is the objective in math.  And in science, we strive to teach the correct application of the scientific method.

Yes, in every subject, mastery of a skill is the goal.

Except for history.

In history, the goal is merely to absorb the "facts".  One is instructed as to what happened and is expected to remember it.  However, there are two main issues with this form of history education.



1 - Memorization is the lowest form of learning.
Focusing only on memorization of facts in history instruction forgoes the higher-order understanding brought through analyzing and evaluating.  These skills are essential for understanding history.

How, you ask, could analysis possibly be applicable in history learning?

To answer this question, allow me to walk you through an activity I did in one of my college-level history classes.

First, read this introductory sheet that accompanies the activity.

Below are 5 sources relating to the Bear River Massacre:

Colonel Patrick E. Connor Account
William Drannan Account
Henry Woonsook Account
Hans Jasperson Account
Casualty List

Now, let us analyze the reliability of each source, evaluating its strengths, weaknesses, and biases.  To simplify this process, I have created a table of the information each source provides.

	Source	Date	Shoshone Position	# Soldiers	# Shoshone	Shoshone Killed	U.S. Soldiers Killed
1	Patrick E. Connor	1863	Hidden; No Fortifications	220	300 warriors*	224**	14
2	William Drannan	1899	Fortified	1200	--	3000	0
3	Henry Woonsook	1968	No Guns	100	--	--	--
4	Hans Jasperson	1911	--	--	--	493	--
5	Casualty List	1863	Guns	--	--	--	14 at conflict; 9 later of wounds (23 total), 50 wounded

*Does not include women and children

**Connor admits that he may have not counted all of the bodies

Corroboration
Where sources agree, these sources combine to create corroborate facts.  What can be corroborated from these sources?  Although the disagreement on various things make it seem like nothing can be corroborated, they actually establish several facts with little doubt:
 - A conflict occurred between Shoshone tribespeople and the US Army on January 29, 1863.
 - The Shoshone were stationary, and the US Army came up to their position.
 - More Shoshone were killed than US soldiers.

Considerations
Where accounts disagree, we are forced to make judgments.  Here are some things to consider in our analysis:
 - Col. Connor's letter was written only a week after the incident.  Therefore, the events would have been the clearest in his memory of all the accounts.
 - Col. Connor's count of how many soldiers were present is likely the most accurate.  The military is anal about keeping accountability of their soldiers.  If you ask any military officer at any given time the number of men they have at their command, they can usually give you the number without a second thought.
 - Col. Connor was promoted to Brigadier General following this event.
 - Drannan's numbers are astronomically different than those provided by any other source.
 - Woonsook's account was passed down orally for 105 years.  It, therefore, had a high probability of inaccuracies entering it with every retelling.
 - Jasperson's account was not written until 1911, nearly 50 years after the events; so his recollection of what happened may have been foggy.
 - The Casualty List is the most reliable source.  These records are official documents used by the US Government to determine out-payment of life insurance in the case of death, and combat-related special compensation in the case of being wounded.  With how stringent the military is with their paperwork, it is highly unlikely that this list would have any inaccuracies.

We must also consider potential biases:
 - Connor could have shaped the account to appear more heroic.  Conversely, he could have worded it to appear more sympathetic to the Shoshone situation.
 - Drannan could have embellished in order to sell more copies of his book.
 - Woonsook's story could have been changed by him—or by previous re-tellers of the oral history—in order to victimize the Shoshone and demonize the white soldiers.

Conclusions
What information can be reasonably ruled out as potentially false?  What conclusions can we make?
 - Drannan's numbers are so far removed from those of any other account, we can reasonably conclude that he exaggerated them.
 - Consequently, we must call into question everything else that Drannan said, including his claim that the Shoshone were in a fortified position.
  - In regards to the number of Shoshone killed: Drannon seems to be quite the exaggerator so his number can be ruled out entirely.  Connor's number cannot be seen as accurate by his own admission.  However, Jasperson's number was not written down until 48 years after the event, so it could also be inaccurate.  All things considered, we can with confidence say that the number of Shoshone killed was between 224 and 493.
 - Many historians have used the fact that Col. Connor was promoted as evidence that he embellished his account in order to appear heroic.  However, I do not believe that was the case.  His letter was sent to Lieutenant Colonel Drum, who stood one rank below him, and had no power or influence over him.  The fact that his letter subsequently made it's way into the hands of the War Department—thus resulting in his promotion—was no work of his own making.
 - Due to the fact that Drannan has already been shown to be unrealiable—and given two very strong sources corroborate the number—we can conclude that 23 US Soldiers were killed in the exchange.
 - In my analysis, Woonsook's statements that the Shoshone had no guns is false.  This is due to the fact that the casualty list marks several soldiers being injured due to gunshot wounds.  The soldiers could not have sustained gunshot wounds unless the Shoshone had guns.  In addition, natives in this region had firearms since the Spanish first traded with them in the late 18th century.  For this particular band of Shoshone to go a hundred years since that time without acquiring firearms would make them extremely poor traders.
(Some have raised the argument that the gunshot wounds could have been due to friendly fire.  This is unlikely, due to the fact that 64 soldiers were either killed or wounded, which seems an excessive amount of people to have been hit by accident—especially considering [1] the most widely-used weapon at the time was the muzzle-loading Springfield Model 1861, which was not rapid-fire, and [2] the effective range of the Springfield is only 300 yards, yet there was at least a quarter mile between the Army units flanking the village.)

But it is important to remember that with all of this analysis, it is subject to my personal opinion.  For example, other people might not find Drannan's report to be unreliable to the extent that I did. Other historians may not find the casualty list as reasonable evidence to conclude Woonsook's information is false.

Which brings me to the second reason why the memorization-focused history instruction approach is so harmful.

2. In history, the "facts" aren't as clear-cut as we may think.
Our society currently is complicit in an insidious form of elitism where historians are the only ones who are allowed to make value-judgments about what really happened, and the rest of society must blindly accept whatever conclusions they come to.

We have a hard enough time understanding and agreeing on what is happening right now!  Did Russia invade Crimea, or influence the 2016 election?  Was Hillary Clinton responsible for the loss of American lives in Benghazi?  Is President Trump a sexual predator?  What actually happened during the Las Vegas shooting?

Think about that...if there is confusion right now about what is currently happening, how much more confused will historians be 100 years from now be as they try to piece it all together?

You can see from the activity above how confusion and disagreement over the events of the past can arise.  It is critical that we move away from memorization-based history teachings, and provide our children with the skills to analyze historic documents for themselves.

If I had anything to say about it, every single history lesson would be designed like the activity above.  If our children do not have these skills, then they will fall for any cheap lie "historians" try to sell them about their heritage.  Understanding our past is part of understanding who we are today, and historical understanding can only come through skill-focused history education.




*This article is part of a series on education reform.  All sources are contained in the lesson material links.  For teachers wanting to use this activity in the classroom, this worksheet may be useful.  It can be used for any similar activity.