Think back to when you were a student and your class took a field trip to a heritage site (be it an ancient site, a monument, a village reenactment, etc). What did your teacher do with you once you arrived at the site?
Most likely they did one of two things: hand you off to some “expert” who then told you not about the place but about its history and then gave a list of people that you should know or your teacher used the historic site as a backdrop to have a lecture about the place. Both of these could much more easily have been done back in the classroom itself and probably should have been before visiting the site or at least, shortly after visiting it.
This class is all about what educators should do when they educate students about archaeology and heritage sites.
What we want teachers to do at historical heritage sites is to use the historical evidence (ie the building, city, landscape, etc) to teach the students and to help them learn how to see this evidence for themselves. If visiting a Roman Bath house, for example, explain to the students how a bath house was used, pointing out the various places certain things were done, and then read them an account of a Roman soldier who actually used a bath house (since we have such a record). In their mind’s eye the student can then picture themselves as that soldier experiencing something that we just don’t do in today’s world. Or visit an Islamic structure to show students how a square building can have a round top (dome) with the use of arches. Pointing this sort of thing out gets students thinking about how things were built and they will begin to notice similar things in that and other buildings.
In the classroom, it is important for teachers to use Archaeology more than History when teaching about the past. Unfortunately, there is no class called, “Archaeology” in the curriculums. (Why certain classes are in the curriculum and why others are not, ie geology, is an interesting subject in and of itself.)
History textbooks present the past in a biased absolute way that gives the impression to the reader that what is being taught is solidly accurate when the reality is that history is always presented from a certain point of view and rarely, if ever, is there enough information for the historian to be absolutely sure that their point of view is correct (saying nothing about if it is the “best” one or even “right”). Archaeology, on the other hand, is fluid. Archaeologists are constantly finding more information that alters our perception of the past. Archaeology allows students to realize that we do know a lot about the past, but that knowledge is still growing and flexible. It allows students to realize that history is not black and white, but exciting and mysterious with an infinite amount of possible angles to look at any one event. Archaeology puts the evidence for the past at the fingertips of the student and allows them to learn to be more critical in their approach and dealings with the past.
Archaeology has a lot to offer to the educator. However, like most things, the full potential is yet to be realized.
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