“Students can read a typical high-school “history” book from cover to cover without learning that real history emerges from the examination of evidence and the exercise of reason. Students can read a typical book from cover to cover without learning that the construction of real history involves a lot of detective work — e.g., the appraisal of claims and counterclaims, the separation of supportable assertions from superstitions and folklore, the scrutinizing of documents and other kinds of evidence, the detection of counterfeit documents and artifacts, the resolution of conflicting interpretations of evidence, the rejection of unjustified inferences, and the demolition of unwarranted generalizations”

- from “Good Stuff for History Teachers” by William J. Bennetta

There is a need to take another look at the teaching of History in Singapore. This is because most of the time the teaching of History is very much textbook-bound. Teachers tend to just explain what is already in the textbooks and get students to refer to the textbook as almost the undisputed master of information and opinion on historical events. What is of greater concern in Singapore is that while there is a shift in emphasis in the History paper for the high stakes examinations in recent years, the shift in the manner that History is taught has been far from revolutionary.

While there has been an emphasis on the higher order thinking skills and the need to interpret historical sources in the examinations, the way that History is taught in Singapore schools seems to be very disconnected from the way the students are assessed. While the current History syllabus in Singapore requires students to demonstrate an ability to think, and perhaps to think like a Historian would, teachers in Singapore do not teach students to think for this purpose.

Usually any thinking skill teaching done in a typical Singapore school History class is done only to teach students how to answer the examination questions which have been set to ensure that students demonstrate thinking skills. In other words, in the course of the lessons, thinking skills is not emphasized. Teachers would still dish out their notes or just “cover” what is said in the textbooks. What is said in the textbook are “givens”. They are taken to be facts.

Teachers only go through the thinking process with their students only because it is a requirement of the examination paper. Even then the manner that it is done will be very mechanical and little thought will be given to the need for the transfer of those skills to other situations other then through some invisible osmotic process. In other words, thinking is taught but with a spirit which is contrary to the whole purpose as to why these thinking skills were introduced into the syllabus in the first place.

This happens mainly because of the heavy examination orientation of the Singapore “education” system. Teachers know that, in Singapore, only the examination grades matter despite some recent pronouncements from up high to move away from that.The content heavy syllabus, which is based on the examinations requirements, has seen numerous reductions over the years but it is still a lot to cover. This has led to teachers still teaching rapidly to “cover” the content. There is little time for serious teaching for understanding. Very rarely will you see a teacher who actually uses mainly primary or secondary sources to teach History so that students have a more profound understanding of the learning of History as a process of learning that involves “the examination of evidence and the exercise of reason”. Little is done to show that History is:

“the appraisal of claims and counterclaims, the separation of supportable assertions from superstitions and folklore, the scrutinizing of documents and other kinds of evidence, the detection of counterfeit documents and artifacts, the resolution of conflicting interpretations of evidence, the rejection of unjustified inferences, and the demolition of unwarranted generalizations.”

If some of the above skills or processes is done in Singapore schools, it is done only when the teachers teach their students to answer the so-called source-based questions for the high stakes examinations. What this leads to is a cynical inculcation of thinking skills. The approach only teaches students to think that the thinking skills only makes their life harder and see no other application of the skills in the rest of their lives. Worse, it does little justice to a very interesting subject and students will continue to believe that History is nothing more than the learning and regurgitation of facts. Unfortunately, for too many in Singapore’s education system, it does not matter because students still ace their examinations.

Before the age of the “talkies”, there was the silent movie era where movie stars graced the silver screen minus any sound except for the sound of some pianist in the movie theater. Occasionally, you will see some text dialog appear on screen so that the audience can keep pace with the story. Some of us may have watched videos or movies with the volume turned off. Of course it is strange to be watching the moving pictures without the sound. But with the pictures, we can still make good inferences about the possible dialog or even story line.

We can use this approach for teaching inference skills to our students. Choose an appropriate video. It can be clips  a documentary or a news broadcast or even a short story. I would not recommend a long one for practical reasons.

Play the video in your class with the intention that the students use the visual clues to guess what is being said. The students can be asked to pay attention to familiar scenes or faces for contextualizing. The students can be reminded to use their prior knowledge of things to make more sense of what they are viewing.

Get them to write in groups a possible script for the video clip that they have seen. Replay the clip as and when is necessary. Get the class to share their script by reading it as the clip is being replayed. When they have done so, show the clip with volume on.

Get the rest of the students to compare the student-created scripts against the original video clip’s script. How similar were their scripts to the original and how different were they? Remember this is not about getting an exact match. It is about getting something which is reasonable and acceptable and consistent with the visual clues they see in the clip. This is what making inferences is all about.

One of the best sources for teaching inference as a thinking skill are advertisements. It does not matter if the advertisements are in pictorial form, just plain text, audio or even video. What is important is students be able to re-examine them. Therefore, video and audio advertisements would need to be recorded for this purpose.

Advertisements are produced to promote certain products or even values. They are designed to persuade the observer to a certain point of view. Students should be taught to be aware of why certain words are used. They should be made more conscious of the images that is being used in advertisements. In video and audio advertisements even the music and tone of the voiceovers can show attempts to persuade the observer. Advertisers also use colors to denote certain messages.

Teachers need to direct their students attention to these by asking them mainly the “why” questions. For example, why were certain words used? Why was the music upbeat? Why did they use a picture of a child? They must not tell the latter their thoughts about the advertisements. Let the students do the thinking. Let the students learn to do the interpretation. Allow for any plausible interpretation of the advertisements. Teachers can also engage the class in a  discussion of the varying interpretations of the same advertisements. The teacher can get the class to compare the interpretations and decide which of them is the better interpretation.

Using advertisements to teach eventually can be used a s precursor to the teaching of another more sinister form of advertisements. The teacher can then introduce the students to propaganda materials for discussion.