teaching
“Coming Out” in the Classroom: When the Personal is Pedagogical
June, 2014 · By Justin Bengry
I’ve never come out to my students. I’ve never stood at the front of a classroom and told my students that I’m gay, and I’ve never told them witty anecdotes about my husband. That isn’t to say that I’m not completely out both professionally and personally (as google will immediately tell anyone). All of my academic bio pages highlight my work in queer history, and when introducing myself to new classes I describe my research on homosexuality and capitalism. Few students would be surprised to know I’m gay.
Still, I’ve wondered what impact explicitly identifying my sexuality would have on teaching, learning, discussions and the overall atmosphere of the classroom. That being said, my teaching so far has mostly included broad surveys of traditional European political history, courses whose structure and content was largely already determined for me. While I had the freedom to reorganize some lectures to explore topics in gender and sexuality, my own sexual identity has had little overlap with what I teach, at least so far. But looking ahead, I wanted to know how others navigate this potentially challenging terrain. So, I put the word out to friends, colleagues and mentors whose sexual identities are various and not always static. Each has chosen either to come out or withhold identifying their sexuality in the classroom for a variety of reasons, personal, pedagogical and political.
This post was originally published at “NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality” on 10 June 2014.
School’s Out: A Postdoc’s Life
(Year I)
March, 2011 · By Justin Bengry
Wow, is it really the end of the (Canadian) semester? Well, almost. Classes end next week, my students’ final is a week later, I’m at a conference by the end of the month, a stop at home, and then Europe one more week after that. Whew…not a moment too soon!
Everyone here is feeling the strain, and straining for the relief that the end of term promises. The winter has been unseasonably cold and long in Saskatoon. Many of us are looking forward to research trips abroad. And of course, grading responsibilities and other duties tend to hit hardest at the end of the term.
Reflecting on the year behind me though, I’ve gained so much at the University of Saskatchewan. I’m surrounded by generously supportive colleagues who have never wavered in helping me adjust to the unfamiliar life of a junior scholar. I can’t speak highly enough of our Chair, support staff, History Department faculty and grad students, and my fellow postdocs, all of whom have welcomed me and answered innumerable questions and requests with poise and kindness. My postdoc supervisor, a kind and gentle elder scholar, has become a mentor and friend. And with their collective help I’ve gained professional experience, credibility, increased my publishing output, and laid the foundations for a potential future in academia. I owe them more than I can express, and this blog post is in part a thank-you.
But this year has also been a challenge, and I definitely feel I’ve needed the entire year to settle in to Saskatoon. When I arrived I looked forward to having the best of both worlds as a postdoc: I could interact with the faculty while still relating to the graduate students. In reality, it wasn’t so simple, and the postdoc doesn’t immediately fit in either group. That’s the part you have to learn on the ground. A postdoc is (at least at first) a solitary experience. It takes a painfully long time to build up relationships and connections in a new department when you’re neither student nor professor. I’ve felt completely welcomed in my department from the first day, but it really is only in the last month or two that I have really felt a part of the department.
Teaching plays a big role in building relationships and sustaining that feeling of being part of something. My own work and research is largely independent, but teaching is a collaborative exercise. I’ve welcomed the advice of current profs, discussed teaching strategies with grad students, and simply been in the department more as an instructor. Without teaching this term, I might be further along in my research and revisions, but I’d also be more dislocated and detached from any intellectual or other community at the university.
A postdoc, however, really is the most incredible opportunity, particularly these days as competition for professional positions in academia becomes ever more fierce. But future employment aside, a postdoc is also an amazing opportunity to evaluate your own goals and values. How does academia look from the inside when you’re no longer a student? How does it feel to be at the front of the class with no safety net or anyone to defer to?
The smartest things the organizers of my current postdoc did was to make it two years long. If it were ending now, I’d feel as if the rug were being pulled out from under me just as I was gaining balance. I’m incredibly fortunate, having built these connections and friendships, professional skills and intellectual output, still to have a second year to continue forward. So, here’s to A Postdoc’s Life, Year II!
(To be continued…)
This blog was originally published on History Compass Exchanges on
31 March 2011.
Is Wikipedia the Devil? Or the Devil we Know?
