Tenth Period | Teaching History in Tumultuous Times: The Importance of Studying U.S. History

0:03 hello and welcome to the Bill of Rights Institute’s 10th period webinar series my name is Kirk Higgins I’m the senior manager for education at the Bill of Rights Institute Humphries director of outreach at the Bill of Rights Institute in this week we were fortunate enough to be joined by two guests Tracey Downey who is has been an educator for 15 years and has been involved the Bill of Rights Institute for over nine years now she teaches AP and honors US history in Florida so welcome Tracey thank you um we are also joined by Craig Bruce Smith who is an assistant professor of military history at the School of Advanced military studies at the US Army command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth Kansas he’s also the author of American honor the creation of the nation’s ideals during the Revolutionary era and the co-author of George Washington’s lessons in ethical leadership and Smith earned his PhD in American history from Brandeis University so welcome dr. Smith thanks for joining us well thanks for having me on great so today our topic is history so nice and broad but really it’s talking about history in tumultuous times and I could probably posit that times are always a little bit tumultuous and so it’s really thinking about how it is that we teach you as history in a pluralistic society or a plural society like the US has and so before diving into what any of that means I’d like to kick off with just a little bellringer and I thought it would be interesting for us all to think about a historical event that we were all a part of in some way are all witnessed in common and so

1:36 the one that stands out for me at least for our generation is September 11th the September 11th terrorist attack so I thought if we just all quickly mentioned sort of where we were and what we were doing on the on the day of 9/11 just to just kind of get a sense for for how we all experienced this differently absolutely so before we get started though I’d love to mention that we do have we want this to be a relationship with you our viewers so we have Twitter Facebook and the chat box here on YouTube if you want to comment or ask questions we’ll be monitoring all of those platforms so please let us know your questions let us know how you’re reacting to what we’re what we’re doing here today so what was I doing on September 11th I was teaching at a primary school at a at a daycare in New Jersey about 40 minutes from New York City and 90% of our parents worked in the city so the morning of the attacks I had gotten to work nice and early to get the kids when they’re dropped off at about 7:30 8 o’clock and as the attacks were happening we started hearing about it from parents who were coming in because we weren’t monitoring because it was days before the internet and over the course of the morning we turned on the radio and a TV in a break room and we’re trying to monitor the situation but we had all these children and it was a very scary moment we couldn’t get in touch with parents we had to shut down the school because the

3:07 the fear about about um about the the potential for bio terrorist attacks was that everybody should go home and like barricade your doors put wet towels nobody knew what was going on but we couldn’t get in touch with any parents because all the cell towers were down and so we had to call it called secondary parents it was a very stressful day and then I went that afternoon to a Washington Rock Park which overlooks the city to see the devastation and that was my day how about you Tracy so I have a different perspective which is crazy to me solicits not the people’s stories I was attending college I was in my last year and I was actually pulling into the parking lot when I got a phone call that said hey the World Trade Centers been hit and my first instinct was to say are you serious like how could a prop plane hit that like how could you miss it because a few years prior a prop plane I hit it and I didn’t think anything of it my whole family lives in New York my aunts and uncles worked in the tower and it progressed from that moment but I will never forget being at UCF and hearing the air sirens go like a like a war like if you’re on a golf course and the siren goes off to get off the course they act that and they told all residents to go to the dorms and all students that were not residents needed to leave so I remember walking away that morning thinking well where do we do where do we go what’s supposed to happen and I was

4:38 supposed to work at Disney that afternoon and they actually called that day and said don’t report to work closing the part which at that moment I knew this is really big bigger than I thought because Disney doesn’t close oh yeah wow that’s interesting and dr. Smith how about you I was in New York City it was my first day of college I was walking to my first what would have been my first class of undergrad and the experience was didn’t know anything about it walk to class and then someone told me class had been canceled and they said well something happened at the Trade Center and didn’t know what and then the first report was a plane and hit it again the first reaction was was very much well this this was an accidental I mean I I’m from New York so I’d been there for the the 93 attack and it was things filtered out slowly my mom worked in the area and it was very much as a surreal moment again also just the not knowing what was going on and also being so geographically close and having family you know in the area so that’s that’s my memory yeah yeah and I was in school as well taking a standardized

