Students as an Impressionable Audience

As a future educator, the audience that I plan to share my knowledge of history with is mainly my students, a very impressionable audience. As I think about my history classes in grade school, I realized that I learned mainly through textbooks and clips of movies which I can assume many people still learn from in the same manner. How reliable were these sources? Where were the multiple points of view? Where should students go to understand history?

The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History by David Lowenthal looks at the problems with history textbooks that students are reading today and in the past. Students have not been taught to question the textbooks or the authors, however the authors vary from historians to non-historians, some have extensive knowledge on the subject and some do not (p. 116). As an impressionable high school student, I never thought to question the text. What they were telling me was right, right? We need to teach students to question the text and introduce them to multiple points of views. This way they can create their own conclusions and see that history is not full of right or wrong answers. Although teachers must deal with a curriculum and time restrains, they still need to teach less from the text and more with other sources. Textbooks are good to get gather some facts and get the authors point of view, however students need to see more. If teachers only teach from the textbooks, the students are mostly likely to believe every word and encounter some ‘bad’ history.

The History Channel seems to be another source that students and teachers turn to for ‘good’ history, when in fact ‘bad’ history can appear here just as easily as in textbooks. Shows like Ax Men, Pawn Stars and Madhouse (which are the three most watched shows) have little historical value. I found it hard to actually watch a documentary since they are scarce in the evening. These documentaries are normally narrated through historians that tell facts and events chronically that they believed happened, just like a textbook. Is this a good source to find history and not heritage? These documentaries as well as educators generally teach more heritage then history (p. 125). Information is provided to us that we desire, that will make sense and led to another event. This is not history.

When students first walk into your classroom, some may have ideas or images of history that may not necessarily be accurate. Family members, other teachers or movies might have easily influenced the way they view historical events or people, especially movies. Many children grow up watching Disney movies that take place in a past era or have a character that was a famous individual in the past. Disney created entertaining stories around famous past people like Mulan, Pocahontas and Hercules. Although some of the facts are correct in these movies, many are not (p. 102). For instance, Pocahontas was never John Smith’s lover. She was merely twelve and he is his thirties when they met, however children of all ages are coming into the classroom with a false image of the two. For the teacher these false images may be hard to break or undo. This just shows how impressionable students are and that they need to learn to questions sources that they have gained historical knowledge from.

I have been thinking a lot about the types of sources I want to make available for my students. I myself was once influenced by Disney, movies, textbooks and families members until I sought to research on my own, therefore I want to encourage students to look at many primary and secondary sources, to see events from many angles, to question texts and to learn that history is not black and white. I want to create fun but informative hands-on activities that will help students to understand history better. Teaching history means teaching the undesirable outcomes as well as the desirable, teaching all points of view and teaching the hard to talk about subjects as well. The bottom line is that students need to see that “the past can never be totally reconstructed, that the study of history is always unfinished (117).”

"The War," a good source?

When first viewing the movie titled “The War” by Ken Burns, I thought that it would be a great way for students to learn about World War II. It had real footage of the war, there were real interviewees that have lived through it and there were letters and other artifacts presented as well. It has to be a good source right? After reading The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History by David Lowenthal and after our discussion in class, I am questioning the value of this movie. Is this a good source for students to learn from? Does it really show what war was really like?

When watching the short clips on the making of “The War”, I remember a veteran saying that he was grateful that the real true story was finally going to be told in this film. It was great to see that Ken Burns added real veterans into his film and shared their personal stories, connecting individual soldiers with World War II events. However, the true story that the soldier remembers probably is a little different then the way the soldier fighting next to him remembers the true story. Also time is a factor to consider when interviewing these veterans. It is known that as time increases it’s harder to remember details and also people are known to alter their stories sometimes slightly and other times drastically. As Lowenthal writes, “time makes liars of us all (p. 144)”. When watching this film, students need to be aware of this and realize that this is not the whole story. They need to be able to answer important questions like what is being left out, why were these veterans interviewed, etc.

It’s great that this movie had live footage of the war to try to get the audience more involved with the war. However, showing pictures and footage however, it never states whether the footage is from the event or part of the war in which they are talking about. For example, when talking about Operation Market Garden how do we know that footage is from that operation? We don’t. We are seeing men shooting guns at each other but that could be footage from any part of the war. Students will keep these images in their minds and relate them to Operation Market Garden, even though they were not from that operation. This is ‘bad’ history. Therefore I feel that this would be more harmful then helpful to show his movie in a classroom. Students are not getting the whole truth when watching this film.

