[I’m not the only one gearing up for a new school year at the moment—so are my 11th and 10th grade (!!!) sons. That includes my 11th grader taking AP US History, a complicated and controversial and very AmericanStudies high school class. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of APUSH contexts—share your responses and your thoughts on all things high school US history for a crowd-sourced weekend post sure to make the honor roll!]
On a small
moment that reveals two layers to what makes a great history teacher.
I was
fortunate enough to have a number of phenomenal teachers during my four years at
Charlottesville High School, including Proal
Heartwell and all those I wrote about in this
tribute post. To some degree I’ve written about those teachers in
particular not just because they were all great (although yes for sure), but
also because I have had individualized enough experiences with them (both
during high school and in some cases afterward) that I really got to know them
well on a more personal level. That wasn’t the case with my AP US History
teacher in 11th grade, Mrs. Frankel (I don’t even remember her first
name and haven’t been able to find it online). But I have nothing but the
fondest memories for that class and year, and would connect them to one
seemingly small but very telling moment: interesting the July 1905
Niagara Falls convention that launched The
Niagara Movement, Mrs. Frankel said “Niagara Falls” dramatically and then
paused…waiting for someone (indeed for me specifically, she noted once I
delivered) to add, “Slowly
I turned…step by step…”
Again, a
small moment, and a deeply silly one at that (I’m quite sure it was the only
time, then or since, that I’ve had any occasion to quote The
Three Stooges in any class). But the silliness itself is one of the two
things I want to use this moment to highlight about what made both Mrs. Frankel’s
teaching and her class so successful. APUSH is one of those classes that has a reputation
for being extremely challenging—that was true back in the early 1990s, and it’s
even truer today, as my son has heard horror stories about the workload and
late nights and so on. To some degree those characteristics are likely
inevitable, and it certainly was one of my most difficult high school classes
and I imagine will be the same for my son. But one of my most defining beliefs
as a teacher is that the tone of a class can go a long way toward making the
dynamic less challenging and more welcoming, even (perhaps especially) if the
workload and expectations remain the same. Even though I only remember this one
moment specifically, I have a very clear sense that Mrs. Frankel created
precisely such a warm and welcoming tone overall, and it made a huge difference
in my experience of APUSH (and perhaps my deepening interest in all things
AmericanStudying).
On that
last note, I would also argue that this seemingly small moment reveals an
important truth about not just teaching overall, but history education in particular.
APUSH has long been (and to at least a degree I’m sure remains) a class that
can be far too easily associated with the most mundane form of history education,
the kind that’s about learning and memorizing and regurgitating a large
collection of facts and figures, details and dates. The Niagara conference is
an example: remembering the July 1905 dates, remembering the group of
individuals (including W.E.B. Du Bois and William
Monroe Trotter) who took part, remembering the facts about the subsequent Niagara
Movement conferences held elsewhere, and so on. I’m sure we learned those
things in APUSH, and that I remembered them well enough for the assessments in
that class and the end of year AP Exam alike. But that’s not what history is,
and it’s not what makes history classes memorable and successful. For that, we
need the human side, the stories, the significance, and, yes, the silliness. My
APUSH had plenty of all of those, and while they might not have showed up on
the exam, they and their excellent teacher have stuck with me long after that
standardized test has faded.
Next APUSH
context tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Contexts or stories for APUSH or high school history you’d share?
Great teachers you’d highlight?
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