I was listening to TED Radio Hour last month for a re-airing of an episode entitled, “The Spirit of Inquiry”. What fascinated me was how science-based the episode was. And yes, to a certain extent I could understand why it was so science-based. But here is where I would like to take that thought and bring it even further:
Most of us were taught in school that the reason we should believe in science is because of the scientific method. Scientists follow a method and this method guarantees the truth of their claims. […] The scientist can’t just say I confirm my hypothesis. Now I go do the next thing. That by itself is not sufficient. […]Consensus. And this is really, I think, the most important part of science that many people don’t understand and that isn’t in a high school text book. […] If it turns out that when they try to use my data or my idea and it doesn’t work, then they will publish a paper saying – well, hold on a second. So my claim could end up being discredited. […] That’s actually evidence of what’s right with science because the claim got disproved and then we know, OK, you know, Naomi’s an honest person. It was a good idea. We tried it, but it didn’t work. So we now reject it and we move on.
Naomi Oreskes, TED Radio Hour, “The Spirit of Inquiry”
Does this process sound familiar? The fact of the matter is, this is almost all of academia. Writing papers, a bunch of academics arguing over the validity of the argument. Some of them will write papers in support, some of them will write papers in dissent. In the end, we all try to find what is closest to the truth.
This is part of the reason I so heavily support the idea of inquiry-based standards for social studies. Not only do these types of social studies standards lend themselves to a multidisciplinary approach, but it is more engaging. There is a lot that history and civics education can learn from the scientific community.
One of the things I most thoroughly enjoy studying history in a museum setting is the back and forth that we tend to have as museum guides – arguing with each other over points, then diving back into the source material to study the question further. Sometimes these quests are a result of what visitors have asked. And every single time, I get excited about the way the information lines up. Every new piece of information is like a piece of the puzzle dropping into place. And yes, it is frustrating when we don’t have all the pieces – because we will never have all of the pieces. But we get as close as we can.
It’s that spirit of inquiry that I think we need to strive for in the history classroom as well. And in any way that museums can help, I think they should.