12 Case Studies Using Alternative History in Education

Since about 2010, both high school teachers and university professors have researched the value of counterfactual thinking and experimented with it in classrooms. I’ve followed this trend. It includes

• the use of history “gamified” through the use of Civilization VI, Rise, and Fall, as a way of teaching the rise and fall of empires and the great man theory.

• Three academic courses, one at Georgetown University, one at Texas A&M, and one for Ph.D. students in Germany, on alternative history.

• drawing on free content for students and teachers created by the NYTimes Learning Network.

• reviewing a high school history teacher’s assignments using alternate history, and exemplary student responses.

• evidence that English Language Learners find value in counterfactual assignments both to learn history and to express contingent ideas.

• lesson plans that encourage collaboration and students-teaching-students between International Baccalaureate (IB) students and English Language Learners, using “what if” scenarios.

• an approved course in North Carolina’s social studies curriculum that allows teachers to veer away from a chronological study of history that students find boring and instead focus on more engaging “turning points.”

• Using imagination and counterfactual thinking in the study of Black American history, with “what if” questions like how the country and family histories would be different if slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and institutional racism such as redlining, segregated neighborhoods, and differentiated real estate market pricing did not exist.

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1. Counter-Factuals As Keys to Innovative Thinking