March, 2011 · By Justin Bengry
Students rely on Wikipedia. Professors can pretend that their threats of Fs on assignments matter, but in reality it offers little deterrent. Students can and do weave facts, information, opinions and interpretations that they find online into their papers. If the material seems reasonable, or general, or cited elsewhere, it might not even draw our attention, particularly when we have to grade 50 or 75 or 90 term papers on a weekend. What is the solution?
One answer, probably the most common, is to scold and threaten. We tell our students that Wikipedia is an inappropriate and unacceptable source for historical research and writing. We threaten them with Fs and rewrites. Another answer is to explain to students why Wikipedia is an unreliable source. It lacks appropriate documentation of sources, and is written by individuals with uncertain research skills who base entries largely on sometimes-dubious secondary material. And then we threaten them with Fs and rewrites. But is there a third solution? We know our students use Wikipedia. Can we use this to our advantage? Can we teach them about online sources and how to determine the credibility of what they read and discover? Can we undermine their reliance on Wikipedia, while at the same time use it as a teaching tool?
All term I’ve told my students that Wikipedia is an inappropriate source for university work, and that recourse to it in their work is forbidden. This seemed to work, and their term paper proposals and other writings have so far remained fairly clean. Then I read the midterms. All material necessary for complete answers to all midterm questions was available in lectures, documents, and text readings. But when I graded the midterms, I began to find unexpected references to statistics and details I was unfamiliar with appearing in more than one exam. I googled particular terms and discovered that even when provided with all materials necessary for a complete A-range response on the exam, my students still used Wikipedia as a study tool. And they clearly made notes that they then memorized, preferring the statistical “facts” to the focus on interpretation that I emphasized.
After frustration and disappointment passed, I thought about what I could do. Forbidding Wikipedia is only a partial success, and impossible to enforce completely. Promising to deliver instant Fs on any work relying on it seems too draconian. Certainly there has to be something to learn here, something that we can apply to the classroom?
Over at the Cliotropic blog Shane Landrum has one idea. Noticing that Women’s History was significantly underdeveloped on facebook, Shane is exploring the idea of assigning Wikipedia building and cleanup assignments:
If you teach history courses on women, gender, or sexuality, or on the history of any racial or ethnic minority in the United States, it’s worth considering adding a Wikipedia assignment to your syllabus. … Students could learn a lot about what we know and how we know it from editing the articles, and I think it also would teach them to be more skeptical the next time they try to use Wikipedia as a reference.
As Shane points out, others are already building similar assignments in exciting ways. A historian of ancient Rome has worked out many of the logistics:
I’ve used the “stubs” feature of Wikipedia to generate a list of 120 topics relating to ancient Roman civilization that need full articles. Then I’m requiring the 120 students in my upcoming Roman Civilization class to each write one article. This will hopefully teach them how to do original research in the library on obscure, narrowly focused topics and then create something of lasting value to others. The students will also be required to each review three of their fellow students’ articles in order to learn about the collaborative editing process. I’m a little nervous about its success, but I’m hoping to be part of the solution to the issues raised by Wikipedia, rather than contributing to the problems.
I’m convinced that there’s something to this. I’m wary of validating Wikipedia as a legitimate source through assignments like this, but I can see the immediate value offered by giving students the opportunity to do original research for publication in a venue they can already identify with. And maybe if they realize that the people writing entries are no more expert than themselves, they’ll have a greater awareness of the risks of using Wikipedia as a source.
This blog was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
3 March 2011.
Where we fail our students: Writing Skills
February, 2011 · By Justin Bengry
I firmly believe that one of the great benefits of an education in history is the development of writing skills. I strive for that in myself, and encourage it in my students. Writing skills will continue to benefit them beyond my classroom, in other disciplines, and beyond the academy. I’m certainly not alone in this belief, and almost universally I hear from other professors, lecturers, and TAs how important writing skills are to them as well. But what do we really do about it? We mark up papers, we make ourselves available for consultation, and we direct students to university writing centres. Is that really enough?
But doing more comes with its own pressures. I realized this recently when I decided to devote an entire lecture period to discussing writing issues. Initially I planned only to devote 15-20 minutes to addressing the most egregious writing problems I discovered in recent student assignments. But by the time I created slides with examples, I realized that more than half the class period would be required simply to go through them all, leaving inadequate time for “real content”—as in the history part.
