The American Historical Association (AHA) recently released a report entitled “The Next Generation of History Teachers: A Challenge to Departments of History at American Colleges and University.” I highly recommend reading it.

As a future teacher, I found it very stimulating, and I agreed with almost everything I read. Among the highlights (at least in my opinion):

“Specialists in history education now describe a vision for lower grades very much in keeping with what happens in our best college classrooms. Content and pedagogy are fused. Students actively engage the substance of history by doing history: analyzing primary sources, juxtaposing perspectives, exploring the reasons some historical accounts seem more compelling at some times than at others.”

“As a result, we believe that departments need to create new opportunities for the people in our classes to begin thinking like history teachers as well as history students. They need to be exposed to historiographical thinking sooner rather than later, explicitly defined and carefully elaborated.”

Both of these are exactly in line with my teaching philosophy. In fact, I’m not sure I could have worded it any better myself.

Some of the practical suggestions offered include “special classes for future teachers” and “department workshops dedicated to teaching.” Both of these I think would be extremely helpful for undergraduate (or even graduate) students. Too often historians (scholars in all fields, I suppose) get a bad rap for being more interested in their research than their teaching. Perhaps this is because they simply have more experience with it. Familiarity breeds comfort.