This week we had to read The Human Web: a Bird’s-eye View of World History and two articles that discuss this book. The first thing I usually do before I do any of the readings is think about what the book may be about based simply on the title and subtitle. Based on this I guessed that this book would look at human history and all of the connections, and I also felt like it would be a brief overview of history since it is a Bird’s eye view. This was a fairly accurate assumption.

The Introduction really struck me as fascinating and quickly drew me in to the book. It says “a web, as we see it, is a set of connections that link people to one another” (3). It goes on to describe the many connections people make in their lives. The intro then describes how webs relate to human history, and how connections link people together. The webs of history link people to one another and have affected the development of history and peoples actions. Each chapter of the book looks at the many webs of human history.

As much as I enjoyed this particular book, it was actually one of the articles that stuck out to me and made me think the most this week. The article by Donald Yerxa was “An Interview with J.R. McNeill and William H. McNeill.” The interview has them discuss their opinions about world history and how world history is taught. As a future teacher, when I do the readings each week my instinct is always to link them to education, and how I can incorporate the ideas into my future classroom.

In Virginia, World History is taught in two parts in 9^th and 10^th grade.  One quote that particularly struck me from this interview is that “I suddenly realized that the history I had been taught had been confined to ancient Greece and Rome and the Western world, and the rest of the world only joined history when the Europeans conquered it.” Thinking back this is how I really remember learning world history in school. I think it is still taught this way much of the time today. As much as we try to diversify history and not teach it in a Western-centric view. It is still taught this way a lot of the time.

Maybe the concept of history as a web could contribute to the way we teach history. Looking at the links and connections in world history could be a really innovate and effective way to teach world history. Trying to move away from a strictly Western view in World History is going to be important in the coming years.

From this class, I have seen a lot of things that can improve the way history is taught. I am a big believer in using multiple perspectives when teaching history, and trying to diversify it as much as possible particularly world history. One of my goals is to use some of the ideas I have learned in this class in my classroom one day. Teaching history as a web could be really effective and engage students in a new and different way.

This week’s readings included the book Deep History and the Brain. When I got ready to read this book, I really had no idea what it was going to be about or even what deep history was. Smail looks at history from a new perspective and considers questions like where should we begin studying history or what exactly would be considered pre-history?

For me as a future teacher, the sections that interested me the most were the ones that talked about where we should begin teaching history. In a regular, world history course in high school you would look briefly at the Paleolithic era, but jump pretty quickly into the Ancient river valley civilizations such as Mesopotamia and Egypt.

In the first chapter, he examines textbooks and where they begin history. One says it begins in the Near East and another says Sumer. He questions “What were history students supposed to conclude from this? That our African ancestors lived without history?” (14). I think this is an interesting point. History in school almost always start with Mesopotamia, but why is Africa barely taught in schools especially since it has such an important history. I personally do not know much about Africa’s history, and this book really introduced a lot to me about its history.

History should “not be so limited in its span” and for everyone to have a better grasp of history the history of Africa should be taught (15). What we “should call ‘history’ begins a long time ago in Africa”, and I feel like this is something that is overlooked (15).
He discusses how western civ classes should be taught, and it seems like after reading Deep History and the Brain that everyone would benefit from this being included both in high school and college classes.

Eley’s A Crooked Line is subtitled From Cultural History to the History of Society. The book describes the rise of social history. Eley writes the book in a unique way. The Introduction to the AHR Forum Geoff Eley’s A Crooked Line says that “it is an unusual blend of the personal and historiographic: Eley uses his own biography as a means of illuminating the transformations in approaches to history, transformations that he, like many of his generation, experienced as political and moral as well as intellectual revelations” (Intro). This is what interests me about this book. He uses his own story describe the changes in historical approaches throughout his lifetime. His biography serves as a lens to describe the rise of social history. This method is very different from most of the other books we have read.

One of the most interesting chapters is Disappointment. He follows his study from undergraduate work on Germany to his graduate study. His use of biography allows more of a narrative to describe his interest in social history. He says that “it is notoriously hard to date changes in the history very exactly, especially those we’ve lived through ourselves” (90). He goes on to say that “put a dozen historians around a table, and they’ll each have a slightly differing version” (90).

It’s interesting to look at changes in history from a firsthand perspective. It makes me wonder about changes in the study of history that I am living through. We have talked a lot about how technology affects the study of history. I wonder in 20 or 30 years when I am looking back on the changes I lived through what my perspective will be, and what the perspective of others will be. Will I see that technology had a positive impact on history or will it be negative? It’s possible some approach to studying history will develop like social history and I will get the chance to live through that.

