Annoyed History Guy, MA
@chuckfinley22.bsky.social
1.3K followers 2.2K following 110 posts
John Brown fan, historian of Reconstruction & Lost Cause education, HS teacher of history & political science. Enemy of nostalgia. Long-suffering Chicago Bears fan. Army vet. Heavy metal enthusiast.
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Reposted by Annoyed History Guy, MA
Reposted by Annoyed History Guy, MA
I didn't get a picture of the best sign I saw today, but I remember what it said:

Somewhere in America
A little Hispanic girl
Is hiding in an attic
And keeping a diary.

#NoKings
Just a few of the crazies flailing around. Looks like a lot of hand to hand out there.

Just trying to enjoy the show and not get hit.
This is the setup at the venue. Things are going to get real violent real quick.
So my day today has been an eighth birthday party for my triplet niece & nephews, 30 minutes at the local No Kings event then a 3 hour drive to Cincinnati to see my son's second live show.

Busy, but productive.
My take is that, even if it is only 1 student, the ripple effect of that student can multiply the impact.

That's all that I can hope for. And based on the regular updates I get from former students, it.might be working.
No, I go there because it is important & they need to be aware & think about how this relates to the past, or in my polysci class, how it relates to ideas of governance and constitutionalism.

The other teachers in my dept avoid any discussions about current events out of fear of student responses.
There is a really good book called The Long Southern Strategy that examines that very thing. Very good read.
We often edit our own memories to lose the parts we didn't like.

That's why treating memories like actual history is problematic.
Good teachers leave a lasting impact.
It's not perfect in any way, shape, or form today, but teachers do have access to training if they want it.

We all have a choice in how we choose to approach our students, and I try to choose empathy and understanding. I'm not perfect at it, but I try. I hope that carries over in other areas to.
They didn't just lobby Congress, they lobbied presidents.

Fortunately, I live in the most diverse part of the city, and I don't have to deal with as many descendants of the hillbilly highway.
Partly training, mostly experience, whether with my students, or my daughter.

I also think (hope) that teachers care enough to try and be understanding, and to deliver knowledge in a way that works best for whomever they are communicating with.
I don't really know either. I have to hope that by sharing what I've learned in 30 years of studying & writing about history and politics, it might make a difference.

That, and teaching people to stay informed and stand for what they believe in. It's frustrating because it's not instantaneous.
Those are the people I try to avoid.

Individually, we can only do what we have the ability to do.

We all have to be in a good place for ourselves before we can expect to help others.
That is something I try to make clear to my students and anyone who asks, none of us are responsible for what happened in the past, so we should not feel guilty about it.

I do, however, think that we are responsible for what we do when we have that knowledge.

People might not agree.
I do apologize for frustrating you.

As for a solution.... it is kind of a long game.

I like to believe that by educating young people, teaching them to think critically, to be informed and to pay attention, that they will eventually overwhelm backwards thinkers at the polls.

Will it work? I hope.
I'm in Indiana, and for some reason people here think we are the South.

The Daughters had a lot of influence, and they had the Dunning School of Northern historians wrote "official" academic histories that legitimized the Daughters' narrative, so the rot is not just from the South.
I have always loved history, but I hated my classes in school for those exact reasons, so I vowed I would never be that way.

My ultimate rule is relevance: if I can't tell you why/how this should matter to you/us today, I don't teach it. We learn the past to better understand the present.
For the past 8 years, I have been a dept chair, so I get to see transcripts of student teachers and job applicants. Not a lot of history.

I fight the lack of relevance in my teacher's courses regularly. If it's not in the book, they don't teach it. There has been 0 discussion about current events.
I'm 50, so I had the experience of learning the Lost Cause narrative of events from the Civil War on. To be honest, there are still elements of it in modern textbooks (TX again).

My specialty is the Reconstruction Era and the Lost Cause narrative, so it is something I address in depth with students
I can't control what my students or anyone does with the information, but I at least want them to have it, and I want them to have the skills to find and analyze evidence on their own.

But I know from my own experience, where I was before studying history to now, it has been a 180 degree change.
Living under a false narrative makes it harder to empathize with those who struggle. If we don't know how we actually got to this point, we have less concern for those who have been overlooked at best, intentionally oppressed at worst.

Having the knowledge might not change people, but it's step 1.