Mick's Portfolio

My philosophy on teaching is less about being a teacher and more about being, specifically, a history teacher. I believe that there are three things that a history class is uniquely able to impart to students. The first comes from George Santayana's famous quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Students should know the hows and the whys of events, that people just like them made decisions that led to those events, and that there may have been different outcomes to those events had different decisions been made.

The second, is the ability to do research. Whether they go to college after their secondary education or whether they enter the workforce, they will need to know how to do research. They will need to know how to look for information, and whether or not the source is valid and reliable. The students need to know how to do this for all of the papers they will write for the next 4+ years. An auto mechanic may be looking at a new engine and need to find the information to fix it. The project manger will need to find scheduling information, budgetary matters, and understand the scope of the project. Quite simply, no matter what one does, the ability to research an issue is of paramount importance.

The third, is the ability to think critically. This truly ties the first two together. Just because you see something on television, read it in a magazine, view it on the internet, or even hear it from a teacher, does not make it true. We are in an age where young people have more access to information than all previous generations combined. However, there is a lot of information out there that is not true. It's easy to stumble upon Holocaust denial websites, 9/11 conspiracy sites, and political pundits on the left and right spouting opinion as fact. There are joke sites that look very real. Saving the Northwest Tree Octopus from extinction is a good one, and another one that warns us of the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide (water) is particularly good. I have also seen people cite The Onion as an actual news source.