In his conclusion, Eley says that “things change” (202). He lived through two major changes in the approach to studying history and these changes were driven by interdisciplinary. One of his four major points is that “things change” in the study of history, and they will continue to change throughout my life and beyond (202). For me, I am excited to see what changes in history I get to live through, and how this will affect me as I teach. As approaches to history change, like social history, it affects how we teach history, so I know that changes in history will have an impact on me throughout the entire course of my career.

This week’s readings talk about women’s history. Tosh says women’s history and post-colonial history have “the potential to modify the character of the discipline as a whole. I personally feel women’s history is very important and needs to be studied. Tosh describes the growth of women’s history and how it changes the study of all fields of history. Women’s history can bring in a new perspective on history, and shows the point of view of women during history that in the past has always been ignored.

After reading all about women’s history in Tosh and the Joan Scott readings, I began to think about how women’s history is taught in school. Thinking back to my experience in school, the main times I remember women being taught are by mentioning specific woman and their accomplishments such as Rosa Parks or Susan B. Anthony. I don’t really remember learning history from multiple perspectives and seeing it through a woman’s point of view.

I decided to look at the Virginia SOLs and see where I saw women’s history. I focused on U.S. History as taught in 11th grade. The link to all the SOLs for history is http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/history_socialscience/ . The essential knowledge section is the main section you would teach the students and the basic information they need to know. This is the information they will be tested on. For U.S. History, the first mention of women is the women’s suffrage movement and particularly focuses on Seneca Falls, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. The next mention of women is during the Civil War and the information the students need to know is: “Managed homes and families with scarce resources Often faced poverty and hunger Assumed new roles in agriculture, nursing, and war industries” (SOLs). After this the next woman mentioned is Ida B. Wells. After this there is a small focus on women gaining the right to vote. During WWII there is also a section about women on the home front. The final mention of women is Sally Ride as the first female astronaut.

So in a high school U.S. History class which is the main time students learn about U.S. History in Virginia, and there is very little focus on women’s history. I personally feel there should be more of a focus on women’s history and minority history in general. I think students should learn history from as many perspectives as possible including women’s history, African American history, and Native American history. However, when looking through the SOLs there is not a strong focus on diverse perspectives in history. I think this is a major problem and students would benefit from seeing perspectives in history.

I understand the world of education at the moment is a largely test based environment, but I wish that students would get a chance to learn history from multiple perspectives. The amount of women’s history taught in U.S. History basically boils down to 6 or 7 key points. I hope in the future of education as a multi-perspective view of history becomes more important that the SOLs expand and students will learn more about Women’s History.

This week’s readings are under the heading post-structuralism, and I can honestly say before reading I really had no idea what that term meant. So far in this class, each week I have at least heard of the term even if I really have no background in the topic itself. Since this week’s readings were so new and different for me, I really tried to think through the best way to read them in order to ensure I grasped the information. So for this week’s readings, I started with Tosh to try to get a basis of what the topic was. Then I actually went to the website (http://www.michel-foucault.com/concepts/) on the syllabus hoping that reading the definition of the terms would give me more of a basis of the material before I tried to read Foucault. Finally I read Michel Foucault’s Discipline & Punishment.

Tosh’s chapter on “The Limits of Historical Knowledge” was very informative, but the section that was the most helpful was the one on Michel Foucault. It helped introduce me to the material I was about to read. He says Foucault was one of the Founding Fathers of Post-modernism, and described Foucault’s use of the word “discourse.” On the Michel Foucault website this term is described as “Discourse is a rather slippery notion in Foucault’s work but at the most basic level he uses the term to refer to the material verbal traces left by history. He also uses it to describe ‘a certain “way of speaking.”

By using both these sources I felt ready to try and read Foucault and hopefully understand it. Foucault’s book is divided in four parts: Torture, Punishment, Discipline, and Prison. After reading the book, I can’t really say I understand its contributions to historiography as a whole. In fact I am not really sure if I understood the book at all, but I hope all my confusion will be cleared up in class. I feel like I have more questions than answers this week and no real grasp on the material, but after class, I hope I will have a clearer grasp on Foucault and post-structuralism.

After doing last week’s readings on Social History, I was very interested to learn more about cultural history and see how the two compare. I decided to start off by reading Tosh so I could get a basic idea of what cultural history was. The chapter started off by talking about art history, and I was immediately intrigued. My two best friends and roommates from undergrad were an art history and art education major. So I have been exposed to art history for four years. However it wasn’t really until I read Tosh that I saw what a big connection it could have to history. Because of my experience with art history up until now I have always seen a connection of art to its place in history, but I haven’t always seen the connection of using art to understand history.

