Why History Must Be "Alive"

“For the majority of the twentieth century, Americans thought of the past as foundational to, but separate from, the present, and they learned and thought about history in informational terms.

“But Rymsza-Pawlowska argues that the popular culture of the 1970s reflected an emerging desire to engage and enact the past on a more emotional level: to consider the feelings and motivations of historic individuals and, most importantly, to use this in reevaluating both the past and the present. This thought-provoking book charts the era’s shifting feeling for history, and explores how it serves as a foundation for the experience and practice of history making today.”

This overview of M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska 's History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s (2017) asserts an important mission for those who study history: reevaluating the past and the present to make history “come alive.” To bring history out of the textbooks and into lives generates interest and needed change. We don’t want to repeat our past mistakes, and if we have the chance, who wouldn’t want to change the future?

What do you want history to be? Do you want its pertinence to be limited to some documents and other artifacts of bygone events and human affairs? Or, do you want to understand how past principles and beliefs influence the present? This requires interpretation and research that opens new doors of relevance.

Historical revisionism identifies the re-interpretation of an historical account usually by challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event or time-span or phenomenon.

A revisionist study may introduce contrary evidence, or reinterpreting the motivations and decisions of the people involved. In this manner, the revision of the historical record can reflect new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation, which then results in revised history. In dramatic cases, revisionism involves a reversal of older moral judgments.

It is understood there must be a careful balance between factual knowledge and critical analysis. A quick march through a list of historical events affords no opportunities to understand the “why” of U.S. history, and or to make its deeper meanings come alive. A student of history should learn to carefully compare and contrast the views of leading historians, as well as to debate and discuss historical issues. They should use their knowledge to become active citizens who can apply their understanding of the past to their daily lives.

The goal is to acquire a strong command of historical facts and then to be able to understand, formulate, and critique different interpretations of the past and of its meaning. Thus, the student of history willingly enters the strange realm of studying the past with a sense of their reality as “historical creatures.”

The editors of American Heritage describe the study of a “dead” subject …

“The treatment of history as 'facts' diminishes or destroys the student’s sense of the utility or relevance of history. If 'history' is something embalmed in a textbook, it is difficult to experience as an open process and an essential resource.

“Black students or females or American Indians may see no relation between the events described in the textbook and the experience of their own race or sex. Even when such groups are now included in history texts, a considerable degree of skepticism remains about the claims of the conventional textbook to be a satisfactory account 'of what happened.'”

(Editors. “Is History Dead?” American Heritage. December 1976.)

Carina Whiteside, an educator who is passionate about the impact of social studies education for teaching skills and values needed by America's future citizenry, is a member of the Hope Street Group Utah Teacher Fellows, which works to build connections between classroom teachers and policymakers that will benefit all students.

Whiteside describes her favorite lesson:

“The greatest social studies lesson I have taught was part of my 8th graders' study of the U.S. Constitution. Going into this unit, I knew I needed to address the decision the Founders made to protect the practice of slavery, which was in direct contrast to the American principle of equality defended by the Declaration of Independence.

“I wanted to communicate to my students just how profound this contradiction is, and the implications that it carries for the United States in the present day, by allowing them to dive into that contradiction themselves. I feel like I was able to do just this by adapting a lesson from the Zinn Education Project called 'An Unconventional Constitutional Convention.'”

The Zinn Constitution Role Play asks students to think critically about a number of issues that confronted the original framers of the Constitution. But the role play adds a twist: instead of including only the bankers, lawyers, merchants, and plantation owners who attended the actual Constitutional Convention, the activity also invites poor farmers, workers, and enslaved African Americans. This more representative assembly gives students a chance to see the partisan nature of the actual document produced in 1787.

In the second lesson (“The Constitutional Convention: Who Really Won?”), with the Constitution Role Play as background, students are primed to wade into the actual document and analyze parts of it in a social context.

Whiteside said …

“During this lesson, students felt the gravity of the decision to protect slavery deeply because they had debated it themselves. They had taken on the weighty roles the Founders played, examined their peers' pleas for equality and justice, and were disappointed to see historic figures make a different decision from what they had. With the gift of hindsight, they can see the legacies of slavery our country continues to work through. They wondered, How would things have been different if the Founders had decided what we did?”

History is a living study of human affairs, a study detailing all of the beautiful advancements of civilizations and also a study chronicling all of the horrors and mistakes made by governments and ruthless tyrants. A society dedicated to learning from history requires active participants who study all sides of complicated issues and controversial decisions. Humans breathe life into history as they apply it to their own present and future endeavors. Long live the history that “comes alive.”