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As I grew into adulthood, I discovered that most activists of the left or the right, tend to be dour, sullen and depressing to be around. Zinn taught me how to tread lightly amidst some serious mishegos. He was fun to be around, enjoyed laughing and did not fall into the trap of giving loyalty to some orthodoxy. People, community, and fellowship first.
How else could he have gotten that wonderful gal, Roslyn, to marry him? A Jewish kid from Brooklyn. How could I not like him?
Happy Birthday, Professor Zinn! It was a distinct honor and privilege to study with Howard at BU in Even when faced with the prospect of an unjust termination from BU, Howard Zinn invariably remained optimistic. With steady calm, he reminded us of the importance of social and political movements and how the history of those movements in America applies to everyday life.
The largest impact during his class was his report on his participation in the anti-nuclear power protests at Seabrook Nuclear Station. This inspired me to join Clamshell Alliance. He would lecture for a little while and then it was an open forum for students to talk and challenge him. He enjoyed being challenged. It kept him fresh and it kept him on his toes. He was just engaging in every way… Read more. Read more We have included him in our award-winning documentary, Foot Soldiers: Class of It is through the vanguard of the young activists of the s that students will, hopefully, see themselves as the activists of today.
And then the other side wins — even before we ever begin the fight. Expanding ethnic diversity of this century, a time when we will all be minorities, offers us an invitation to create a larger memory of who we are as Americans and to re-affirm our founding principle of equality.
Let me tell you what I have been striving to do as a teacher and scholar. I noted the power and pervasiveness of the master narrative of American history, which defines American as white. In the telling of history, however, the genesis of leadership is easily forgotten.
Textbook authors and popular history writers fail to portray the great masses of humanity as active players, agents on their own behalf. In textbooks students learn that a handful of celebrated personalities make things happen, the rest only tag along; a few write the scripts, the rest just deliver their lines.
This turns history on its head. In reality, so-called leaders emerge from the people — they gain influence by expressing views that others espouse. Textbook authors and popular history writers fail to portray the great mass[es] of humanity as active players, agents on their own behalf.
Supposedly, only leaders function as agents of history. They provide the motive force; without them, nothing would happen. The famous Founders, we are told, made the American Revolution.
They dreamt up the ideas, spoke and wrote incessantly, and finally convinced others to follow their lead. But in trickle-down history, as in trickle-down economics, the concerns of the people at the bottom are supposed to be addressed by mysterious processes that cannot be delineated. What happens at the top is all that really counts. This distorts the very nature of the historical process, which must, by definition, include masses of people.
The way we learn about the birth of our nation is a case in point. If we teach our students that a few special people forged American freedom, we misrepresent, and even contradict, the spirit of the American Revolution.
Our country owes its existence to the political activities of groups of dedicated patriots who acted in concert. By Thom Thacker and Michael A. An art contest is used as the basis from which students can examine primary historical documents advertisements for runaway slaves to gain a deeper understanding of the institution of slavery in the North. Lesson by Bill Bigelow and student reading by Howard Zinn. Interactive activity introduces students to the history and often untold story of the U.
Roles available in Spanish. By Gilda L. Reflections on teaching students about the walkouts by Chicano students in California. A role play on the history of the Vietnam War that is left out of traditional textbooks.
By Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen. Empathy, or "social imagination," allows students to connect to "the other" with whom, on the surface, they may appear to have little in common. Rethinking the U. By Bob Peterson. A role play on the Constitutional Convention which brings to life the social forces active during and immediately following the American Revolution with focus on two key topics: suffrage and slavery. By Doug Sherman. The author describes how he uses biographies and film to introduce students to the role of people involved in the Civil Rights Movement beyond the familiar heroes.
He emphasizes the role and experiences of young people in the Movement.
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