This blog I am focusing on Chapter 8 of Black Ants and Buddhists.

This chapter
emphasizes the importance of letting students discover things on their own in history. The
author changed her perspective on teaching because within one of her lessons, one of the
students told her that the history book was wrong because they claimed that the Taino
population was at zero, but she raised her hand and said “that number isn't right because im
alive” (Cowhey, 141). This opened the eyes of the teacher to the fact that what she has studied
and read in history may be inaccurate. She tried to bring her students into a “furious debate” so
students have the opportunity to see different perspectives. I think this is a great teaching style,
especially for the sake of history at younger ages. Students struggle understanding that material
because it is not what is occuring “in the now”, so introducing history with a fresh mind leaves
more interpretation for the students. In this lesson, they tried to discover the “truth in history” by
finding contradictions and mysteries to solve within the content that is required to be learned in
history. The teacher pushes for students to question the information that they hear and to find
more information or refutable information that can help them comprehend the material. The
most important thing that the teacher makes known is that not all other teachers will share the
perspective of finding the truth in history and they may believe there is only the facts in history
that you need to understand.
This chapter resonated with me because I believe that challenging factual information
that is given to students is a key way to let them develop their own perspectives and
understanding. This idea can occur in all subjects, as there is always more than one way to
solve a math problem, write an essay, or conduct a science experiment. Students should be
able to follow their paths in learning as long as they have guidelines that can shape their paths.
This also connects to how I was taught in some of my classes in high school. In my English
class specifically, we had socratic seminars in which we all sat in a circle and explained our
perspectives on the book/article we were reading at the time. This opened the floor for students
to rebuttal or agree with one another and has a fast paced flowing discussion which also
incorporated collaboration. Using this type of teaching leaves the classroom more student
driven and opens up more opportunities for students to share their opinions and question
information that they encounter. Many students struggle learning because they just accept what
the facts are and cannot fully comprehend why they are facts. Giving them the opportunity to
question these facts and “solve the mystery” makes learning more personable and differentiable
and promotes a higher rate of classroom success.

References

Cowhey, Mary. (2006) Black ants and buddhists :thinking critically and teaching differently in
the primary grades Portland, Me. : Stenhouse Publishers