2 Teacher Neutrality & Primary Source Analysis

Primary sources are items created by one present at an event and/or the time being studied (Waring, 2021). These can include items such as letters, maps, clothing, newspapers, and oral histories. Thanks to the Internet, primary sources are much more available now than at any point in history and more voices are now accessible to be included in the story. Strangely, though, bringing in voices that have often not been involved in the main narrative of social studies stories has also been deemed controversial in certain areas of the United States (Stephens, 2023) and has called into question the misplaced notion of social studies classrooms ever being capable of being a neutral space.

Teachers need to be mindful to recognize that social studies classrooms are not neutral. They are contested spaces in which perspectives of times and places are often narrowed to hegemonic views (Lintner, 2004). In order to demonstrate this Hess (2005) outlined four methods in which teachers tend to approach controversial issues in their curricula. These include denial, privilege, avoidance, and balance (see Table 2.1 for an explanation of each).

Examples of how educators may approach each of these in their classrooms might be the teacher who chooses to teach climate change in a denial manner that it is even a controversial issue and, instead, presenting it as fact and backing up their reasoning with the overwhelming scientific evidence that points to climate change, while giving the remaining faulty claims that deny climate change no credibility. Teaching a controversial issue as privilege could be refusing to call a human being “illegal” and an “alien”. Instead, while acknowledging that some people still use those terms, because the teacher finds that to be a derogatory and dehumanizing way of addressing another human being, in their classroom the expectation and only correct way is to use the verbiage “undocumented immigrant” or “undocumented citizen.” The avoidance approach, may be used as a method by the male teacher, who is not comfortable even discussing an issue, such as abortion vs. anti-abortion, because, as a male, the teacher does not feel he has a right to take a position that men can dictate what a woman does with her own body. The balance approach is what many teachers may attempt to do when discussing political parties and their candidates for elective office, as the teacher may choose to attempt to give both sides’ views.

In order to demonstrate what this has to do with primary source analysis, and this book, let us do a short exercise. This activity would work best if the reader gathers a few other teachers to do this exercise, too, and then compare and contrast answers. Looking at the four controversial approaches in table 2.1, write down, at least, a few “controversial” topics and where you would choose to teach them in each category. If you are doing this activity with others, you should each keep your answers to yourselves for the time being. After each person has had some time to compile their answers, do the Likert Scale quiz in table 2.2 (again do not share your answers, at this point, while completing the assignment).

Upon completion, compare and contrast your answers with the other teachers who have done both activities. Note where there are differences and discuss reasons for those differences. What often happens is that when the people discuss differences they either notice they are not as far away on the scale or in their approaches as they thought and/or they gain new insights into a situation they had just interpreted differently. Additionally, and critical to the point of this exercise, every person has made a personal and ideological choice on how they would approach an issue. The point being that there is no such thing as neutrality in teaching social studies and that is not necessarily a negative. We live in a world of diversity with a rich array of stories and perspectives that students need to be investigating in order to become greater informed and develop an increased understanding and empathy for humans, who have grown up with different worldviews.

You (the reader) might be asking, “What does this exercise have to do with primary sources?” The answer is that we make these personal and ideological choices every day we teach with the sources (primary and secondary) we decide to utilize in our curricula and the methods in which we choose to have students engage with and analyze these sources (i.e., the disciplinary lens used, the types of questions we have students explore and the questions we leave out of student exploration). For example, the questions that we provide students to analyze primary sources will be quite different if we are using a temporal (historical) lens rather than a spatial (geographic) lens. Historical context questions often focus on who, what, when, where, and why. While, formulating questions from a geographic context often includes questions about space, attributes, time, multiple geographic entities, attribute relationships, and temporal relationships. Each of these question types deals with where things are, how things relate to other things, and how things change or persist relative to these locations (Carano, 2023).

When exploring primary sources, it is also critical to understand whose voice is driving the primary source. For the purposes of this activity, it provides opportunities to bring in Black histories, experiences, and voices, decenters the teacher’s voice, and allows students to do the investigating. While primary sources can decenter a teacher’s voice, it is critical that the teacher understands whose voices are driving the primary source. Students (and teachers) must understand that a primary source about Black experiences that is not voiced by the Black peoples being described can lead to misconceptions and stereotypes. Therefore, it is recommended that if using a primary source from a non-Black voice, students analyze the source for author bias. Imbalance through teacher selection of sources is another example of bias (Sadker, 2009). This is a possible danger in using primary sources that inadvertently display Black peoples from a non-Black voice. Additionally, the selector (teacher), should be cognizant of how the sources chosen to be used in the curricula and the questions and/or prompts students are exploring narrows or provides a more rounded experience of the peoples being explored (i.e. while teaching Black Histories is the curricula narrowed to only acts of oppression and resistance or does the curricula also include stories of Black joy, Black agency, Black historical contention, etc.?) Ultimately, when preparing to teach with primary sources, teachers should consider the perspective of the creator of the source, the perspective of the selector of the source, and the cognitive levels and experiences of the students analyzing the source.

Understanding these positionality perspectives serves many purposes. As a learner who is engaging with a source, having a greater awareness of a source’s perspective better positions the learner to make sense of the source and the potential unintentional consequences of learning about that source’s topic with the methods being used. In a broader sense, understanding the perspective of the source and its creator situates learners to understand the historical context, and helps them discern a broader, unspoken message. The learner can then actively seek out various perspectives of a single event, issue, or time in history so they can understand it more holistically. (Carano & Ellsworth, 2023, p. 10-11)

The authors of each of the chapters, in this book, attempt to provide examples of ways they address these issues as they discuss teaching through rather than about Black histories.

References

Carano, K. (2023). How Can We Use a Geographic Lens to Analyze Primary Sources? In S. M. Waring, (Ed.), Using Inquiry to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Secondary Grades). (pp. 374-410). National Council for the Social Studies.

Carano, K. &. Ellsworth, T. M. (2023). Perspectives of the Primary Source Creator, Selector, and Learner. In S. M. Waring, (Ed.), Using Inquiry to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Secondary Grades). (pp. 1-18). National Council for the Social Studies.

Hess, D. (2005). How do teachers’ political views influence teaching about controversial issues. Social Education, 69(1), 47-48.

Lintner T. (2004). The savage and the slave: Critical race theory, racial stereotyping, and the teaching of American history. Journal of Social Studies Research, 28(1), 27–32.

Sadker, D. (2009). Some practical ideas for confronting curricular bias. www.sadker.org/curricularbias.html.

Stephens, R. K. (2023). Playing it Safe in the Classroom: How Avoiding Controversy Norms the White Conservative Experience. Journal of Intellectual Freedom & Privacy, 7(3), 6-10.

Waring, S. M. (2021). Integrating primary and secondary sources into teaching: The SOURCES framework for authentic investigation. Teachers College Press.