Miz Alice talks to William Least Heat-Moon about the history of the portion of Maryland’s coast that she lived on. She speaks from the personal point-of-view as an observer and a predictor of what will happen to those isles along the coast. Do you think that when we teach children about history today, we miss out on having it told from a personal account rather than boiling it down to impersonal facts? Does the lack personal relation in which historical events are being taught lessen their significance and speculation of what will happen in the future in those areas?
It does have a key element missing when something is taught in an impersonal way. When it is just the facts, a student can easily avoid thinking about it if they can, in any way, think that it would never happen to them. Telling history from personal yet accurate accounts gives the events dimension and a sense of reality even though the students are so distanced from these events by both location and time.
An example of boiling down history to just the facts was exemplified in my high school. The Holocaust was talked about with the same tone and indifference as about how the first horses came to the Americas. We then had a Holocaust survivor come and speak to us in chapel about her experiences and struggle for life as so many around her died. I cannot emphasize enough the difference it made in the way I viewed and thought about the Holocaust, the horrific ideology behind it, and even in ways to prevent something as atrocious from ever happening again. To be moved to think about a topic as deeply as I did about the Holocaust takes a personal connection and relation.
Events that are presented blandly to us are briefly memorized for a test, and then they fade away just as fast as if they were but a passing footprint on the beach. Repetition is a way to permanently memorize historical facts yet the educational system only teaches a section of history twice at most over our years of schooling. Thus without a personal account recorded as history passes us by, we are more likely than naught to repeat the mistakes of our forefathers and we will have to rediscover all the solutions that they previously found. Let us teach history from gripping personal accounts so that the learning, experiences, and discoveries of our predecessors were not in vain.
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4 comments:
I think Miz Alice makes a strong point when it comes to teaching. She says, "there's only one place they can get an education- in the school of though." I think this is a powerful statement because once out of school, everything depends on the person's mind and thought process.
Regarding teaching as impersonal vs. personal, I also experienced this with learning about the Holocaust. My freshman year of highschool we read books and watche movies about the traumatic event, and yes it was heartbreaking, but I never felt that personal connection. It wasn't until junior year when our teacher took us to the Holocast musuem and brought in a survivor to speak until I realized the severity of the event. I think in order to really process information, one must get as personal as possible to the event. After the day at the musuem, I was changed forever. Miz Alice has the same views on teaching, she knows that a textbook can only take a person so far. In order to succeed in life, you must be able to do more then memorize but be able to face reality and think for yourself.
Great post! Textbooks are boring and, worse, they indocrinate kids with one point of view without the kids even knowing it. Compare an American history textbook account of the massacre at Wounded Knee with the account in Black Elk Speaks. At least with Black Elk, you understand the perspective of the narrator when he describes the battle; it's not just facts. But then, for balance, the students would have to read from the perspective of someone in US cavalry. And before you know it, the school year would be over and all the required material not yet covered. But at least the students might remember something and even do some thinking of their own. Why is "covering the material" so important?
I agree with you that telling history from a personal yet accurate account gives the events dimension and a sense of reality even though the students are so distanced from these events by both location and time. In high school, especially in history classes, many students simply memorize the dates and important events and never really think about how they effected our country and it's people. In my high school we had a class solely based on the holocaust. This was actually my favorite class throughout high school. The teacher was so amazing and really made us think about the event. We had to analyze and interpret what we thought was going through the minds of the victims and of the "bad guys." We also had survivors come and speak with us about their experiences. Each one of the speaches brought me to tears and I will never forget the horrible things that were told to me. I never had to study for this class either because the information was given to us in so many different ways that it was impossible to forget.
This is a good post. Like you said, history is so often memorized and not interpreted. Teachers have you read through textbooks to gather information from the past. I took notes and studied the information in the textbooks, but I feel it did not soak into my brain. My history teacher in high school used maps, videos, and other visual aids to help us understand our past without just skimming through a textbook. I think it would have been nice to have a speaker or someone who is familiar with our past history. The speaker who talked about the Holocaust to your class, gave the students a personal account of how horrible the event really was. I think teachers need to concentrate on connecting with their students more. Not just standing in front of the class, spitting information at them, but instead getting them involved and thinking. I think students listen more when they understand the issue and how it relates to them. Miz Alice mentions education in the passage, when she is talking to Heat-Moon. She states, "Education is thinking, and thinking is looking for yourself and seeing what's there, not what you got told was there." Miz Alice believes education is a crucial part of life. It is not about memorizing dates, times, rules, and formulas, it is about learning about your surroundings. It is about gaining and desiring an education.
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