I went back and forth all day, worrying that I was somehow doing my students a disservice by devoting less time to EU formation or Soviet politics or whatever else was scheduled that week. The importance of the “real content” of history has been so ingrained into us, I realized, that I felt like I was somehow cheating, or not doing my job, because I was going to spend an entire class period helping students with writing concerns, and working with them to build their written communication skills.
Many of us put hours into grading, where we correct grammar and spelling errors, suggest ways of clarifying arguments, and highlight awkward writing so that students can later improve it. How much does this accomplish? Do students really look closely at these suggestions or incorporate them into their work? Short of assigning drafts and revisions, it sometimes seems that there is little we can do to help students improve their writing skills.
What I realized is that if we value writing skills, and if we truly believe that improving our students’ written communication skills is one of the goals of history education, we need to work actively toward that goal. It’s not enough to correct papers and expect students to studiously incorporate suggestions into work in their next course when it’s another professor’s problem. Nor is it sufficient to shuffle them off to the writing centre (though these are valuable and often underutilized resources). Instead we have to make the teaching of strong writing skills part of our own project as well.
In smaller courses, or larger courses with TAs, we can ask students to work on a paper throughout the term, handing in drafts and revisions, each contributing to their grades. We can also reward genuine effort and writing improvement in their grades as well. In courses like mine which are officially too small for TAs but too large for everyone to submit multiple drafts, we can devote lecture time to writing skills, and turn some class time over to actual writing exercises. At the moment I devote one day a week to document discussion, but in the future, I plan to turn one of those classes each month over toward writing development.
Too often we fail our students in this area. They earn poor or failing grades because they are unable to express themselves effectively. But too often we also fail to teach them the skills the need to be able to communicate better. What have you done to focus on writing skills in your classroom? As a student what have you found most useful? How do we make a history education about both content and skills?
This post was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
3 February 2011.
Re-teaching Gender and Sexuality
December, 2010 · By Justin Bengry
Issues related to homosexuality are currently at the forefront of public discourse. Globally, but particularly in the United States, marriage equity, military service, queer youth and bullying are not just matters of policy debate, but have engaged popular concern and action as well. Seattle columnist Dan Savage’s recent ‘It Gets Better Project’, for instance, has captured an extraordinary degree of public interest, using short video clips of ordinary people, celebrities and global figures to help draw attention to bullying and suicides among queer youth.
But it is another short online video, titled ‘{THIS} is Reteaching Gender and Sexuality’, which is in part a criticism of the ‘It Gets Better Project’, that challenges us to reconsider our understandings of sexuality while drawing attention to the plight of queer youth. In the ‘Reteaching’ video, queer youth appear in their own right, speaking for themselves, demanding immediate social and cultural change, not just the promise of something better somewhere down the road. But far more than draw attention to bullying and structures of oppression, they want us instead to recalibrate how we define sexuality and sexual identities. As two speakers put it, ‘I can like boys and girls. … I can be none of the above’.
So how does this relate to history? Well, we can be part of the re-teaching project, in fact, we already are. In our case, it’s not re-teaching, it’s simply telling the histories of our subjects in the context of their own worlds, rather than through the limitations or needs of our own.
I recently reviewed Barry Reay’s New York Hustlers: Masculinity and Sex in Modern America. Reay’s main argument is that the world of hustlers (male prostitutes) and trade (men who had sex with other men without identifying as gay) illuminates how sexual practices and identities throughout much of the twentieth century challenge rigid heterosexual-homosexual binarisms. Reay positions himself against scholars who overlook this rich sexual fluidity and flexibility of the mid twentieth century in favour of narratives that lead only to the creation of a recognizably modern gay identity.
Other scholars have identified sexual flexibility among working-class men and military men across the twentieth century in Britain and America. But such studies still tend to be couched in terms of understanding how we got to modern understandings of gay identity, an identity defined as wholly different and separate from heterosexuality. Reay instead follows the lives of men who fail to neatly fit these categories. Nor do they conveniently remain consistent in their sexual practices over a lifetime. The fluidity of their sexual object choices, in fact, sound remarkably similar to the queer youth described above.