6:10 test so they had blocked out all information from us and I didn’t know until after the end of the test they announced everything that had happened from the two points in the World Trade Center to the Pentagon so I got it sort of all at once and again had that same experience of not knowing what was going on and then I was in I grew up in Indiana and so there’s Grissom Air Force Base was just north of where I was and so we had the experience of planes flying over to go support Air Force One so you hear the sonic boom and you’re just very confused well thank you all for sharing those stories I think it’s interesting on a couple levels and I think this is a good activity you can do with students particularly if you’re doing it about an event that happens in your local community doesn’t always have to be something large like 911 but but getting different perspectives most students now weren’t born then that’s right yeah which is amazing my last year of having students who were alive when I said how many of you were alive nobody raised their hand it was the first year I thought okay so it’s your Pearl Harbor now like yeah so I think it’s interesting from a couple of perspectives both of which you know you could choose the personal side that some of these stories can have so how personal these history stories can be to different communities or groups of people but also how your perspective can change based on where you were and and and then the story itself can change how things unfolded we all talked about a lot of the unknowns so I think that’s also a good way to show students that look the historical actors who were

7:41 taking part in these events didn’t know what was unfolding it’s very easy to have hindsight and say well of course this is how things played out but that’s not necessarily the case right so so anyway thank you all for participating in that little bell ringer activity I just wanted to kind of get us thinking about it but I thought I’d start the conversation dr. Smith by just asking you a question which is what what really is the craft of history what is it we’re doing so we get these stories with all these different perspectives how is it that we’re expected to pull together a single story at all and are there dangers that are associated with that okay and that’s and that’s a great question let me preface that by saying my standard disclaimer based on where I’m employed my views are all my own do not reflect those of the US government US Army Department of Defense or anyone else aside from me so now that being said I can say what I think so history you know standard definition I mean we’re not not to belabor the point history is anything that’s happened in the past and often times for students it’s portrayed as this sort of big a more this big amorphous thing that just happens and there’s there’s no sense of individual action here or thought or influence the issue with history is from the beginning it has been shaped reshaped interpreted reinterpreted in a number of different ways from multiple different

9:12 perspectives and it can be virtually anything to anyone the inherent goal of history at least in the modern sense and a sort of as a as a discipline should be to maintain some level of objectivity it’s really difficult to do because everyone’s has their own viewpoint their own biases and there’s no such thing as a completely objective history but the goal should always be to analyze the events based on how the people at the time viewed them right and I think that’s where the greatest danger is in the study of history right now is to have modern people whether they’re historians whether the general public who ever tried to impose modern viewpoints on people in the past or to interpret how people acted in the past based on modern understandings I think that’s that’s the greatest challenge it’s if you want to call it a danger but if I would say I would say it’s more is the greatest challenge and the greatest obstacle to to anyone who’s studying history at this moment or any moment I should say yeah no absolutely I think it’s interesting too because the the inherent challenge of not doing that is also getting students to relate right Tracy so you know you have these you know high school-aged kids that are in the classroom and you want them to be interested and engaged and it’s tough to get them into the mindset of say an 18th

10:42 century revolutionary figure right but what are ways that you find that that you know you you pull those different perspectives in or you try to get the students to shed some of their modern lens and and look at it more from from the perspective of those who participated in it so in my classroom one of the big things that we do the very first day of school is I try to go from the angle of saying everything you’re about to learn because you have to take that poll how many of you like history the vast majority will say no and you say okay here’s why you’ve been taught through the books and there’s really really normal people that go through history just like you and me and those people have the same view so if you get mad at something they got mad at something but instead of teaching through a textbook we I really love primary documents and I love pulling the drama ones like I love pulling something and saying here’s the good side of it but before you have an opinion here’s the bad side of it and then letting these kids argue it out exactly like he said was the the they see everything from 2019 or through Instagram so if you can make them step away and say look we’re studying the eighteen hundreds that were studying this we need to think how they thought that’s a really big challenge but I think once the kids get that and you remind them constantly these are viewpoints of this time period of this time period they start to see history unfold as a narrative and actually as a story as opposed to you all am i so-and-so told me this and this is what it is

