Plots for and against America

Topical Review

Roth, Philip. The Plot Against America. Vintage International, 2004.

Roth's novel demonstrates the resiliency of the American republic and the inherent decency of "average" Americans, Gentile and Jew alike. It also raises troubling questions for what "best for America" means on the global stage. This tension between pragmatism and ideals is shot through the novel but it is also found in the appended 9/11 (1941!) speech by Charles Lindbergh to an a gathering of America-Firsters. Lindbergh notes that the push for war is backed by three groups: "the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration" (Roth 386).  

At the level of facticity, Lindbergh's claim was certainly true: all three favored military action by the U.S. against the fascists. But it also true that it was deeply naive to think that the USA could be a kind of super-Switzerland that could avoid worldly entanglements outside our borders and shores.

Were the world compartmentalizable to the degree that the America-Firsters envisioned, Lindbergh's splendid isolation could make some sense (political, if not moral). But here Lindbergh suffered from a kind of temporary blindness: his underestimation of the totalitarian threat and its voracious appetite. It is now unimaginable to think that the Axis Powers would have simply stopped at a certain point and "left well enough alone." But Lindbergh's blindness was temporary: after the attack on Pearl Harbor he fully supported the war effort and actively trained pilots and personally participated in combat operations in the South Pacific.

When push came to shove, we could all be Americans: Jew and Gentile, Democrat and Republican, Catholic and Protestant. Yet it is by a slender thread that we have remained one. "Could," not "always will." There is no guarantee in the future that our better angels will succeed. Roth's book illustrates this truth in ways winsome and evocative. 

Things I love about subbing

Arriving early

In an attempt to be a glass half-full kind of guy, here are some reasons I love being a guest/substitute/single-serving teacher. In no particular order

1. When I repeat my corny stale jokes or engage in painful puns, they're fresh for the students.

2. It is fun to plan and organize the day with just a few minutes to know what the day is going to look like (block or traditional schedule? when's lunch? is there a place to walk?).

Afternoon, heading back to school

3. I almost always can get in at least 20 minutes of vigorous walking, sometimes close to an hour if I get a prep and lunch back-to-back.

4. I get to see a variety of teaching styles (second hand) by (a) examining handouts, texts and other artifacts and (b) by talking to students about their experience in the particular classroom.

5. By focusing on subbing for English and history teachers (predominately, not exclusively), I've had the opportunity to assess myself as a teacher: "Where do I feel more 'at home'? Which subject would I enjoy more - be better at?"

6. I've seen enough of both English and history classes to see that both are subject to certain shortcomings or limitations in the way they can be taught: (a) English - excessive attention paid to technical aspects of literature (mood, tone, diction...) but insufficient emphasis on discovering the meaning of the text (the latter based on numerous conversations with students about this very question - how do you discuss the text? what does it [say, Animal Farm] mean to you?). (b) History - too much "bookwork" and note-taking and worksheets. Likewise, a lack of discussion in any organized or systematic way. Students lack both interest in history and an understanding of its relevance for their lives. The good thing: I'm seeing things to avoid in the future. 

7. I'm getting to know the schools themselves. How they operate, but more significantly, the relationships between students and staff. School culture, in other words.

8. I'm becoming convinced that I could not merely 'survive' but thrive in most of the 15 or so high schools I've subbed at. That's pretty cool.

9. My appreciation for the block schedule has grown by leaps and bounds. I think it is not only good for teachers, but good for students, too.

"Cue the Sun"

10. Even when I have the occasional bad day, tomorrow is a new day.

11. Rarely, very rarely do I have any homework after school or reporting to do.

12. I can almost always work productively with students and have a few laughs.

Bad Book, Good Effects

Even a bad book can be useful. Sometimes I read a book and think, "I wish I had written that" or "This author was spot-on." Other books elicit a negative reaction such as "What a waste of paper and ink" or "There goes several nights of reading I'll never get back."

Then there is a third category: books that provoke thought but the book itself is neither admirable nor even readable. Such it is with James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me. The unreadability stems from Loewen's approach which is to mock how one-sided and superficial history textbooks are then wade in with his own one-sided, mean-spirited, and [sigh], superficial approach to the same topic. So, while he does a good show illustrating the failings of hagiography-as-history, he falls prey to demonizing historical figures with a sense of moral superiority complex that self-assuredly suggests, "We know better, are better and will be better in the future... As long as you, Dear Reader, understand that by 'we' I mean 'me.'"  There is no moral drama in Columbus or the Spanairds. They are bad, but then so was everyone else back then. What?! 