Reviewing this book made me think about how we can teach (or re-teach) gender and sexuality. Reay’s study need not be confined to gender, sexuality or queer history courses. His work offers insights into urban history, twentieth-century America, histories of crime, migration and ethnicity.
Gender and sexuality should, and must, appear in courses other than those devoted wholly to gender and sexuality. But so too should religion and faith, military and war, economics and commerce, ethnic and minority groups, and the list goes on. Of course we can’t do the fullest justice to each of these in every course, but we can create a culture of inclusivity in the classroom. And inclusivity applies to students as well as historical actors. Ultimately, including one can create a place for the other.
Clearly categories which organize our world are changing, but categories that organize our teaching need to change too.
This post was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
17 December 2010.
On Being A Teaching Assistant (TA) In Grad School
December, 2010 · By Justin Bengry
Grad school funding comes in many forms.
Some students are lucky enough to be awarded fellowships (scholarships that don’t need to be repaid). Others rely on student loans.
Most graduate students will at some point encounter TAships, or teaching assistantships, where they act as discussion leaders, graders, and tutorial instructors for a larger class run by a professor.
Being a TA is often a first chance to teach, to be in a position of authority, and to evaluate students’ progress. It’s a big responsibility and one that takes time to grow into.
By the time you’ve reached grad school you’ve had plenty of professors, lab instructors, and TAs. You’ve seen good teachers and you’ve seen bad teachers. But it’s an entirely different matter when you are at the front of the room and everyone is looking at you.
Being a TA is often a first chance to teach, to be in a position of authority, and to evaluate students’ progress. It’s a big responsibility and one that takes time to grow into.
While some people are natural leaders, they still have a lot to learn, because being a TA is not just about teaching.
Authority
The biggest challenge to new teachers is establishing their authority in the classroom. This is especially difficult for new TAs who might only be a year or two older than their students. When I began TAing, I was actually younger than most of my students for the first couple years!
The important thing to remember is that you are an instructor, not a friend. Your job is to impart valuable information, help students grapple with challenging subjects, and evaluate their success. If your primary concern is whether the students like you, it becomes impossible to complete your responsibilities effectively and professionally.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t have great rapport with your students. Ideally, your class sections should be something you and your students look forward to. You will build relationships with some students over several classes, and even beyond their degrees. Some students will in the future become your friends. But when you teach you need to remain professional and objective.
Grading
If anything stresses out new TAs, it is grading. Evaluating other students is an entirely new task for most, and doing it fairly and consistently takes practice and confidence.
It is important both for your students and for you to have a grading rubric that explains what constitutes an “A” paper, a “B” paper, etc. This establishes your expectations for students, but also helps you to conceptualize what you will expect for each grade range. In time you won’t need this but to begin with, it is a valuable tool benefiting everyone.
Perhaps the biggest stress, however, is how to deal with students who appeal their grades. Some students simply want to know how to improve their work, while others can be confrontational and aggressive. In either case, it’s important to have clear and established policies for how to deal with the situation.
I put as many comments as possible on assignments so that students knew exactly how their grade was determined. I’m also a strong believer in the power of red ink. Students are invariably surprised to find a grade higher than they expected after seeing so much ink on their papers. Few complain. I also never let students speak to me about grades without a 24 hour “cooling down” period.
Teaching
Teaching is probably the easiest part of being a TA. For the most part, at least in the humanities, you will be clarifying themes, going over assignments, and explaining concepts to students that have already been introduced by the professor. It is not your responsibility to teach new material. You are the TA; an assistant, not a professor.
The important thing to remember is that you already have several years more experience and knowledge than your students. You might not know every detail of the material they are learning, but you know how to find it. And it’s OK simply to say that you’ll look something up when a question stumps you. Looking something up and coming back to students with an answer shows you’re engaged and taking them seriously. You earn respect.
When you first TA, your supervising professor and senior TAs will be invaluable resources. They will likely already have grading rubrics, assignment templates, and support materials. Seek this out, save it, modify it, and most of all enjoy yourself!
This post was originally published at TalentEgg on 13 December 2010.
Why (and how) do we teach history?
