ABSTRACT
In our interviews with children from first grade through middle school, we have found that all of them know something about how things were different in the past. Less often do they have a clear idea what history means. Because students usually don’t encounter the subject at school before fourth grade, they sometimes don’t even clearly recognize the word; those who have heard it may link it with the past generally (“antiques and old stuff”), or may associate it with famous people or events. But rarely do they realize that they are part of history, or that they have a history of their own. A seventh-grader trying to explain the difference between science and history observed that he and the other students were part of science, because it was about them and the world around them-“We’re in science,” he pointed out, “but we’re not in history.” Because too many students do not see themselves as being “in history,” developing a sense of what the subject is all about and how it relates to them must be one of the teacher’s first and most important goals.
