Entry #2

The introduction of History as a Weapon reminded me of a history class I took here at the University of Houston, the professor started the lesson with a question in which he would answer throughout the lesson. When I first took history courses at the University level, I felt that I had been lied to my whole life because the history that was explained at the University was completely different to what high school teachers told me. The first thing that I did after a few history lectures, I decided to not think about what I “had been taught” in high school. Every week there was a new idea or a thought that conflicted with me, I either was surprised or interested at what had happened. Whenever I learned something interesting such as the reason for Thanksgiving or the way that religion was forced to Indians among other history topics, I was amused of how much it had been kept from me and the nature of people and their actions towards others that were different than them. A Brief History of Lawns describes that scholars broaden the horizons by opening new and unknown futures. That is how I felt when I was in the history class, I could only think about how the information being presented to me was already discovered yet it was not discussed with students. It is important to discuss the different possibilities that one historical event has and to also stop and think critically once in a while.


Now, every news I hear or read, I’m always thinking critically about it and researching more about the issue. I am not a passive consumer of any type of news, if I hear about a political, social, entertainment news I find more resources to know the different point of views and reasons that were mentioned. Apart from the history course I took, I also had 2 political science courses which in my opinion were not a waste of time. In that course which I took the same professor for two semesters, the class was engaging and it made us think about why certain acts, laws or policies are in placed. For example, I remember a lesson where she asked us to evaluate the Patriot Act and to give reasons for it. That was a conversation that required some time to answer due to the state of the nation and the events that had recently happened. But I also had to think about the people and their rights and their privacy. In that course, it was important for me to think about the different viewpoints, which is what teachers should do in their classroom when teaching about history. In Teaching What Really Happened the author describes that textbook authors write bodyguards of lies, which students come to understand as the only way that events happened in history. As I have read the article and reflected on how social studies is studied in the elementary school, I can say that teacher based all the information from the textbooks. This year, I am the one that teaches social studies and I look for resources and do not rely solely on the textbook.

Conversations like those, where I have to think critically and give opinions about what I think of history, is when I feel that I can shape history itself. Like A Brief History of Lawns mentioned, we can imagine alternative destinies which are the decisions that we make based o the history that we know. We, students, often think that history is boring because we are learning about dead people or others who we will never meet or see in a colored picture, yet have to know them. If 4th-12th grade classes were similar to a University level, at least in the aspect of having open conversation about topics that are sensitive but important, then students would be more knowledgeable of what it means to be American and will know that they can also shape history. Like in Hamilton “I am not throwing away my shot!”, as a future educator I have to think critically about what I’m going to teach in social studies and how I present and describe historic figures. My intention is not to lie to students, but to inform them and to make them think about the different perspectives about the events that happened.