November, 2010 · By Justin Bengry
One of my responsibilities as a postdoc at the University of Saskatchewan is to teach one course per year. This isn’t entirely new to me. I TAed for a dozen years, and was the instructor of record for a course last year at the University of California. But I’m still pretty junior in terms of running my own classes.
In anticipation of teaching a course in twentieth-century European history this coming term, I’m thinking about how I want to structure the course, organize themes, and what I want to impart to my students. Essentially, the purpose of the course will affect its structure. But what is the purpose of the course? Why do we teach history? And how does this affect our delivery?
These are questions I’ve struggled with throughout graduate school, and now beyond. I want to nurture in my students an engagement and passion with the subjects and themes that have drawn me to history: the power of lived experience, the importance of minority positions to broader social concerns, and the possibility of positive change. But is that all I want my students to take from my classes? No.
What’s perhaps even more important, I believe, are the skills they can learn in a history class. Students learn to critically engage with sources by asking questions about who created them and for what purposes. They also learn how to communicate effectively, strengthening their oral communication skills in seminar situations, and honing their written communication skills in essays and exams. Students also build their critical thinking skills as they are asked to evaluate historical situations, events, and individuals’ motivations. They need to grapple with understanding the forces of change and continuity, and the competing interests which direct them.
So this brings me back to the class I’m planning. If I want students to take best advantage of my course to gain and improve their skills, how can I best facilitate that?
I’m very ambivalent about the lecture model of education. Part of this is because I have so little experience giving lectures, but also because I believe it too easily allows students to remain passive rather than active learners. That isn’t to say that lectures don’t have a role in education, allowing students the opportunity to gain insights and direction from experts in a particular field. And we’ve all certainly had excellent lectures from whom we’ve gained a lot. But I think they are limited in what they can offer most students.
I believe strongly in the seminar model, which I’ve used very successfully in my past teaching experience. My students learned a great deal from close reading and discussion of sources and documents—and so did I. That course, however, included only about a dozen students, an ideal number for engaged and active learning. In January, I’ll be teaching more than 50, far too many to sit around one table.
So my solution is to hybridize, creating a combination of lecture and seminar opportunities. Since we will meet three times a week, I’m planning to devote two days to lectures, which will frame the material, establish common background, and create a base upon which we can further explore particular themes. Fridays, then, will be turned over to self-directed groups who will discuss pre-circulated questions based on primary and secondary readings related to that week’s lectures. There is no way to engage all 50 students at once in a seminar, so groups will comprise 6-8 students, and a rotating group leader who will facilitate conversation. I will circulate, observe, answer questions, and interject only as needed.
I’m excited about this model: a compromise which allows me to work effectively with 50+ students, but which also creates and environment where each one has to engage with sources and communicate his or her thoughts. Since I truly believe that the benefit derived from studying history isn’t always about the content, but rather about the skills we teach students, this model seems a stronger method to achieve that.
But I’m curious to hear how others have handled these medium sized courses that are too large to be true seminars, but small enough to offer some opportunity to go beyond traditional lectures to promote active and engaged learning. What have you done? What has succeeded, and what has failed?
This post was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
5 November 2010.
Making the Grade
May, 2010 · By Justin Bengry
I’ve always been ambivalent about grading.
I question how much students really learn from exams. I know, for example, that I forgot everything I ever learned about the Revolutions of 1848 until I actually had to relearn and then teach them again myself.
I question whether undergraduates really need to learn the content of exams. Is it not better for them to complete a course having gained better critical thinking skills, improved communication and writing skills, and an appreciation for history rather than by supplying a flawless (but regurgitated) retelling of the events of 1792 in France?
And I question the effect that grading has on instructors, who must toil through 50 answers to the same question about China’s Cultural Revolution. Of course there are some shining stars, but many answers reflect relatively passive learning and a bit of studying the night before. I love teaching, but I’m never more depressed than after reading student exams and realizing that my love of history and language is only mine and seldom theirs. It is only reflected back to me in a few exciting papers, and rarely from only the students with the highest grades.
But why should my students have the same priorities and passions as me? Just because they are in a history class doesn’t mean they need to love history. History is really just the means, the method, a pedagogical tool. I’m not in the business of creating mini-Justins (aside: Oh, what a world it would be!), rather I want my excitement for knowledge and learning to impart a sense of curiosity and opportunity among students.
