Including his most-recent entry entitled “Osama bin Laden For Kids,” Trevor Owens’ new blog FirstPast explores examples of history and “true stories” in children’s literature. Trevor has some great observations on representation in children’s biographies – and although analyzing a different medium than myself, his work speaks to many of the educational dilemmas I’ve explored in my own research. While Trevor’s entry on bin Laden trashes both “biographies” he critiques, my hunch is that many of the problems I’ve observed in historical/educational computer simulations regarding abstraction exist in the text of children’s literature.
With a limited number of ways to represent “true stories”, the narrative structure in children’s biographies is simplified. We can use abstraction as a concept (as abstract as that sounds..) to begin to account for the inaccuracies that Trevor looks at, and the historical computer simulations I’ve explored. He criticizes these books for the absence of contextualizing information about Osama bin Laden, and starting right at 9/11 which establishes a huge bias in the learner. That contextualization is crucial to overcoming abstraction, both in computer simulations, and in children’s literature. In my own research for my thesis, an alarming percentage of students who played the Oregon Trail computer simulation in schools believe that the Native Americans stole your food in the game. There are thieves in the game, however they’re never identified – just mysterious villains. Without establishing a larger framework of Native American/pioneer relations, abstracted knowledge allows users to connote their own ideas based upon preexisting biases. Hello, abstraction.
There is no possible way for either medium to represent history in it’s entirety, so we’re left with a question: what are responsible ways to establish a framework of ideas for young learners? What happens when ideas are simplified, and how do young learners understand those ideas? Are these inaccuracies due to limitations in the mediums? Are they due to biases of the authors? Are either of these even reasonable questions to ask, or merely academic exercises? Who knows? Perhaps we can explore it together. Trevor’s blog has energized my thoughts on a few related topics that I hope to share in the upcoming weeks.
I should mention that Trevor started FirstPast with his fiance, Marjee. FirstPast is unique and definitely worth adding to your feed reader or blogroll (obligatory plug) – joining the ranks of many other terrific CHNM bloggers, including but not limited to… Dan Cohen, Tom Scheinfeldt, Mills Kelly, Sheila Brennan, Ken Albers, and Ammon Shepherd.