I always knew art history was important and could connect to history, but Tosh introduced me to how we can use art to analyze history in many different ways. For example, art shows everyday life such as how people lived and how they dressed. Art can even be used to analyze war propaganda like in World War II with the Nazis.

Tosh looks at film, popular culture, and photography as other examples of cultural history. Cultural history can really show what was life was like during a time period, and I began to think of how cultural history can be used in the classroom. Today in history classes so much is focused on testing and having the students understand facts that cultural history is not often incorporated. In fact, I don’t think I encountered much cultural history until I got to college. Students however would really get a lot out of learning cultural history, but also I think it could interest them and make them excited about history. Looking at war propaganda from World War II could bring it to life for the students, or when studying medieval history looking at art from that time period could let them picture what life would be like. I would really love to include as much cultural history in my classroom as I possibly could.

Geoff Eley starts off his book by saying “as a young person seeking change in the world, living through a time of excitements and upheaval, I wanted to become a historian because history really mattered; it was necessary for making a difference” (ix). This really resonated with me. I want to be a history teacher because I really feel like history is so important and I want my students to see that. Teachers make a major difference in their student’s life, and I think history can have a strong impact on students and I want them to see that history really does matter.

As I read the chapter on “Becoming a Historian”, he talks all about why he wanted to be a historian. He says, “History’s pleasures are many-sided. They include the pleasures of discovery and collecting, of exhaustiveness and pursuit, of the exotic and the unfamiliar, of serendipity, and-last but not least-of mastery” (9). All of these are reasons why I love history, but also I just love all of the stories and new information that comes with learning history. How can all of this contribute to me as a history teacher? Hopefully my students will get to experience all of these examples of history’s pleasures.
Mastery becomes highly important in the testing environment today. Mastering the material of history means students need to not just remember the history they are learning but understand it. When I was doing my student teaching with 6th graders, I tried to do as many activities as possible to inspire them to enjoy history. One activity that really stands out to me was when students had to create their own lesson to each teach about a different Native American tribe. When they become responsible for doing the research on their own and presenting the material to the class, they really seemed to enjoy the process. They would come to me excited about some fact they had learned that they didn’t know before, and just seeing students enjoy history really makes it all worth it.

I wanted to see why other people chose to teach history and found two blogs that describe why teaching history is so important.

http://www.whyteachhistory.com/publications/whyteachhistory/

http://homeroomteacher.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/why-a-teacher/

Teaching is something I have always known I wanted to do. History came along later when I was in high school. I currently am working in Special Collections at the library, and as I work with different documents such as a Civil War Diary, I am reminded of my love for history and how fascinating the past can be. Being able to read from a book that was written over 150 years ago is incredible, and I know that I am in the right field. History is so important and reading Eley this week helped remind me of that and helped make me remember all the reasons why I want to teach history.

Also, Betsy and I will post the Discussion Questions by Monday!

“The Internet allows historians to speak to vastly more people in widely dispersed places”
-Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig

The internet allows people to find out information on virtually any topic any time they want. History can come alive on the internet, and just as this quote says it can allow historians to talk to pretty much anyone about history.

“It can just as easily be said that the Internet allows vastly more people to speak about history without professional historians”
-Robert S. Wolff

The other side of the argument is that anyone on the internet can post something about history and claim that it is true. So the question becomes do the positives of the internet outweigh the negatives? I think they do. The internet offers so much to history. Databases full of articles are available to me from my apartment. Even things like this week’s readings (Writing History in the Digital Age, a born-digital, open-review volume) are available to me from my computer. Another resource that is available to use is Wikipedia.

Robert Wolff describes Wikipedia and the process of how information is put on Wikipedia. While he does describe bias based on who wrote an entry, he also says “More than just an encyclopedia, Wikipedia serves as a people’s museum of knowledge, a living repository of all that matters where the exhibits are written by ordinary folk with nary an academic historian in sight” (Wolff). Wikipedia combines popular memory and history according to Wolff.

He describes on the anniversary of Fort Sumter how the number of visits to the page jumped to nearly 30,000. Almost any time a historic event has its anniversary many people visit Wikipedia to get a quick summary of what happened on that day. The same can be said for a historic reference in a movie, speech, etc. that people don’t know. But is this necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think so. Before Wikipedia and the internet, if someone did not know about something in history they would have to ask someone, find an encyclopedia, or even a history textbook to get the information. This could take a lot of time, but with Wikipedia, you can search quickly and find out the information. The majority of the time Wikipedia will provide enough accurate historic facts to satisfy the average person.

