BUSK-Reading: A New Subject Knowledge Section on andallthat.co.uk

Image (c) Alex Ford, 2014

Welcome to an experimental new segment for andallthat.co.uk . Recently I wrote a blog covering the importance of subject knowledge in teaching history and my frustrations that so much of the time I could dedicate to this is taken by other things. As a result of writing the post, and the ensuing discussions, I have been making a real effort to focus on developing and expanding my subject knowledge by reading relevant and recent history books for a few hours a week. This has been a significant juggling act, but it has meant that I feel much more interested and engaged in teaching certain subjects once more. I have been thrilled to find new stories for old topics and new angles from which I might approach difficult issues. I am now excited to go and teach about slavery in the USA or the American Civil War for the first time in a long time.

I do of course appreciate that I am in a very fortunate (or unfortunate - you decide) position, not having to juggle my time with looking after a young family, and having a wife who also teaches and therefore finds herself equally busy for most of the time. So I got to thinking that it might be nice to share some of the reading I am doing to give others a chance to really target books or sections of books which might push their love of history and change their approach to teaching specific historical topics. Rather than aiming to be a "Spark Notes" of history books however, I hope to discuss lines of argument rather than summarising whole books in note form and make such comments relevant to teaching related subject matter in the classroom.

This new segment, which I am entitling "Building Usable Historical Knowledge through Reading" (BUSK-R), therefore aims to offer some insights into the reading I have been doing. I intend to write segments every few weeks, detailing the book(s) I have been reading; the main lines of argument about specific topics; any interesting stories of personal experiences documented; and my thoughts on how these might be used in the classroom setting. I would also like each of these BUSK-R segments to become a forum for debate as well. I will index all of the BUSK-R posts under "Subject Knowledge". I would be very interested in your thoughts and comments on the segments. 

The first BUSK-R piece takes my recent reading on the growth of slavery in the USA in "The half has never been told" by Edward Baptist and will be on the way shortly.

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