12:12 no I think Tracy I think you’re absolutely right and that’s a similar sort of thing I’ve even done at the college level with the who hates history and then the students are I don’t know if he’s joking or right but I think primary sources is at any level is the way in and what you said about presenting the different sides is crucial because when you’re only presenting one side or whatever the the views are of that textbook author or authors you’re inherently shaping what history is more specifically is what it is not and I was trying to tell the kids to I say you know if I show you a successful person there’s somebody who failed because of that person so if I show you the failure somebody succeeded so you have to look at it from both perspectives I mean I know like so in Florida we open with the reconstruction area era which is very hard to start with if they don’t have the background for Civil War like why did we even get here why do they hate them and the very first day you walk in and you start talking about it and of course as soon as we bring slavery into it they’re like wow that’s racist that’s where it started and you’re like no hold on there’s a background to this and that’s normal you know and you have to go through different things so I think it’s really fun to let them read a slave narrative that sounds awful to say fun but you don’t I mean to read the documents that prove points and then they kind of say well I never knew that or I didn’t know they thought that so it kind of sees it it’s also more human if

13:44 I give you a random person to read about and I say here John says I don’t know who John is but they sure know who you know George Washington is let’s give him somebody off the beaten path to hear the normal views but it’s also important that they learn to evaluate sources as much of we heared in the news about what is accurate reporting or fake news or etc etc students need to be taught to read critically and to assess what’s being said how does it hold up what is their motivating factor is this something written for public consumption is it in a journal is one more honest than the other maybe they’re not maybe they are and and I but I think that’s all things the student has to grapple with and that’s something that as educators we should be really trying to pull out of our students and I think what that what you’re both speaking to is that in order for for us to grow societally and as human and as human beings we have to put ourselves in touch with diverse perspectives in a way that allows us to see the common humanity among us right so the reason that it’s so powerful to look at the primary so when you read the letter from Mary Garvey which was the Irish immigrant girl who wrote back to her family in the 1800s you see yourself as a fifteen year old in the letter from Mary Garvey or when you read you know the petition of

15:17 Belinda Sutton to the state of Massachusetts you see yourself as someone you see the appeals to something common in our experience as human beings and that instead of distancing you from the experience draws you in to that person in that moment in a in a profound way and so I was wondering if we could kind of talk about how you balance the importance of diversity and pluralism with that common experience of human the common human experience that is is one of the big things that everyone’s tackling and has been for for quite some time but certainly in more recent memory historical fields up to let’s say 50 years ago had been decidedly looking at only a certain group of people largely white elite male and that’s that’s starting to change but that’s not even just saying racially or based on gender or economics it’s also what Avenue what aspect what’s the national background or what’s the context as much as you could do is is preferable again there’s confines based on the nature of how long of courses or how long a book is but the idea being you should try to present diverse sides and

16:50 this is this is sort of something that’s going on more broadly in academia that there are certain trends there were certain ideas or topics that are trendy therefore they get more attention than others and you know there may be a tendency to to move away from it from what’s over here for what’s over here because this is what’s trendy but I think you need to have all sides of it in order to have a proper evaluation now you don’t have to agree with one side or the other but I think both sides have to be presented in some way now is there a common history that’s hard to say and and many people will say no there’s not it’s individual experience some people will say well is there a common national story and just as many people will say no there is not at all depending who you are but I do think you could study both but there are themes you could pull out and and I believe things like ethics and morality are key components throughout history and they may be things that are completely different but at some point regardless of where you go where you are there was a belief of what was right what was wrong there may be lots of gray but there is some sense of what that is and I think that’s something that that where you can find a commonality across time space so that’s one way in again