Grading quashes that for both of us.
Duke University English professor Cathy Davidson seems to feel the same way:
I loved returning to teaching last year after several years in administration . . . except for the grading. I can’t think of a more meaningless, superficial, cynical way to evaluate learning in a class on new modes of digital thinking (including rethinking evaluation) than by assigning a grade.
I encountered Davidson’s work while reading about her experiment with peer-evaluation techniques. Earlier this month Inside Higher Ed reported on the success of her course “Your Brain on the Internet.”
On her blog, Prof. Davidson explained her grading methodology as “crowdsourcing,” basically peer review, with evaluations based on performance contracts with the students. The course was already organized as a seminar led each week by students, she explained, but where formerly students had only been responsible for reading each other’s work, they would now be required to evaluate it. If the “crowd” deemed it satisfactory, it earned that week’s points. If not, students had the option to revise and resubmit.
Davidson was overjoyed with the outcome:
Whether in conversation or in the presentations, my students often took the best writing on a topic and then took it to a new level, with greater complexity and greater attention to a range of possibilities (rather than polemic) that quite literally any published work on the same topic.
But not surprisingly, critics to this method have appeared. This week, Leonard Cassuto, a professor of English at Fordham University responded in Inside Higher Ed. While he recognized the benefit to questioning grading methodologies, he ultimately felt it was the professor’s responsibility and duty to rank students in a meaningful way. Davidson’s method was unhelpful, he worried, when all of her students earned As.
I think avoiding grading (or some comparable form of rigorous evaluation by the instructor) shirks necessary responsibility, avoids necessary comparison, and puts the humanities at even greater risk of bring branded “soft” than they already face. […] The bottom line question is this: if everyone gets As, does that mean that Yale Law School will simply accept them all?
In the end, Davidson’s class comprised just 16 students, and on a larger scale her methods would, I expect, distribute grades differently. I am, therefore, excited about Professor Davidson’s experiments in teaching and grade evaluation, and I think there is a great deal of space (and need) for innovation. But Professor Cassuto identifies important reservations about the effect such methods could inadvertently have on students who wish to go on.
Davidson’s experiment does, however, bring up a number of questions: Does peer evaluation imperil the humanities? How can we more effectively evaluate students? On what should we evaluate them? Perhaps this offers an excellent opportunity to apply digital technologies more fully to the humanities classroom? And in the History classroom, is there space for this kind of evaluation method?
This post was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
20 May 2010.
History Matters: The High Stakes (and Higher Value) of History
March, 2010 · By Justin Bengry
The Texas State Board of Education’s changes to the state’s social studies curriculum have highlighted the political motivations behind the histories that are taught in schools. In response to the board’s conservatism, the left wrings its hands in dismay, the right smiles with vindication, and centrists ask to restore some kind of balance. But we should be concerned about more than political allegiances. There is more at stake than “correct” or “balanced” or “fair” histories. We need to question not only the power of political factions to promote particular visions of history, but also the profit motives that have made some histories more saleable and therefore more powerful than others.
Many are decrying the board’s revisions for putting a “conservative stamp” on the state’s curricula. According to the New York Times, they endorse the superiority of American capitalism, question the history of secular government, and promote Republican political philosophies. Even just a cursory look over other recent commentary on the subject shows how high the stakes are and how strong the divide remains, even outside Texas. Famously conservative Phyllis Schlafly welcomes a turn away from the imposition of liberal “revisionist histories,” while on the other side Diane Ravitch accuses Texas of promoting ignorance. Other commentators worry about wider effects on education. If textbooks modeled on the Texas state curriculum are successful, they could enter classrooms throughout the country. Such is the power of a large state to influence how history is taught across the country.
Ok, how surprised should we be that history is a fraught and disputed subject? Of course it is. It’s invested with diverse meanings that inform personal beliefs and collective identities. We are heavily invested in history, and that shows up in the Texas textbook debates. Nor should we be surprised that groups on either side of the political divide are deeply concerned about what appears in textbooks, each accusing the other of promoting a particular agenda. Both sides, of course, are correct to question what appears in textbooks. We should constantly re-evaluate received knowledge, question “obvious” wisdom, and be prepared to refashion textbook histories. The point that critics and commentators alike miss in this debate, however, is the sale of history. Money over content.
