"Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer?" - 527

Every major measure of students' historical understanding since 1917 has demonstrated that students do not retain, understand, or enjoy their school experiences with history. Bruce Lesh believes that this is due to the way we teach historylecture and memorization. Over the last fifteen years, Bruce has refined a method of teaching history that mirrors the process used by historians, where students are taught to ask questions of evidence and develop historical explanations. And now in his new book 'Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer? he shows teachers how to successfully implement his methods in the classroom. Students may think they want to be given the answer. Yet, when they are actively engaged in investigating the pastthe way professional historians dothey find that history class is not about the boring memorization of names, dates, and facts. Instead, it's challenging fun. Historical study that centers on a question, where students gather a variety of historical sources and then