18:23 obviously like like today one person’s definition of what is good and versus what is bad is going to vary greatly but I think that’s what’s so interesting yeah I think that’s really interesting dr. Smith and and and I know that you touched on this in in your book just the idea that in in this I think is where it’s hard to for students to grapple with sometimes but the sort of that framework that moral framework that individuals are working with at these different times can be radically different quickly I mean the 18th century the 19th century in particularly it was a very religious age right so so viewing things through that religious lens doesn’t mean imposing religious views on the students that are learning it but understanding that that’s the perspective where it may be coming from I think it’s an important thing for understanding how decisions are being made or not being made and so I yeah I think that’s interesting I also really like that both of you talked about these these dividing points and I wondered and in Tracy maybe you have an example of you mentioned reconstruction but I always like and one thing we try to do here at the Bill of Rights Institute is is set up historical arguments so that they’re actually butting against each other letting these historical actors speak to one another particularly once it surprised people so I tell people in the office all time we are the Bill of Rights Institute of course but I always say that my favorite Federalist paper because everyone should have a favorite Federalist paper is Federalist 84 because it’s Hamilton’s argument against the Bill of Rights and and yeah and it’s like hey you know I

19:54 mean because it’s interesting right in making students grapple with these things to say look just because things played out in the way they played out isn’t always the way that was going to happen right it takes individual action it takes it takes thought it takes courage it takes a lot of these sort of internal civic virtues for people to get these things out and so I didn’t know if if you guys had a favorite a favorite sort of tense moment in US history that you like to highlight and also just remind everyone to send us any any questions that you have to our Twitter @br Institute or on Facebook at facebook.com slash Bill of Rights Institute or right there in the chat box chat box on YouTube live to answer that I mean there there’s so many you could choose from so I try to pick one and in my opinion it’s arguably the most important moment in US history again arguable you could I wrote about this recently in an op-ed for the The Washington Post and I believe the most important or at least up there is George Washington surrendering his commission after the American Revolution to Congress I believe that is on par with the 4th of July or any other event anyone cares to bring up because it maintained civilian supremacy the idea that the military upheld civilian Authority answered to the people it was

21:24 not a revolution that descended into tyranny or dictatorship or a warlord or however you want to look at it and this became the basis for the nation and it’s something that took such personal belief in the goals of the nation and it’s something that’s maintained itself ever since and I think that to me is the truest depiction of sort of the idea of American liberty American devotion to the will of the people I think that’s great also one of the four paintings I think recognized in the rotunda the US Capitol building which is always a fun thing to a fun thing to point out that’s why I put on the book cover oh yeah that’s terrific that’s terrific so Tracy how about you what um today we actually did Washington’s farewell address and we were talking about it and it was interesting because the kids who you know I teach 11th graders and they said isn’t this a really big moment in history and I said why do you say that like what is your opinion on that and they said well for someone who was held in such high regard to say thank you this was been fun and I’m gonna go back now and I’d like to retire if it’s okay with you they said why is he even asking why didn’t he just stay on and I said well what would have happened if you stayed on so the what-if conversation became bigger than the lesson which was to read it and understand it then of course that turned into well I don’t understand it doesn’t they don’t we see

22:56 now what he was telling us like why are we not going back to what he said a lot and I said because what he said to some people is irrelevant now and the kit you know you would have thought I spent something off the kids really with George Washington he’s not irrelevant you know so it’s like moments like that where they can link it or they see it for me when I say okay they’re getting it and they understand that it’s repeating itself and we need to watch certain things and do certain things um I don’t we don’t go back as far as far as like content the majority of my kids are are honors and they started the Civil War so a huge turning point for them this year has been why did we start the Civil War was it worth it or could we have just waited so I find for me the the what if conversations are huge and it leads it to a lot bigger conversations like you said where you know of issues today they all want to talk about current events they all want to know more and they all base it on what they’ve been told her what they know um I always tell my kids you know my my parents told me what we believed in when I was kid this is what you are this is what we believe okay mom and dad and then I grew up and then I went to college and I was like um I have a few questions you know because I didn’t know so when the kids come in they’re like this is what I am okay why hmm my dad told me you know so you have to kind of break that those moments and I think when we talk about defining moments they see things happening today that are more I don’t know the word to