I would like to be able to blame extremists for the bastardization of history. But I can’t, at least I can’t completely. Even those with whom I disagree, whose positions I abhor, are using an existing opportunity to put forward their values and beliefs. That isn’t the fundamental problem here. The content of textbooks is up for debate not because zealots have undermined history, but because publishers want or need to make a profit off of it, and worse still may be less concerned about content than contracts.
Textbooks will be rewritten because Texas represents an enormous market. And books that meet that market’s “needs” stand to gain enormous readerships, and perhaps lucrative ongoing contracts. Their potential influence and authority in schools and among pupils will not necessarily be based on their historical and intellectual rigor, but on their ability to sell to the Texas market. So, the problem might not be so much that history is politicized. That is, after all, why history is important. The problem is that politicized history is up for sale.
Further Reading:
For an overview to this issue see the History News Network roundup of coverage.
This blog was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
26 March 2010.
Out in the Academy: Why Teach Queer History?
January, 2010 · By Justin Bengry
Recent events at the American Historical Association’s annual conference in San Diego have raised questions about how we as historians consider homosexuality and LGBTQ issues, both in our own research and teaching as well as the professional as a whole. At the AHA, queer scholars, scholars of sexuality, allies, and other supporters expressed concerns about events taking place at the Manchester Grand Hyatt because of its association with Douglas Manchester, a prominent supporter of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. Many observed a boycott of the hotel, finding accommodation elsewhere and avoiding panels at the Hyatt. Others participated in mini-conference sessions specifically addressing LGBTQ issues and histories.
This interest in contemporary gay and lesbian issues at our national conference also forces us to consider how we, as historians, address gay and lesbian histories on a smaller scale in our own work. After all, it is in the university with our students where many of us will have the greatest impact. This is not to say that we as historians should make it our mission to teach a particular politics in the classroom. Our students come from a wide variety of backgrounds, faiths, and political positions. We can respect these perspectives, and the positions of our students, even as we seek to explore questions of contemporary relevance that might be fraught with personal passions and politics.
At one AHA mini-conference session on Proposition 8, Jennifer Manion (Connecticut College) evaluated historians’ engagement with LGBTQ lives and histories. Even as queer history has grown as a subfield in the last two decades, and an increasing number of dissertations explore gay and lesbian questions, too often professors’ treatment of LGBTQ history is little more than neglect. Few textbooks incorporate more than a couple paragraphs on gay and lesbian lives. Arguably, for many professors, fitting queer topics into already full syllabi means dropping another subject in favor of what many colleagues, chairs, and tenure committees might see as only a relatively small, marginalized group. But, argues Manion, even ongoing interest in a few important or successful books like George Chauncey’s Gay New York has amounted to little more than tokenism, rather than a genuine reconceptualization of what and how we teach.
Which brings us back to the first question: Why teach queer history? Very often, history is in fact the study of the present. Our research and publications can inform heated questions that society must still deal with. Is this not also the case with same-sex marriage? And is it not incumbent upon us to include gay and lesbian histories in our courses, syllabi, and overall department catalogues? Opposition to issues like gay marriage might be based on personal values, faith, and other perspectives. It is not our job to “correct” these positions. But, opposition can also be based on false histories, lack of knowledge, and ahistorical arguments that deny the past. A reconceptualization of our teaching strategies that incorporates gay and lesbian histories into courses as part of the diversity of our nations and communities, rather than as a theme week or small graduate seminar, necessarily promotes understanding and sensitivity to difference in the past, and perhaps the present too.
For the AHA’s response see:
here and
For other responses to the AHA and the Hyatt boycott see:
http://tenured-radical.blogspot.com/2009/11/status-of-american-historical.html
http://www.historiann.com/2010/01/09/historiann-exclusive-classy-claude-at-the-aha-in-san-diego/
http://tenured-radical.blogspot.com/2010/01/guest-post-aha-blew-it.html
This blog was originally published at History Compass Exchanges on
28 January 2010.