At heritage sites, the best school programs start from a fundamental understanding of the goals of history education.

In Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts, Sam Wineburg, a Professor of Education at Stanford University, explains how historians think about the past and how they use primary sources.

Good history instruction, he tells us, promotes a kind of literacy, not one of names and dates, but one based on discernment, judgment, and contextualization

The "Historical Thinking Skills" that Wineburg promotes have widely been adopted by many Teaching American History grants, the discretionary grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Education that has appropriated over $800 million dollars toward history education, and that has included many museums and libraries as grant partners.

Wineburg's book is work reading in its entirety, but a concise explanation of his ideas is available in a flash movie presentation at Historical Thinking Matters. The larger website includes sample lesson plans, worksheets, primary source documents, and sample student papers.

One caution: Museum-based educators might be frustrated by Wineburg's limited focus on text documents, but many of his conclusions and techniques can creatively be adapted to material culture or visual culture objects.