24:28 say it’s like so large to them that these to them are their defining moments so I love that you went back and said something so long ago no but I think I think the farewell address is another great moment and something you mentioned about that George Washington is no longer relevant is something that’s very problematic and and deeply troubling I think because this is not a logic that’s necessarily coming from just you know a random person you do have large sections of the historical community even pushing back on this that you need to study other individuals or to focus solely on the personal flaws of individuals which therefore would undo anything else they’d accomplished in their life and I think that’s problematic and I think students often have a great interest in sort of leading figures because they’re interesting because they had such opportunity and indeed shaped the nation in the world in so many ways and to move away from that – no I don’t want to say forget the lessons of the past because you know history doesn’t repeat itself but it’s you know there are similarities but when you have specifically in the founding era ideas that are believed

25:59 that are put into action and are used still today as the foundations of government I think that’s really I think to dismiss that we is to put yourself at risk at your own peril here well and for me I often wonder so when I asked the kids you know is as relevant today is this if they can see that it is or they can connect it then I think that we’re doing justice for what we’re supposed to be doing I do agree there’s there are and have been in the past where kids have said this is so long ago it doesn’t apply but then you say well let’s look at the let’s look at the Bill of Rights let’s look at this let’s you know I had just told somebody we met I made them write the Bill of Rights again in modern times I said get rid of what we don’t need nobody wanted to get rid of anything it’s the only one they said we should get rid of as the quartering act I don’t want to know when living with me that I don’t know but for the most part they understood once they learned about it the value and in time period this was important so you know I think that I agree 100% we have to make sure that everyone knows that and if we base things on flaws we’re all going down like none of us are gonna make it so boys really well into a comment and question that we got from Steve on YouTube he said how do you deal with the relevance of the framers intentions we live in such a different world how do we decide how much weight to give their views that’s a great question so Craig Tracy what do you think oh that is a

27:29 great question one will we will not be able to answer and I will artfully dodge in certain ways so this is a this is the major issue legally politically socially economic however you whatever ISM or this is at the heart of it so what weight do you give original intent versus adaptation you know the did the founders know there would be nuclear weapons when they wrote a certain amendment no they did not did they foresee certain social changes of course so this is it’s it’s important to see both sides of this and I think that’s what the takeaway should be so if we go back to the Constitutional Convention there is not a universal agreement so present the Federalist the anti-federalists argument and look at how this was never a one unified idea it’s something that was born of compromise and adjustments but it was never something where someone could say this is the word it was mutually constructed yes some people have more of a hand in it than others the thing is to the founders and the framers understood they were creating a living document they put in the ability

29:01 to make amendments so that it could be amended if they did not intend this to be you know edged in stone they would have added the amendments now we could argue about well how was this put in and the political maneuvering but at the amendment the fact the amendment process exists means the our current leaders have the ability to alter the document based on how they feel is in the best interest of the nation what best reflects the best interest of the American people and it can be done now there is you have to look at there’s a different mindset when the Constitution’s created this is a United States that’s just gotten out of the war against a tyrannical king their greatest fear is a return of a domestic monarch or a tyrant so they’re they’re coming from them from a very different time period so some of the concerns they had in in the 1780s are certainly going to be different than the concerns we have in 2019 so I think it’s important to to look at both sides and to evaluate I mean some of it is language issues but evaluate what is applicable what is at the heart of the matter and it was always meant to be a document that was it had well I should say and it always has been interpreted and I believe it always will be interpreted and that’s why that’s what makes the US

