ABSTRACT

Issues-centered approaches to social studies have long emphasized decision making as a critical skill. However, making and analyzing decisions are also important to learning history in the social studies. Events that are history today were oft en fi rst policy decisions in the past. Furthermore, we make decisions about history every time we weigh arguments and debate alternate explanations. I reinforce this intellectual link between issues-centered social studies and history education in my undergraduate methods course by asking my prospective social studies teachers to “revisit” a controversial historical decision: the decision by the United States to use atomic bombs against Japan in 1945. Th e purpose is to move beyond simply thinking about what historical decision they feel should have been made-instead, they need to analyze the alternate options behind a historical decision and consider why a particular option was decided on over others.