‘Cavalcade of America’ as a Teaching Tool

As a future teacher, I understand the importance of bringing different teaching styles into the classroom as well as new and enjoyable learning materials other than the textbook. It is essential to be able to spark the students’ interest which will require me to teach through several forms of technology. Using radio shows from the past are a great way to teach history. The longtime running radio show, Cavalcade of America first went on the air in 1935. The show turned into a TV series in the fifties and had its last episode in the year of 1957. This radio show shared with its listeners historical events that had happened in the past but it itself also had a history. By using the episodes from Cavalcade of America, students can learn about a person or place from the past that the episode is geared to, but also about the time era that the radio show was aired. I feel that the radio show is a great primary and secondary source which students would gain a lot from.

For instance, I had the opportunity to watch the episode that aired on January 8, 1936 titled, “Women in Public Service.” Here, like all the episodes, the radio show consisted of music, drama and ‘play’ like dialogue. They would ‘pretend’ that they were in the past and acted out the life of Jane Addams, a hardworking woman who played a large role in public service in Chicago from the 1890’s until her death. Mrs. Addams and her friend Ellen Starr moved to the worst part of Chicago to see how less fortunate people were and sought to help them mainly by providing new homes and buildings in the community. They were able to fight for these people and raised enough money to help. The Hull House created, acted a home for many and a community center. In response to all of her hard work, Jane Addams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. The show talks about the many struggles she had to overcome including standing up against the powerful men of the city. The episode also retells a story of a nurse, her mistreatment by men but also her importance to the community and their members. It sought to encourage women to become more involved in public services. As you can see, Cavalcade of America was a way for Americans to become involved in history. The show was able, in my opinion, to make history come to life for its listeners by providing information as well as entertainment.

Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jane_Addams_profile.jpg

The Importance of Public Historians?

What is the importance of public historians and what do they actually do for society? I know that public historians must teach the public about history but why do we need public historians? As I began to read Alan Brinkley’s “Historians and Their Publics” as well as Ian Tyrrell’s “Historians in Public,” I soon was able to see that the role of a public historian is deeper than I anticipated. The great gap between historians and their audience is in need of fixing. I agree that history is generally hard to teach the honest truth since the truth can be upsetting and destroy false images of ones nation or comfortable myths, however it is very significant. It is public historians’ quest to help members of society break through their comfort zone and accept the past history despite it being uncomfortable. The fact that the public is turning to nonacademic writers only stresses the importance for historians to become more active in the nonacademic world.

People want to learn about history through ways that do not involve a textbook, myself included. With the advanced technology in this day and age, society is looking and expecting to learn and be entertained at the same time. By historians collaborating with the nonacademic world, the audience would broaden and reach more people. Public historians’ roles include spreading history and finding an audience to share their knowledge and love of history with. I feel that through technology, these goals can be met.

I found Brinkely's statement, “I have never believed that history offers ‘lessons’ in any conventional sense of that meaning,” very interesting since this is exactly how I described the purpose of history in class last Thursday. As a history minor and a future teacher, I disagree with Brinkely’s statement. I have always viewed history as teaching people ‘lessons’ and allows others to learn from past mistakes. I feel that by increasing your knowledge of the past, you can improve life and not repeat past events that had bad outcomes. I agree with Brinkely that we as a society and as individuals are affected by history everyday. It is undeniable that history is very powerful to society and all its members and we need public historians to help make that power relevant.

The Saginaw Post Office (now known as the Castle Museum)
In 1889, Congress approved one hundred thousand dollars to construct a new post office in downtown Saginaw. The architecture was inspired by Saginaw’s French heritage and the building was referred to as the ‘French Chateau.’ The architect William Aiken created the corner towers of the building to represent the defensive feature of frontier life. The post office opened in the year of 1898 and still stands in downtown Saginaw today. It has faced demolition twice because of the need for a larger facility. Concerned citizens fought for the structure and placed the building on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. The building is now used as a museum that displays the history of Saginaw. The inside of the building is gorgeous and has not lost its post office feel.

Questions a visitor might ask:
Why is or what makes this site historical? What time period is the site from? Why is this historical site important or why do we care about it? Why is the site located where it is? What is the site used for now?

Questions a historian might ask:
Why is or what makes this site historical? Why is this site important or why do we care about it? How does the site depict what the area was like during its time? What qualifies a site to be a Michigan registered historic place and on the National register of Historic Places? Who is responsible for the historical site (who built it, designed it, and thought of it)?