30:31 Constitution probably the greatest document ever created yeah and if I could put a maybe a spin on Steve’s question because I think the way that sometimes we think about approaching this is what what are the big questions that they’re trying to answer right like what what is it what is it about the Constitution not necessarily that the policy specifics if they’re dealing with but what are the what are the questions about representation what are the big questions about about the size of government what are the big questions that they’re wrestling with in order to try to unify it makes me think of I mean obviously there’s similar questions in society today that spills over so I wonder Tracy if I can just if I can spin Steve’s question a little bit here just to ask you you know he’s talking about sort of intentions and I guess you know what our I guess we kind of already talked about this a little bit but but finding good hooks I mean I see a lot of props on the wall behind you that I’m sure you get pulled into your classrooms all the time but but good hooks for for getting students to think sort of broadly about you know historically thinking really getting into what history is which it’s you know and I we talked about what it is I think it might be fun to talk about what history isn’t but one thing that I don’t know that it is just a memorization of names dates facts and places because it’s because that’s a not very much fun then be not that complicated because things happened and we can dispute those things but but maybe how is it did you get students to really start thinking historically thinking bigger getting them to really sink their teeth into what these arguments are really about not just what

32:03 the outcome was that’s my first day lecture history isn’t names and dates hey there you go I for me personally this is just me and I don’t know what other people do but I really have developed I guess to say my room is a living timeline and it has it starts the very first thing on the wall is a 1492 no that’s way too early I wasn’t alive it’s from the French and anymore it’s a newspaper and it goes all the way down and any time I find a document or an item or something that the kids would get to touch for see I get it or it’s donated and I bring it back to the classroom and you would be amazed how much the kids want to get involved when they can see and touch things from history the joke when we set up was oh look I you know I picked the perfect spot because I you know I’m sitting in front of the flag but the kids love that this is a 48 star flag like so though I don’t have a lot of constitutional stuff obviously but I have you know I have the documents have the federalist papers the kids want to know that they were alive when we did the 9/11 story we all had memories because we were alive we can touch it we could see it we could remember it we feel it if we don’t connect to them then no one’s ever going to like history there has to be more to it than a date a time and of course there’s dates they need to remember but as far as getting them hooked they have to know the one that you as a teacher have passion for it and then – they have to know that they’re a part of it somehow so the very first day they come in and I say find your birthday on the timeline so the entire room all the way

33:35 around has items and they all go stand in one little corner and I say okay so this is when you were born and then I’ll scoot back just a little bit because I’m really young I’ll skip back just a little bit to the 70s and I’m like um this is where I was born and they all make fun of me and being old and I said but I need you to understand everything around the room that had to happen before you even were thought about that’s how big our world is and when we think we think in today’s snapchat we’re Instagram like you all live here and we have to think outside the box we have to understand that history is far more than that and that the people that started all this had no idea who you were I was and they thought about you yeah and and Tracy I love the stories that you’ve told us of that your students then go on to contribute to your timeline they there they’re out of state sales or they’re out traveling and they’ll bring you little trinkets back right yeah and they’re all over the place the room is a little chaotic but they love it so I mean I have a 1970s I just had a student bring me a TV Guide from the 1970s he’s like who’s Junior why is this a big deal I was like hey how do you know know who JR is you know but it was a big deal so I now have it on the wall and the kids like I look through it but was on limit so if someone ever brings you an original copy of the Declaration you can retire early I will well and and I’ll and I’ll probably laminate that too but I think I think the point is great about the idea of trying to place students within sort of a timeline the idea that all of the past was not building up to this moment

35:07 we are but a small part of what has happened in and what is to come and and that’s that’s that’s important lesson to keep in mind for for any modern audience regardless of their and the priming the problem especially for young people is that they have no real perspective right so their only perspective is their own experience they’re often very inward facing just due to the nature of the adolescent being one that is is very socially bound by their own social environment and so what I hear you discussing is how by situating them within a historical context you you have them look out in this really interesting way what is your experience of how how that looking out how that that exploration of different historical moments helps them reflect on the current moment how what’s your experience there I always tell them that history is a place where you could you can observe a variety of different situations and learn from mistakes without experiencing any consequences of your own so you know much like Tracy I mean the idea of things students can tangibly touch I mean I would always bring classes to archives to literally touch things George Washington touched or Abraham Lincoln touched and I think there’s so much that that can be that can be garnered by that and sometimes

