Third Post

We've been talking in class a lot about how history goes deeper than just facts, like most of us have learned in high school. It is about perspective and interpretation also. Zinn "promotes meaning and relevance in our teaching", which caught my attention because I hope to become a history teacher someday. One thing that stood out to me was when Zinn said that "One major problem has been the intense focus on U.S history in isolation from the world".  In high school, I always learned about how the U.S was a country that focused on isolation, but I think that it would have been better if we were taught about the relationships that the United States had with other countries.  Another thing that Zinn wrote that I agreed with was "When you press students to make connections, to abstract from the uniqueness of a particular historical event and find something it has in common with another event, then history becomes alive, not just past but present".  History in my opinion, is not the facts, but how your interpret and analyze those facts to figure out what occurred. I also agree with Jessica where she says that history itself does not change, but our interpretation of history does. Zinn always states "I want them to know that if people don't take a stand, the world will remain unchanged, and who wants that." I couldn't agree more with this statement because I love learning about how people stood up for their rights and prove that they can change the world for standing up for themselves.  As a historian, I agreed with Caroline's post where she says that "Historical events of the past will always call our attention to be analyzed and interpreted to understand our present". Foner touches upon that subject in his article Changing History where he writes that, "Historians cannot predict the future, but the past they portray must be one out of which the present can plausibly have grown".  Since reading the articles by, Foner, Becker, Jensen and Zinn in class, my interpretation of what the study of history is has changed. I'm glad we read these articles because I think it'll help me present the material to my students when I become a teacher.