My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 2, #11, September, 1996

HISTORY STORY

In America, one thing you can count on reading in the headlines on a regular basis is a story about the appalling ignorance of our young people. You will hear that they have only the vaguest notion of where Russia is, that they cannot read well enough to read a lease they are about to sign, and that they not only cannot give the dates of the American Civil War, but cannot place it within the 1850-1900 time period.

This leads to a certain ritualized rending of garments and gnashing of teeth about the declining quality of student minds, the abysmal failure of the public schools, and the contribution of television to public ignorance. And it is fair to argue that children whose minds have been shaped by television's rapid cuts and abrupt changes of subject are different from children whose minds have been shaped by the reading of books--these children have less ability to sit still, to follow an extended argument, to understand how data can be analyzed, sifted, and used in the formation of thought.

But it is also fair to argue that something has gone wrong within the schools. Because no American student gets through high school without being taught about the American Civil War at least twice. If something is taught but not learned, it is not enough for teachers to say that the students' minds are defective--good teachers, allowed to ply their trade as they see fit, adapt their teaching to the prior knowledge, interests, and understanding of their students.

So, why is it that something as basic as the Civil War has had so little impact on the minds of our students?

Possibly it is because of our obsession with standardized tests. Because schools' only measure of success is how well students do on national tests, there is a temptation to "teach to the test." This can lead to the student being stuffed with facts, like so many Strasbourg geese with feeding funnels stuck down their throats. In such circumstances, can a student be blamed for feeling that output on tests, like pate de foie gras, is the point of this exercise? And that once the tests are over with, the data can be dispensed with? That the dates for the Civil War are something you only need to know until you have completed the Scholastic Aptitude Test?

Or could it be that in order to avoid controversy, we strip the history we teach of all color and passion? That we turn it into lessons on patriotism?

Such teaching subverts genuine learning by denying students the real pleasures inherent in subject matter. And the subject matter of history is storytelling--the oldest and most powerful human intellectual impulse.

Were I in the business of teaching history, this is what I would start out telling my students--that history is the accumulated stories people have told about their lives. People tell their children what happened--the raw events. But more than that, they try to make the events make sense--which means, of course, that some of the stories of history are not, in fact, true. They may be simply a selected set of events that explain why Germans need lebensraum, or why Serbs are perfectly justified in murdering Bosnian Muslims or why many blacks live in slums.

So I would explain to my students on the first day of class that history is not only storytelling, but a method to find the truth behind the stories. And one of the questions on the exam--maybe the only question-- would be this: "Tell your favorite true story from American history. Tell me why it is your favorite story. And tell me how you know it's true."

Some of my favorite true stories, of course, are simply funny. Like the story of why Senator Styles Bridges, touted as a possible vice-presidential candidate in 1936, never had a chance-- Republicans realized that the Democrats would laugh the ticket out of existence, singing "Landon-Bridges falling down." (Speaking of the election of 1936, Roosevelt carried every state except Maine and Vermont, leading to an alteration in the old line, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation" to "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.")

I'm fond of the story of the Democratic convention after World War I, in which doves were released to celebrate the peace; unfortunately, no thought had been exercised as to how to retrieve the doves afterward, and they were perfectly happy to roost in the rafters. So for the rest of the convention, the delegates sat beneath a hail of falling organic matter (which may do much to explain the prominence of balloons at conventions these days).

I am also partial to the story of Huey Long, governor of Louisiana, freshly elected during the banking crisis of 1933. Told on a Thursday that, if the banks opened on Friday, there would be a run on them, and they would be ruined, he searched the history books for a reason to declare a bank holiday. Sure enough, the next day, the citizens of Louisiana woke to find themselves celebrating the anniversary of Woodrow Wilson breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany. And the banks were saved.

But most of the stories I love from history fall into certain themes. One of them was expressed by Robert F. Kennedy: "Some people see things as they are, and say 'Why?' I dream things that never were and say 'Why not?'" There is something so quintessentially American about this denial (or ignorance) of the dead weight of history and tradition. It leads to stories like Mathew Brady, taking that brand new machine, the camera, out onto the battlefields of the Civil War, in hopes of making a fortune with his photographic record. It leads to a jury saying, when journalist John Peter Zenger was accused of printing seditious charges against the government, that he was innocent because his charges were true, and the law, therefore, wrong. It leads to a Steve Jobs seeing the computer not as a massive, ponderous instrument of business and government, but as a lightning-fast, intelligent personal assistant, capable of everything from data sorting to game playing. And it can also lead to spectacular acts of stupidity, like General George Custer's suicidal attack on Sitting Bull, or the indomitable Harold Stassen running for president, election after election, for forty years.

Other stories I love fall into the theme of our democratic faith in the intelligence of ordinary people. This explains some of our unique institutions, like the Chautauqua. Starting as an educational "camp" in New York, it became a traveling road show, bringing lectures on the Bible, science, and literature to enthusiastic crowds in towns large and small across the continent during the early 1900's.

It also explains the public library as a basic institution in virtually every town in the country. It is the perfect self-help institution--you just supply the books and journals, and those who want to learn will come and read and know and understand. The story of the founding of these libraries, by an elite that needed to recruit energetic, talented new members to their ranks, regardless of the lowliness of their birth, is an inspiring one. And if the story of Andrew Carnegie's rise from poor Scottish immigrant lad to ruthless industrial tycoon is not necessarily edifying, the story of how he chose to spend his wealth is--helping communities to build libraries, and establishing a fund to reward the heroic acts of ordinary people.

I also love the stories of people doing what they know to be right, despite political or personal risk.. This includes Lyndon Johnson, in many ways the unlikeliest of heroes, ruthlessly armtwisting, pushing the Civil Rights bill through Congress, despite knowing full well that this would cost his own party its dominance in the South. It includes Rosa Parks, who began the civil rights movement by saying "No," she would not move to the back of the bus. It include ordinary people who went south during "freedom summer," like Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney, and Viola Liuzzo, all murdered, all sacrifices to the abstract principle of equal justice before the law.

Other people will cherish other stories, that resonate with their different understanding of our country. Because the fact is, our memories are selective. We will remember the stories that make sense out of our world or that fit our existing world view. We may even prefer to believe, and teach, stories that are not true, because they are useful, because they explain and defend the rightness of established power. In the words of UB40, "They taught a simple system, why they had, and you did not."

This is the lost soul of history that the SAT can never measure--the stories we tell, the ideas those stories teach, and the primary documents (the censuses, diaries, letters, expense ledgers, court decisions, and such) that allow us to test the truth of our understanding. If we do not learn the method of history, to differentiate the true from the false, we are the legitimate prey of people who have their own version to sell us.

My Word's Worth Archive

Current column

Marylaine.com/ home to all my other writing

NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.

I'll write columns here whenever I really want to share an idea with you and can find time to write them . If you want to be notified when a new one is up, send me an e-mail and include "My Word's Worth" in the subject line.