36:38 it’s just overall that you know abling can touch this though they can’t hold it like that but the the idea is I think they have a chance to explore different viewpoints different people and I mean I don’t want to see you know some reverse pop psychology but the idea is they get some sense of why a person did something and especially for younger people for teenagers you can explore different ideas outside of your normal normal circle in a way that if you were to do that let’s say in your real life maybe there there are tangible issues that you’re concerned about or maybe you’re you’re shy or maybe you’re you don’t want to face a sort of peer pressure you have complete freedom when studying the past and I’ve seen people completely change their their modern viewpoints based on reading more on a historical basis for something and I think that’s good I mean or if you read it and you say you know what my viewpoint is correct and then great so long as people are engaging with different ideas and different perceptions I think I think you can’t lose even if you completely disagree with the person right and they have to learn to stand behind what their thought process Oh exactly I mean it’s really

38:10 nice to hear students say I believe this because I got to read this I think the biggest compliment is when a student comes back to me later and says okay so I was having this conversation in college or or and my parents and I were talking at dinner and they said this I think it’s I’m like and once you find out and they’ll go and you know and and there’s a rule in my class you better cite two sources don’t say well she said mm-hmm give me two want us you know and it cannot be social media yeah and I think I think that’s great that I always tell students they’re free to say anything they like but they have to be able to defend it and it can’t be well I think tell me why what is the basis for this and I think that’s a that’s a that’s a lot of it it’s provide some background some evidence some support for your viewpoints and I think most people if you are supporting a point will will listen to you whether they agree with you or not that’s a whole other different thing but it lends weight to what you have to say and as I completely don’t agree with you perfectly fine in a pluralistic society I tell my students they should disagree with they shouldn’t agree with everything I say and you know that’s important part of it that to get an A in a class they do not have to agree with me they just have to make a compelling case and support it yeah and I think history and history

39:40 books occasionally have an omniscient problem right where they are the all-knowing book of everything which i think is challenging but but I think what you guys are disco which i think is great because you’ve come right back around to our topic which is teaching history and tumultuous times right so so I don’t know we’re getting close to the end here but if you all had any understanding closing reflective thoughts on this idea but what you’re both talking about is look you know history history is a way for us to understand our own collective present in whatever way that is there’s lots of different stories I mean an innumerable number of stories from different individuals different people who are all experiencing these similar things they all come together to be sort of our national story right in knowing that somehow makes us more comfortable but not just knowing it knowing the process of thinking through it somehow affords us with an ability to go out into the present and tackle whatever news headline just popped up on my phone there’s probably been five of them since I’ve been speaking with you right and probably each more outlandish than the last trying to ensure that I click on them but the idea being that you know these are these are tools that aren’t just it’s not just about knowing this stuff there’s something bigger than that I wonder if you could both just just share whatever thoughts you may have on that sure and that’s that’s big and that’s broad so we do live in a pluralistic society there is no set national history or if there is it’s it’s stories of many different people that being said I do think there is

41:12 value and certain shared ideas or base basis of the government and basis and the ideas of the sort of founding generation and by the founding generation I don’t mean specifically the founding fathers quote-unquote anyone who helped to shape the nation so it’s a really broad and diverse story and America is a country that was founded on Liberty but with obvious exceptions for african-americans for women for for the lower classes but it’s something where Liberty was expanded because of the structure of the Constitution because of the structure of the ideas behind the nation so obviously it’s you saying we’re in a very politically divisive moment but there have been other politically divisive movements 1808 1860 these are moments that make 2019 look like nothing a threat of potential you know civil war hey President Abraham Lincoln winning based on the electoral college with less than forty percent of the popular vote these are these are all things that have gone on before so it’s important to keep things in perspective history books oftentimes particularly textbooks do sort of try to be on mission you also have to consider who the authors are and I think one of the big issues for the study of history at this moment is sometimes intentional sometimes

