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Public History and School History Come Together in NCHE

Elaine Reed

Reprinted from the OAH Magazine of History
16 (Winter 2002). ISSN 0882-228X
Copyright (c) 2002, Organization of American Historians
 

History education is part of the mission of most every public history institution. It is a difficult job, and public historians do it well. Unlike schools, no one makes a public historian's "students" come to class, or stay there. Public history must "hook" its clients and keep them interested while still providing good, accurate, researched, historical fact. Public historians know the power of a story and the folly of requiring their "students" to memorize names, dates, and battles. In this respect, public historians have a tougher job than school history teachers do, but each group knows things that can help the other.

The National Council for History Education (NCHE) aims to make connections among history educators from different settings. Since its inception in 1990 (as the successor organization to the Bradley Commission on History in Schools), NCHE has developed a membership that includes not only precollegiate history teachers and university historians, but also history educators from historical societies, historic sites, and government agencies. Each group teaches people about history, but each uses a slightly different setting and different techniques.

It has always been NCHE's belief that each type of history educator can benefit from contact with the others and that each should seek to help the others use and take part in their own sector. For that reason, NCHE publications have featured articles from public history educators (e.g., Sheldon Stern of the JFK Library, Beth Haverkamp of the National Archives, and Ray Geselbracht of the Truman Library). School teachers, administrators, and academic historians have read these materials, which inform them of the work being done by public historians in areas such as promoting the use of primary sources to form questions and analyze hypotheses.

NCHE colloquia, workshops, conferences, and institutes always have a public history component. For example, the 1992 Summer Institute at Ohio State University featured trips to the Ohio Historical Society (OHS), where teachers used the research library and talked with OHS historians and reenactors about the techniques of creating and portraying accurate characters. Teachers then began to work these resources into their lessons so that the OHS was not just an isolated field trip but a significant contributor to the knowledge and skills of the school students.

The NCHE national conference in 1993 featured presentations by the director of the Alabama Humanities Council and the director of Drayton Hall, a property of the National Trust in Charleston, South Carolina. Each explained how their respective organization worked with schools and suggested how teachers could begin to develop educational ties with public history institutions in their own areas.

An NCHE teacher institute at the University of California, San Diego, during the summer of 1995 made extensive use of the photo archives of the San Diego Historical Society, and the society's librarians taught institute participants how to find materials, analyze them, and make effective presentations.

NCHE conferences are sometimes held in public history venues because we believe that such locations give the meetings a special ambiance and "soak" the participants in history even between sessions. NCHE conferences have been held at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and in the restored art-deco Union Terminal railroad station that is now home to the Cincinnati Museum Center.

At the recent October 2000 conference of the NCHE in Sacramento, public history had a high level of visibility when it came to program sessions and pre- and post-conference opportunities for participants. Special sessions were held in the Discovery Museum, the Golden State Museum, and the California State Archives. Staff from the FDR, Truman, Reagan, and Eisenhower Libraries were on the program as presenters and collaborators with teachers.

As another example of its public history orientation, NCHE maintains a special relationship with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Both are members--along with National History Day and the National Museum of American History—of the Partnership for History Education, a consortium of organizations dedicated to promoting and improving the teaching of history in America's schools. (The Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association Teaching Division are also cooperating members.) Besides allowing a discount to NCHE members, Colonial Williamsburg has provided intensive staff development programs at NCHE conferences on topics pertaining to teaching history in the classroom, such as using literature to teach history and employing first-person historical interpretation in schools.

Many NCHE leaders have ties to public history. Among our trustees are our chair, Spencer Crew, former director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and newly appointed director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and James Percoco, a high school teacher who makes extensive use of public history resources in his classroom. NCHE believes that public history educators have much to share with teachers and academic historians. On the other hand, face-to-face contact with teachers, administrators, and historians can give public history educators an insight into the school curriculum so they can tailor their assets to correspond with effective student learning.

Elaine Reed is the executive director of the National Council for History Education. For information on NCHE, call (440) 835-1776; e-mail <nche@nche.net>; or visit its web site at <http://www.history.org/nche>.