Assignment: Read History Isn’t Just for Patriots by Daniel Immerwahr (from the Washington Post) and write a blog post about it. Write a bonus paragraph describing your historical topic.
So based on the title alone, I was thinking that the purpose of this article was to explain the relevance of American history and global affairs to other countries, as opposed to just Americans. But the first paragraph instead leads me to think that it’s about how American history is important for everyone to learn, whether they actually care about America or not. I’m also thinking that it may not be American history specifically, I just made that assumption because when I think “patriot” I also think “America”, even though patriotism isn’t specific to any country, so I’m open to the possibility that it’s not even about America or American history at all!
After finishing the article, I agree with a lot of what Immerwahr said about the current state of History classes across the country, specifically that there is more of a focus on whether we should like America rather that understanding it. In fact, this perspective reminded me of a few years ago when I took AP Modern World History. In this class, my teacher, when asking us to discuss our perspectives on a topic (usually an event or individual) he would always make sure to not give his own opinion, as it would likely alter the students’ perspectives and negate the purpose of the discussion. In other words, the point of History was to analyze and develop a deep understanding of the past, which would inevitably be applied as people continue on into the future, and Immerwahr argued very well for that point in his article.
On the other hand, I think there are a few times where getting students to feel a certain way about their country can actually serve some good, and it depends entirely on the context. For example, in a US Government class (which you could argue is, to an extent, a history class. Or at least history-adjacent), sparking an emotional response could help make students feel more excited to learn about and maybe even participate in their local Government. Of course, this is a very specific example so feel free to take it with a grain of salt, but I think that sometimes feeling a certain way about history can help motivate students to speak out about issues similar in topic, which can lead to a generation of more active participants in politics (which, I don’t know about you, but I think that can be improved in the last few generations, including mine). Plus, American government is a democracy, which means participation is key!
The topic I want to research for the semester is the history of Washington, D.C., specifically related to the founding of the city. Honestly, I’m interested in learning everything about the topic so far, the who, what, when, where, why, and how of D.C.’s founding. Unfortunately, that would make it hard to come up with a specific research question, so for these projects, I will be focusing on the significant historical figures that contributed to the founding of Washington, D.C. and how each of their contributions helped build D.C. into it’s full form (AKA the funky diamond shape I call home). So in short, my research question is: Who were the significant historical figures that contributed to the founding of Washington D.C.? Naturally, this is probably going to change a little bit over time but that’s my main idea so far.
OK bye 😀