42:45 unintentional use of history as activism as using history to convey one political side or another and this is something that’s happened throughout history of a from left right and center but I think that’s a danger one or I should say I shouldn’t say it’s a danger but I said this is this is a this is something that in a pluralistic society we have to evaluate what’s the motivation is the motivation to educate is the motivation to inform or is the motivation to suggest a particular point of view whatever it is and and I think historians in those who study history need to maintain some form of objectivity so can you have whatever political views you want absolutely but it’s important to evaluate people based on how they viewed that moment what were their beliefs what were were their thoughts not to to extrapolate what that necessarily means right now but I have to say that I agree with I mean everything he said um and I don’t know what the level of the I mean differences for being in a pluralistic like classroom or the the way my classroom is set up or how many people are in entered the diversity or anything in high school for us we walk a very fine line so it used tiptoe any which way you can be called down because a student has videotaped you I would imagine it’s the same thing on college level and everything to you but

44:15 you know and they’re saying well this is this is what they said and because of everything going on in society as teachers as human beings we do have to know we have to know the story there is a base story can you know exists we have to understand that baseline so that we can then say okay well this is why these people thought this and this is what they thought you know exactly like he just mentioned um if I’m teaching a topic that’s going to always come back to a current event and I know it then I have to be prepared for this view on the side and this view on this side and I have to try to get them all to come together to say okay well this is why people thought that way and you walk a fine line and in high school they ask all the time what sigh do you want what do you think well what’s you know what is this and you don’t know if it’s they’re really curious because they want to know the past or if they’re really like okay I’m setting you up so what are you gonna say but even in among professional historians there’s oftentimes well what is the politics what are the views of the person who’s writing this because we can’t properly evaluate it unless we know what side they’re on and I think that’s immediately problematic and I often say that if I’ve done my job right you should know what certainly it shouldn’t matter what my politics are right and if we’ve done our job right too then then people should be able to walk away either one questioning what our politics are or two they should walk away knowing history as it stands

45:48 and what context went into it to make us what we are you know the kids it’s hard to make them understand that they’re part of this story even though it started when they weren’t around and there’s not something that they can they can’t put on a jumpsuit from that time period be like look I’m here you know a bill and ted’s adventure existed I would be the first one to sign up for the ride number three now I know but it’s interesting to to get the I mean it’s it’s every day for all of us for anybody who deals with teachers who deals with students who deals with anybody in humans anybody that’s like a human in the society is to be able to see that everyone has a different view and those of us that choose to accept all those views and move forward and understand they’re coming from a place just like from the very first question we answered when I get both sides to my kids to argue the goal is that they walk away to going well I agreed with this person and I don’t I don’t understand why you agree with this person but you do and that’s that and and and this is not not to pick on anything you said this is me agreeing but the idea that it’s often there there aren’t just two sides you know that that’s a stand-in for however many sides there are and you could come away with some sort of amalgamation of this and and someone in whatever year you want to pick had probably a view like that as well absolutely well I think we’re on we’re about wrapping up our time that was a

47:18 vigor ating conversation I’m sure we could continue we had a couple more questions come in but unfortunately we won’t be able to address them at this moment so officially thank you so much dr. Kramer Smith and Tracy Downey member of our 2019 teacher council for joining us today Kurt did you on say any goodbyes no thank you both for joining us and we’ll be back in two weeks for our Halloween episode where we’re gonna tell some fun narrative will call them scary stories from history but we’re gonna take scary as sort of a broad meaning maybe not be in historical costume I’m assuming you get working salem in somewhere we might be you like to tune in and find out you’ll have to tune in next time thank you again to our guest Thank You Kirk and thank you to all of you watching we’ll see you soon