Perspectives of History

Since Christmas vacation, I have gotten the chance to talk about US history in 2 of my classes for multiple weeks. It has been a wonderful opportunity to talk about something that interests me and to share a part of American culture. While many people think I'm crazy for studying history, my experience in these classrooms  only continued to reinforce the reasons why I think history is fantastic! Most people that don't like history think it's boring: history is simply a list of people and dates to be memorized and regurgitated for a test and not helpful at all in the real world. While I'm not necessarily a proponent of the idea that studying history keeps us from repeating it, I love history because it is so much richer than names and dates. It requires critical thinking and analyses and is a fantastic tool to understand why a person, idea, culture, or nation is the way it is. That being said, our personal culture, national identity, etc. is also a lens through which we see and interpret history.

History itself is culture specific. I took a Chinese history class during my undergrad and I learned a lot. When we were studying World War 2 (China was an ally during the war, although that fact is often forgotten in our Euro-American focus), our teacher mentioned that many Chinese saw the early 1930s as the beginning of World War 2. That's right, early 1930s. Not 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland (which is when it starts for Europe). And not 1941, when the US gets involved. China and Japan had continuous conflicts from that early date that continued into WW2. For the Chinese, nothing changed when Hitler came to power. They were still fighting the Japanese, so for them, the war started sooner. That story has nothing to do with me being in France, but it was the first time that I had really studied a non-Western nation and been given such a different perspective of a global event that I had studied multiple times. And I loved it! History, and how we tell the story, is directly linked to our culture and our experiences, which makes it really cool, in my opinion, to study other nations' history (or history from another nation's perspective).

So now, back to France. In one class of freshman age students, I did a 3-week unit on World War 2 from the American perspective.  I had 3 big themes: the start of the war and Pearl Harbor, the home front, the end of the war. I didn't want to go into detailed military stuff, and purposefully didn't include a day about the Holocaust because in every US history class I have ever taken, we completely separate WW2 and the Holocaust. We acknowledge that they happened simultaneously, but we study them separately. So here a few things that blew my kids minds.

1) They didn't know about Pearl Harbor, or the entire war in the Pacific. Those ideas were completely new to them. And they didn't know that we joined the war 2 years later than they did.

2) They couldn't believe that I didn't mention the Holocaust, or Hitler really, because that is almost all they talk about in France in regards to the war.

3) They finally learned who Uncle Sam was. They have a poster of him in the room, but without any context.

4) They learned who the Andrews Sister were, and all about USO shows and big band music, which they liked.

5) My husband's grandfather was at Omaha Beach on D-Day, and I shared some his memories with the class. They couldn't believe some of of the things that he saw and had to do.

I got even more historical and talked about some of the myths that Americans have about the war, showing that the American perspective isn't always right. It was difficult for them because of the language barrier, but I really think they liked hearing the American perspective. For some of them, it really opened their eyes to a world outside of France. Accomplishing a teaching goal achievement unlocked!!

In the other class, they are talking about segregation in the US from 1865 to the Civil Rights Movements. These are senior level students, and with them, I give them a document and they have 20 minutes to write an outline of a description of the document, its message, and their thoughts before they present and we talk about the documents. I only have up to 4 students each week. One of the documents was a collage of pictures showing the process of desegregation in schools, like black students being escorted into or out of a school building by military or police. In America, iconic pictures. I didn't give them any context for these pictures, and didn't even think twice about it until the first group of students went to describe the picture. They thought the blacks students were being expelled and were dangerous since there were so many military men surrounding them. (Although they were confused about the 6 year old girl in one picture and why she was dangerous.) Other possible explanations that I got were:

~the black students were illegal immigrants and being deported. (They just finished studying Mexican immigration to the US)
~the military was blocking the entrance to the school to keep the black students out

...and multiple other random ones. From then on, I always let the students share what they thought and then apologized for accidentally tricking them. It was good though, because we talked about how the reality of the picture changed our reaction to it.

The second document was even more interesting. It was a portion of an interview with Fannie Lou Hamer, (an often forgotten hero of the Civil Rights movement) with her recounting the first time she tried to register to vote in Mississippi in 1962. The students did a really good job of understanding that it was a group of blacks that was trying to register together and that she was forced to take an impossible literacy test, so was unable to vote. They also understood that the bus got pulled over on their way home.  From there, the story gets a little strange. The police arrest the driver, citing that the bus has too much yellow on it and fine him $100. To anyone who has studied this, or really any American who is told the date and place, it is just a good example of blatant racist behavior. The first time the students presented this, our conversation went like this.

Student: "The driver of the bus was arrested."
Me: "Why?"
S: "We don't know. We don't understand that part."
Me: "Well, what words don't you know?"
S: "It's not the words. We just don't understand. We must be reading it wrong."
Me: "Well, what does it say?"
S: "That the bus had too much yellow on it. (I'm nodding to confirm that they are correct.) But that can't be it. How is that possible? It doesn't make sense."
Me: "That's what the police said. Why do you really think they were pulled over and the driver was arrested? What's the real reason?"

It took about 15 or 20 seconds of awkward silence for someone to venture that they were pulled over and arrested because they were black. And this same conversation kept resurfacing each week. How could they arrest him because the bus was yellow?! Their incredulity at such a transparently (for me) racist action really struck me. France experiences racism, don't get me wrong, and I talked about that with my students, but they were unable to fathom the extent of segregation and racism in the US.

It was fascinating watching a first-time reaction to 2 topics that I have studied in-depth for several years. These days of teaching are some of the times I tell myself, "I would actually enjoy teaching at a level where I could have these discussions," and "I love history!" Those are the good days.

From France with love!