Training the Next Generation of Elementary Teachers in the History Survey Class: Problems and Possibilities

Russell Olwell

Of all groups that teach history in our education system, those that teach elementary school (K-5) receive the least training in history-specific pedagogical methods and the content of history. At my own institution, well-known as a teachers' college, elementary education students might take only a single history class in over four years of instruction, depending on how they fulfill their general studies requirements. These students have a separate class treating math, science, and reading methods, but history and social studies are integrated into a generic curriculum class.

This pattern can be seen nationwide. In a 1993 study, Linda Bennett found that only 65 percent of National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE] accredited colleges and universities require history classes of future elementary teachers. A slightly greater proportion (71 percent) require a course to help students learn methods of teaching history and social studies. This study does not include the majority of teacher preparation programs, and therefore it might actually overstate the amount of preparation elementary teachers receive in history (1).

Studies of elementary teachers in the classroom reveal that many elementary educators are ill-prepared to take on the methodological challenge of teaching history to young people. Researchers have found that most student teachers lack historical thinking and writing skills (2). Even experienced teachers may have difficulty with historical instruction. Timothy Slekar reports that elementary teachers often simply repeat the direct instruction methods by which they had been taught history themselves, rather than constructing student-centered classrooms (3).

School reform efforts have not helped to make elementary history teaching more important. Calls for greater emphasis on math, science, or reading instruction have a direct impact on social studies and history instruction--by eroding the time and energy available for the latter. As most elementary teachers have their children for several subjects per day, to increase time allocated to one is to decrease attention devoted to another, and social studies and history instruction have been easy to ignore when teachers are under testing pressure to improve math and reading scores. The recently passed federal law mandating third through eighth grade annual reading and math testing will only make this situation more grim for teachers, whose schools face a loss of federal funds if scores do not reach a set level.

As a history professor involved in curriculum reform efforts in history and social studies in our community, I consistently have been struck by the disconnect between the high interest elementary education teachers and students have in history, and the small amount of time that is devoted to the subject in their curricula. With pressure from our provost to reduce the number of credit hours to graduate, however, there was little chance of mandating even one more history class for elementary education majors. I examined what we could do as a department with the single class elementary education students were required to take--most often, the first half of the U.S. survey class.

Creating a class specifically for future elementary educators.

My task in creating a special section of History 123 (U.S. to 1877) was made considerably easier by efforts to retain freshman students at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). My class became part of a Freshman Interest Group (FIG), in which twenty-five students--all of whom professed an interest in elementary education--formed part of my course and took three other classes together. To this, I added twenty-five more students, who did not necessarily wish to major in elementary education, but were willing to stay in a class that might not apply to their future vocational goals.

I tried to design the class to involve several factors. First, I wanted to model in-class activities that would engage student learning. Second, I sought to show students some of the resources, such as children's literature, that could be used in the elementary classroom. Third, I aimed to teach an in-depth course, so students would possess a deeper knowledge of a smaller number of subjects than a standard survey class might address.

Each week, students were assigned readings from David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz's Boisterous Sea of Liberty, an excellent collection of primary sources from 1492 to 1865. Classes were devoted to a short lecture giving an overview of the period, and then to activities involving primary sources, resources for teaching, or discussion. Students took a map quiz early in the term, and graphic organizers were provided to help them take notes in lecture.

Students gave presentations on some aspect of history we covered that was of interest to them, and they created a display to show their classmates their findings. This class also had an academic service-learning component in which my students served as mentors to students from a local sixth-grade class that twice visited EMU to learn how to use the library.

Results of the class.

Trying to accomplish all of the above goals did not work smoothly. First, students were confused that I used a primary source reader as the primary text. Without some comfort in the use of primary sources, many students longed for a traditional textbook to give them a structure for the class. Second, many students--particularly non-education majors--found the in-class learning activities useless. One student expressed disappointment that these activities curtailed the time available for lectures and explanations of the material. The service-learning experience, though fun and educational, cut into an already tight schedule for the class, curtailing our discussions of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Many of the students, however, found great value in the class. Some pointed to the Internet assignments we did together in the computer laboratory, using web sites such as Africans in America and Valley of the Shadow. Others enjoyed learning about the children's books available for use in the classroom. Rebecca Sipe, an English professor, visited the class to talk about using writing in the history classroom, which many students found valuable. The constant shifting of class activities, which some non-education majors found annoying, was enjoyable to other students who appreciated a change of pace from the lecture-oriented format. Finally, education students appreciated the resources explored in the class, and the ideas on how to get material across to their future students.

Conclusion

What can we do in our survey classes to better prepare future elementary teachers? First and foremost, all of our students in survey classes need to be researching, writing, analyzing and constructing historical accounts and narratives. If students do not see active learning in their college history classes, they will likely have no model of how to do it in their own classrooms. Second, students need to learn about the variety of historical resources available, from primary documents to Internet sites, so that they will be able to locate high quality materials for future curriculum development. Third, teaching in survey classes needs to address higher-level historical thinking. Without this, students will continue to teach history as a disconnected group of facts, leading to little improvement of K-12 history instruction. Finally, students in survey classes need to be given choices of projects and assessments that reflect their future career--whether as an elementary teacher, an interior designer, or an electrical engineer. This will help them take ownership of the class material, and give them experience in lower-level history classes that will help them, no matter what their major.

(2) Chara Haeussler Bohan and O. L. Davis, Jr. "Historical Constructions: How Social Studies Student Teachers' Historical Thinking is Reflected in their Writing of history," Theory and Research in Social Education, 26 (Spring 1998): 173-97. Peter Seixas, "Student Teachers Thinking Historically," Theory and Research in Social Education, 26 (Summer 1998): 310-341.

(3) Timothy D. Slekar, "Epsitemological entanglements: preservice elementary school teachers 'apprenticeship of observation' and the teaching of history." Theory and Research in Social Education, 26 (Fall 1998): 485-507.

Russell Olwell is an assistant professor of history at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti.