Sam Wineburg Historical Thinking And Other Unnatural Act Summary

“Why study history at all?” asks Sam Wineburg in his essay, “Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts” (5). This is the all-encompassing question that we have been trying to understand in this English 101 class. We are trying to find out how history as a knowledge domain, provides much needed perspective in our ever-changing world.

We first started our journey by delving into what we already knew about history when we took that quiz at the beginning of the semester. I was able to accurately answer approximately half of those questions and that really made me start to doubt whether methods of teaching history were really effective. During this same assignment, we were also asked some questions to encourage deeper thinking. Questions

like, “what is the difference between facts and wisdom?”, “what is the difference between remembering and thinking?”, and “what is the difference between information and knowledge?”. Although I feel like my peers and myself knew the answers to these questions, writing down concrete responses to these questions spurs deeper analysis and really makes us think. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked these specific questions before, so I am really glad that I was able to think and respond to them. It is important to know the difference between facts and wisdom; remembering and thinking; and information and knowledge, because while they are similar, there are clear distinctions and differences between them. In addition, through our discussion of this quiz and responses to these questions, a number of important points were brought up. One disappointing idea that was brought up was the idea that teachers weren’t encouraging students to learn, but instead inundating them with facts. This often led to a student’s dislike of history. In contrast, one positive topic discussed was the fact that most people knew about the effect that different freedom fighters like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, etc. had on our society. These events are extremely important to always keep in mind. But as Professor Sullivan clearly put it, “Still, I think that dates and names and events can only get us so far”. We as students need a deeper understanding of history and why it is important. Knowing facts can get us through history class, but actually understanding them can help get us through life.
Through Wineburg’s essay ““Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts”, we clearly understand his main message was that, “history goes well beyond particular stories and names to achieve its highest aim by endowing us with “the invaluable mental power which we call judgement” (5).

In other words, history should not just be known as a jumbled mess of facts and names. Instead, we should take important lessons from history and apply them to our own lives. However, with this idea, there are quite a few nuances as well because unfortunately, not all history is easy to apply into our daily lives and a lot of the time, certain history is not taught at all. Other times, history can be taught with a bias, and while this is difficult, teachers need to try to prevent bias as much as possible. One extremely important idea is the idea about the “strange and inaccessible past, whose applicability is not immediately manifest” (6). Often times, we ignore things that are too complicated or cannot help us in the now. However, this history can in fact be the most helpful because we aren’t just reaffirming thoughts that we already know, instead, we are gaining new knowledge and perspectives. Hands down one of the best lines in the essay would be Wineburg’s comparison of unicorns and rhinoceros at the end of his essay, we naturally incline towards unicorns – they are prettier and more tame. But it is the rhinoceros that can teach us far more than we could ever imagine” (24). This

emphasizes once again the idea of how we should never ignore something because we think it is too difficult. We learn far more from something that contradicts us rather than something that aligns with our beliefs.
The ideas present in Wineburg’s essay can be applied to most historical texts, including Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

One key idea that Wineburg discusses is how history affects our judgement. I definitely think that reading and discussing this autobiography can help with my ability to make good judgements because of the way that Maya describes her childhood. When we are children, most of us are innocent and have no prejudice against one another, however, it is often said that we obtain prejudices and learn stereotypes through our environment. Maya experiences extreme racism and prejudice throughout the novel, but it is especially disheartening when she is a child and doesn’t understand how the world worked back then. Especially since Maya was an unattractive child, her world was that much worse. Angelou states this about Maya’s childhood, “If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat” (4). This shows how out of place Maya must have felt, however, if there were people in her life that made her feel more wanted, then her childhood much better. Just from this section of the autobiography, we can learn lessons on judgements and how deeply they can affect someone. Personally, I consider myself to be quite judgemental of new people that I meet, because I have had many bad experiences of people trying to take advantage of me. I will

sometimes judge a person’s entire character over a quick conversation that I have had with them, and although my judgements are sometimes accurate, I am definitely losing a lot of friends by pre-judging them. Through this book, and my own analyses, I will work on making sure that I don’t pre-judge people and always give them a chance. Maya was never given a chance, and that has affected her for her entire life.
Another important idea that Wineburg brought up in his essay was the idea of "expand (ing) our conception and understanding of what it means to be human" through history. In short, Wineburg believes that learning history can bring back some humanity into our world. Without knowing what others have gone through, we cannot treat them differently. By knowing the hardships that others have gone through, we understand that we are like them, because we also go through tough times. Angelou’s autobiography is once again a good example of history that we can use to bring back humanity (find quote******). One specific example would be when Mr. Freeman molests and rapes Maya. This instantly brings much emotion to us as we could never imagine an eight-year-old being raped. The toll that must have had on Maya is immeasurable. As the readers, we can feel the pain that Maya goes through, and this encourages us to be better humans. One amazing campaign that is happening today would be the #metoo campaign where people are supporting those who have been sexually assaulted. Campaigns like this always need a push, and history and past treatment can play a role in the emotions of these campaigns. Learning about tough situations such as the ones that Maya experiences, build empathy and that humanizes people.
Additionally, through reading, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Wineburg’s idea of "Coming to know others, whether they live on the other side of the tracks or the other side of the millennium, requires the education of our sensibilities”, is further emphasized (23-24). In order to truly understand a fellow human, it is imperative that we know their past experiences. For example, we truly understand Momma’s character because even though she is black, she still helped a white man by giving him a loan on his practice. Because of her actions, she was highly respected in our community. Even though this autobiography takes place almost a century ago, we definitely learn lessons from the way people act through periods of adversity. One way that we can train the education of our sensibilities would be to read, especially historical texts. Through reading and analyzing texts like these, we can genuinely understand the plights of people.