Why Learn History

When It's Already on Your Phone

Sam Wineburg

$32.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Chicago University Press
25 September 2018

Historiography; Teaching of a specific subject; Educational: History

Let's start with two truths about our era that are so inescapable as to have become cliches: 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.

With the internet always at our fingertips, what's a teacher of history to do? Sam Wineburg has answers, beginning with this: We definitely can't stick to the same old read-the-chapter-answer-the-questions-at-the-back snoozefest we'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 it's Already on Your Phone), has nothing to do with test prep-style ability to memorize facts. Instead, it'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 experiments - including surveys of students, recent attempts to update history curricula, and analyses of how historians, students, and even fact checkers approach online sources - to paint a picture of a dangerously mine - filled landscape, but one that, with care, attention, and awareness, we can all learn to navigate.

It's easy to look around at the public consequences of historical ignorance and despair. Wineburg is here to tell us it doesn't have to be that way. The future of the past may rest on our screens. But its fate rests in our hands.

By: Sam Wineburg
Imprint: Chicago University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780226357218
ISBN 10: 022635721X
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 25 September 2018
Audience: Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Undergraduate , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and History at Stanford University and the author of Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts.

Reviews for Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone)

A sobering and urgent report from the leading expert on how American history is taught in the nation's schools. Wineburg offers a set of timely and elegant essays on everything from the nuttiness of standardized testing regimes to the problems kids have, in the age of the internet, in knowing what's true, and what's not--problems that teachers have, too, along with everyone else. A bracing, edifying, and vital book. --Jill Lepore