Howard Zinn on teaching and activism

[Skip Zilla]

I just started reading Howard Zinn's You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times (1994) and stumbled upon a couple of paragraphs that raise questions in my mind about teaching and activism. Here are those paragraphs copied from page 7:

When I became a teacher I could not possibly keep out of the classroom my own experiences. I have often wondered how so many teachers manage to spend a year with a group of students and never reveal who they are, what kind of lives they have led, where their ideas come from, what they believe in, or what they want for themselves, for their students, and for the world.

Does not the very fact of that concealment teach something terrible--that you can separate the study of literature, history, philosophy, politics, the arts, from your life, your deepest convictions about right and wrong?

In my teaching I never concealed my political views: my detestation of war and militarism [Zinn was a bombardier in WW2.], my anger at racial inequality, my belief in a democratic socialism, in a rational and just distribution of the world's wealth. I made clear my abhorrence of any kind of bullying, whether by powerful nations over weaker ones, governments over their citizens, employers over employees, or by anyone, on the Right or the Left, who thinks they have a monopoly on the truth.

This mixing of activism and teaching, this insistence that education cannot be neutral on the crucial issues of our time, this movement back and forth from the classroom to the struggles outside by teachers who hope their students will do the same, has always frightened the guardians of traditional education. They prefer that education simple prepare the new generation to take its proper place in the old order, not to question that order.

Are these paragraphs and Zinn's A People's History of the United States (1980, 2003), "the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of--and in the words of--America's women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers," as unpatriotic, subversive, and dangerous as jingoists claim that they are? And if not, where does that leave us as teachers of our (American) history?

[Connie Weber]

Thank you, Skip, for this thoughtful post on historical perspective..
As they say, "Until Lions write their own history, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."
I love the book Mike mentioned, A Different Mirror by Takaki. I've read it twice, and refer back to it when we're doing our immigration in Amercian history study. I also appreciate the children's books Takaki published: "The Asian American Experience" (a 15 volume set). Outstanding children's history resources!

[Skip Zilla]

I found an interesting website titled The History of Jim Crow which includes a resourceful section on Jim Crow and Literature. Here's a brief introduction to these resources:

Jim Crow and the environment it created have played instrumental roles in a broad spectrum of significant American writing from both the 19th and 20th centuries. Teachers have begun to send in their ideas on the literature that addresses the Jim Crow years. Humanities teachers have combined literature and history for years, and the thematically driven curriculum standards are now falling in line behind the theory that combining the two curricula makes for meaningful learning experiences for students.

I found The History of Jim Crow website listed as one of the favorites of a George Mason University website titled History Matters, which hasn't been updated in a couple of years but which provides an annotated guide to many very useful and still active websites for teaching U.S. history and social studies.

[Anna Billings]

Two more classics to add to the Native American history reading list: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown and Black Elk Speaksby John G. Neihardt.

[Vincent Mespoulet]

i agree with you, but the marxist viewpoint of Zinn is not propaganda, his work is very serious, well documented for a European like me. I'm not marxist, but i use dialectical philosophy as a tool... History is never neutral. Hope you'll share your favorite history writing :) . I'm reading a lot about history of Africa and History of China...

[Skip Zilla]

Perhaps, Vincent, there is a genuine subversiveness to any education which isn't political/cultural propaganda. ;)

[Vincent Mespoulet]

i teach history, and i was very impressed by A People's History of the United States : it's one of the most important book i read about the history of your country... i think i teach french history as Zinn teach amercian history, and be sure i'm not so subversive :) (just a little)

[Skip Zilla]

Hi Mike,
These titles tell the other side of the story that is found in the typical American history textbook. Thank goodness there are a number of younger (and some older) who are re-examining the data and drawing more inclusively accurate interpretations. I'll have to share some of my favorite history writing, not only about the United States, but also about many, even ancient civilizations which have for too long been seen through a European/American ideological lens.

[Mike]

Hi Skip.... Education is never neutral..... unless you want to really put everyone to sleep!!!

Love history..... a few favorites....

There is a River- The Black Struggle For Freedom in America- Vincent Harding

A Different Mirror- A History of Multicultural America- Ronald Takaki

The Earth Shall Weep- A History of Native America- James Wilson

The Journey of Crazy Horse- Joseph M. Marshall III

Of course none of these books or many others were ever given out in a school!!!!

be well... good reading and learning....... mike