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Sunday, August 26, 2012

Loewen: Chapter 2


Photo Credit:  Marcus Yam for The New York Times

The scaffolding for Tatzu Nishi’s “Discovering Columbus” is rising toward the statue.
 Visitors will be able to climb stairs (or ride an elevator) to a living room.

How does an accurate understanding
of the past shape who we are?

In April 2011, I worked with a group of university preservice teachers on a multidisciplinary project that utilized a Library of Congress pathfinder: carrotandstick.weebly.com.  The title of this Webquest "Carrot & Stick" refers to the complex relationship the United States has had with Mexican Americans since the turn of the twentieth century.  Domestic policies that have both rewarded and punished immigration lead to this WebQuest's Essential Question: Who should have access to the American Dream?  During the presentation to our classmates, one student stated that because our members did not seem to be of Hispanic or Latino descent we should avoid teaching the material because our perceived lack of ethnicity made us unqualified.  

As someone who comes from a family where adoption has played a large role in creating both my genetic and cultural makeup, I found the statement surprising.  Isn't it the collective stories of all Americans that make up my story as well?  I love the television programs, Who Do You Think You Are? and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Faces of America & Finding Your Roots I am particularly fascinated by the moments when people discover that they have ancestors that don't think, look or come from the places they accept as a part of their cultural identity.

One of the best documentaries I have seen the last couple of years discussing the "discovery of America" was hosted by award-winning journalist Rubén Martínez.  As the demographics of the United States shift we are finally getting a more complete picture of America by telling the narratives of all its peoples.  Martínez says it best:
  "All of the United States was, of course, part of the New World.  Yet we in this country have our own habit of focusing mostly on the European version of history.  Long before the pilgrims ever set foot on these shores, Native Americans and Spaniards were battling over the destiny of the American Southwest.  But somehow that part of the history of our country has almost always been left out.  A mixed history is not an easy one to make sense of.  It means literally following more than one story at the same time, multiple narratives, each one vying for the power to tell the whole story, which, of course, can't be told if any are left out.  A story that's less about conquest than about the birth of a new culture.  A one-sided story that became two, and then much more than two.  If we can find the courage to tell our children THAT story, then maybe the world they bequeath to their children will be a better one."
 

When Worlds Collide

Loewen: Introduction & Chapter 1

Jed Kirschbaum  /  The Baltimore Sun
Light from a red laser scans a resin reproduction of the 1789 lower denture
 originally carved from Hippopatamus ivory for George Washington.

How Do We Know What We Know About the Past?

In March of 2010, I was chair of the Human Rights Committee in Pekin, IL.  We invited Professor Loewen to Pekin to discuss his book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism and to spend time in our community updating his research.  He brought two university research assistants with him and I invited students from the Bradley University courses in which I was enrolled.  Much of what I knew and had experienced about my town's past had shaped how I thought of myself in juxtaposition to the world-at-large.  

Perhaps because I had moved out-of-state for nearly a decade, I (like Professor Loewen), noticed that issues of racism were dramatically less of a problem in my community.  Yet outside the community, the negative stereotypes (of my town) still existed and flourished. 

Then in June of 2010, while attending the local farmer's market downtown, my spouse (who also grew up in Pekin), pointed out a historical marker we had never seen on a local bank building.  I had a visceral reaction to this new knowledge, a moment of clear consciousness where I could physically feel my paradigm shift in regards to the place in which I had been born.

I continued researching the Union League and my amazement grew, as I discovered this story was completely unknown within our town's boundaries - this sign (left) even put up on a day when the newspaper was closed for a holiday.  

The power of information and the passion that it fuels inside of you is something that I can share and teach to my students.  

Historians Ask Questions!

They find patterns in the past, they connect the past to the present, they recognize that what we know about our past is influenced as much by opinion, as it is from provable facts.  Do we all make history - yes!  Am I making history - yes!  Will I teach my students that they too make history - YES!

George Washington, A National Treasure
George Washington (Lansdowne portrait) by Gilbert Stuart, oil on canvas, 1796



Interactive Historical Thinking Poster for Secondary Teachers

Cantu: Chapter 1

What Are Schools For?

At the heart of my teaching philosophy is the belief that instruction should be pragmatic. That education should be viewed not as a preparation for life, but as life itself (John Dewey, George Mead, Jerome Bruner).  Rapid economic, technological, and social changes are creating a world that is increasingly more connected.  To succeed students need to know how to compete, communicate and collaborate with the world (Charles Cooley, Max Wertheimer).

Historian Lewis Mumford stated in an 1939 address on Teacher Education that, "we must give primacy to the biological and social sciences (for) an active knowledge of the social environment and of the behavior of men in social partnership, their needs, their drives, their impulses, their dreams, is just as indispensable for working our new social order as reading, writing, and arithmetic was for those trained to capitalism."

To that extent, John Dewey believed that democracy was the best type of social order because it allowed for intelligent inquiry and reconstruction.  I agree with Dewey's rejection of the tabula rasa student and assert that no individual truly reaches a state of finished development.  There is always further growth.  For students to become conscientious and knowledgeable adults, they do not need to become expert historians.  They do, however, need to learn to find valid information, analyze it from multiple perspectives, and communicate it clearly.

For Further Reading:

Cooper, S. (2009).  Making history mine: Meaningful connections for grades 5-9.  Portland: Stenhouse Publishers.


Dewey, J. (1990). The school and society: The child and the curriculum.  Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 


Miller, R. (1995). What are schools for: Holistic education in American culture.  Brandon, VT: Holistic Education Press.


Mumford, L. (1946).  Values for survival: Essays, addresses, and letters on politics and education.  New York:  Harcourt, 
Brace and Company.







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