Confronting History’s Interpretive Paradox While Teaching Fifth Graders to Investigate the Past

Abstract

This article reports on one facet of a researcher–practitioner project undertaken with class of 23 diverse fifth graders. The project was rooted in taking recent history education reforms seriously. It was premised principally on reforms dealing with teaching practices found in the history standards and the research literature. As the researcher–practitioner, the author engaged the students in historical investigations to help them learn to think historically and better understand the past. He operated from a theoretical framework based on how he believed historical thinking and understanding occur for such novice learners. During the first three lessons, on Jamestown’s “Starving Time,” the author and class encountered history’s interpretive paradox. The article begins with an analogy drawn from the discipline of history. It then describes classroom events. The analysis focuses on a teaching dilemma that the encounter with the paradox provoked and conveys how the author’s pedagogical thinking and decision making were influenced by that encounter. The discussion of the dilemma suggests how research and reform in history education and the theories that underpin them mingle, in promising but unpredictable ways.