On blogs or Wikipedia, people can post about history without having a degree in it, but historians should be aware of what are good scholarly sources to use anyway. Plus for quick information Wikipedia can be very helpful. I feel like even with its negatives Wikipedia is very useful. When I had to study for my Praxis II test in history (the test that allows me to be licensed to teach history) I actually used Wikipedia as a resource to study by. Wikipedia does have some negatives, but I think its usefulness does outweigh these negatives.

I had no expectation of what “Too Big to Know” by David Weinberger would be about when I picked it up to start to read. Other than I assumed that it would be about history. However it’s really not about history at all. It’s about how we get knowledge today and how we use that knowledge. While it’s not the history of a specific event or a methodology of studying history, it can relate to history in a big way.

While reading, I began to think about how we obtain knowledge and how much that has changed in the last several decades. One passage in the book that particularly struck me was the section in chapter one on filters. Weinberger quotes Clay Shirky who says “It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure” (10). He describes the old and new method of filtering which are very different. Because I grew up in the technology age, I am used to the internet being my main resource to filter through everything and give me information on only the topic I am looking for. While I was reading this I began to think about filtering through information before there was internet. When I was in middle school, my English teacher decided we need to learn to write a research paper and not use the internet at all. So she took us to the library, and we had to find books and actually write our citations on notecards. Because I live in a small town, at this time even the library catalog was still in drawers and not on a computer. So we spent a long time learning how to write a research paper and filter through information, and I never touched a computer to do this. I was filtering out all the information I didn’t need and then I could write my paper.

When I write a paper for a history class now, the first thing I do is turn to the internet. I search the library catalogs and databases or use Google scholar. I use filters to find what I want. As Weinberger said, “filters no longer filter out.” They filter forward, bringing their results to the front” (11). By adding filters such as the type of document I want or the year it was published, I am bringing forward the information I need to write my paper.

Throughout the first few chapters of Weinberger’s book, he describes how we obtain knowledge today. In the fourth chapter he describes how the internet helps us get knowledge. He compares expertise in the past to the present. He says in the past “expertise was topic-based”, but that now with the internet, “topics don’t divide up neatly. They connect messily” (66).

In this digital age that we live in, how we obtain information has changed greatly. This has had a major impact on research in history. Today it is easy to find a database and have millions of sources at your fingertips about the Civil War. How research is done has changed so much, and I think this is how Weinberger’s book relates to historical methodology.

When I think of history, I often look at it from the perspective as a teacher. My goal is to be a middle or high school history teacher, and my undergraduate degree was in History Education. Often this gives me a unique and different perspective because I look at a topic and think about how I would teach it. When I was doing the readings for this week, what I thought was most interesting was the chapter in John Tosh’s book about the uses of history. I felt like he looked at many uses of history that I had never considered and he offered unique ways to view history in this chapter.

For the majority of Americans, history is just another subject they have to study in school. There are very few people who choose to devote their life to the study of history. John Tosh looks at the purpose of studying history and the different ways one can use history. He discusses many different views of history. One example is metahistory which is “the proposition that history tells us what we need to know about the future” (Tosh, 30). However he also presents the alternative view which is the “rejection of history” (Tosh, 30). This view is that nothing can be learned from history. These extremes of viewing history are like nothing I have ever heard of before. He does say that these extremes are not supported by most historians, but I do think they are interesting concepts to consider. To look at an event in history from the perspective of metahistory would provide an entirely different view of an event. I have never considered viewing or using history in one of these ways, but it’s possible by using a perspective like this I could understand history in an entirely different way.

He also looks at the concept of if history repeats itself. I often hear people say that the importance of knowing history is to prevent it from repeating particularly with horrible events in history such as the Holocaust. However, Tosh points out that the notion of history repeating itself is impossible because “no one historical situation has been, or ever will be, repeated in every particular” (Tosh, 39).

Tosh then examines if history is “a cultural subject, or a social science” (Tosh, 52). For me I have often thought of it as a social science and in fact my undergraduate degree is in History and Social Science Education. However, after reading Tosh, I agree that history cannot be defined into one particularly category. History itself is so all-encompassing that I think it cannot fit into one single category.

By looking at all of Tosh’s uses of history, I have a better grasp on what the purpose of history is. History can be viewed from so many different perspectives and in so many ways, but that is probably the best way to study it. By having people who believe in one extreme, like metahistory, or the other, the rejection of history, and everything in between, history becomes a complicated but exciting discipline to study. No one person will look at or use history the same and I think by understanding this and having an historical awareness I will be a better history teacher.