Abstract
This chapter argues that teaching multiple “hard histories,” defined as complex, troubling periods in history, can lead to a lack of deep student learning rather than broad knowledge across multiple subjects. A study of university students’ content knowledge about American slavery, the Trail of Tears, the Holocaust, and genocide, explored in this chapter, supports this argument. Ultimately, in order to help students learn both about and through hard histories, it is imperative that teachers focus on one as case study.
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Rich, J. (2022). The Problem with Hard Histories. In: Pellegrino, A., Parker, J. (eds) Teaching and Learning Through the Holocaust. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72636-2_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72636-2_4
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