I do not understand the author's concerns. At the university I teach the administration refuses to allow the faculty to become limited and isolated in specializations. In the last year I have taught American colonial history, both the pre-Civil War and post-Civil War survey courses, American economic history, and Western Civilization after 1500. The department is currently asking me to prepare myself for an introductory World History course. While teaching I am finishing up my doctoral work on the transition to manhood by adolescent New England farm boys in the early republic. This may seem like an isolated, specialized subject, but I have to consider scholarship and sources from social history, economic history, legal history, gender studies, family history, sociology, anthropology, and American studies to name a few. Specialization does not lead to isolation if done correctly. It only focuses a broad range of methodologies and historical fields onto a very specific question, and then reflects this breadth in a fully developed story.
I constantly point out to my students that no historical incident is as shallow and complete as it seems. We attempt to uncover social, institutional, racial, and economic factors that contribute to events. Since my institution is publicly funded there is no place for religion in the class room. Religion is a personal matter and no individual or group can claim absolute moral superiority or knowledge. My students view science with a healthy skepticism, and regard it as a useful tool, but not a social savior. The failure to end poverty or cure Aids has had a pragmatic effect on young people.
Teachers should attempt to tell the truth about history. That facts are not absolute, but subject to interpretation and new evidence. We should present both sides of the argument, and make students aware of the "isms" (orientalism, imperialism, racism, chauvinism, nationalism, fanatacism, fundamentalism, colonialism, etc.) that color every debate. Then we should sit back and learn from young minds that lack the clutter obstructing our own insights. It is constantly invigorating to see a student present a unique perspective that adds to the historical synthesis. I do not want to present this synthesis to them. I want a classroom of 200 students to develop 200 synthesis of the same facts that are real for their lives, and not shoved down their throats as a biblical truth dispensed from a sacred bank of knowledge.
by Tristan Traviolia on October 31, 2001 at 9:43 PM