Spanish Male, ca. 15-16th Century

A note on what history can and cannot be. This comes from John Lukacs' The Hitler of History but is something that I wish Loewen had considered in his book. Lukacs good. Loewen baaaaad! 

Contrary to the "scientific" illusion, in the research and writing of history there are no final results. And the purpose of history is often not so much the definite accounting of the events of a period as it is the historical description and understanding of problems: description, rather than definition; understanding, rather than completeness -- because while a perfect completion of our knowledge of the past is not possible, a reasonable and proper understanding of it is within our powers (xii).

Grasping the limits of our knowledge and the nature of historical truth would have helped Loewen and his book.

I think I can...

The book that needs to be written. Loewen's book did get me thinking seriously about how history is taught and/or should be taught. That could have been the subject of his book, but it is the textbooks themselves that he focuses on. Here are some thoughts after reading several chapters by Loewen.

1. Textbooks are and aren't the problem. Textbooks are the problem in ways that Loewen points out: they're too massive and aim at comprehensiveness instead of understanding. They over-simplify and create an atmosphere of thinking of history as being about brute facts instead of the human drama. But I would suggest that even if the textbooks were "good," they'd still be bad. The nature of the market for these boat anchors is such that they will be the way they are until teachers stop using them. At one point in the book Loewen mentions that there are slimmer and trimmer textbooks that survey much less history. This combined with a rich use of primary sources could make for an interesting class.

Perhaps Loewen is too polite to say it, but there is probably more things wrong with the teachers of history than anyone would like to admit. Loewen does mention that there do seem to be a disproportionate amount of coaches out there who also "teach history." Can you imagine your brain surgeon being a golfer who also "practices surgery"?! The priority of schools is surely to blame here and the lack of historians who teach history. A good teacher can do without a good textbook but a great textbook will never compensate for an incompetent teacher (except for those self-starting students who learn no matter what).

2. History is the story of persons, not mechanical processes. One of the most interesting things about history is how in any major event (and all kinds of minor ones), things could have been different. I don't think it's necessary to stress contingency with an excess of "what if" scenarios, but just because it did happen the way it did happen, we can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking it had to happen that way. Textbooks would be useless in bringing this out, but take a book like Lukacs' Five Days in London: May 1940 and it is evident that what may be seen as chains of events linked by specific causes may also be viewed as being shaped by persons with all the range of virtues and vices imaginable. This is something worth communicating to students

3. Ideas have consequences especially when we never heard of the ideas (or ideologies, more often). This points directly to the need for philosophy in the high school. Why on earth one can find psychology and sociology on offer but no philosophy course in the dozen high schools I've subbed at is beyond me. Religion? Forget about it. Never mind that religion and philosophy existed for millennia while the other two are recent inventions.

Well, that's enough for now. The book to be written could be titled How to teach history even if you're stuck with a lousy anchor masquerading as a textbook or something similar. 

Over-correcting Does Not Set the Record Straight

Trust Me...

Well, I really enjoyed the Introduction to James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me but it has failed to enlighten much after a pretty stellar beginning. In the first chapter (Handicapped by History: The Process of Hero-making) it becomes clear that Loewen is one of those authors who has this super-mystical ability to see through everyone and everything to see the "true" motives and either discover the manifold darkness that lurks in the hearts of men (especially of the dead white dude variety) or that kids aren't being mean (i.e., just being kids) when they mock but are really enlightened critics of traditional pieties: 

Students poke fun at the goody-goodiest of them all by passing by passing on Helen Keller jokes. In so doing, schoolchildren are not poking cruel fun at a disabled person, they are deflating a pretentious symbol that is too good to be real (36). 

Concerning the authors prioritization of ideology over truthfulness, I should have been tipped-off by the "lies" in the title. Errors or even omissions or mistakes would suggest a possibility of goodwill in one's adversaries, whereas lies ensures that one's opponents are not merely sloppy or mistaken or naive, but wicked, wicked, bad people. 

We'll see if Loewen suffers from selective outrage. I suspect that while he speaks in glowing terms about Helen Keller's socialism, he'll have little praise for Elizabeth Cady Stanton's opposition to abortion.