A few blogs ago I addressed the challenge of discussing Roe v. Wade in the classroom when students have radically different and often deeply personal opinions on the topic of abortion. I suggested focusing on the factual aspects of the history of birth control in the United States and the legal case itself – in other words, separating our personal views as human beings from the teachers/educators who seek to show no bias in their approach.   Admittedly, I'm stopped in my tracks this week by the 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade , which – among other thoughts – has me questioning how this moment will impact the way I teach US women’s history. Previously my students have studied what came before Roe – Comstock Laws, Margaret Sanger, the horrors of illegal abortion, the growing acceptance of the use of birth control during the Great Depression, and then the legalization of abortion in 1973.    I think as a social historian I like to present forward progress as I teach – my generally optimistic outlook on the world is at least partly to blame. As social historians, for example, we discuss with our students time periods in which members of our society faced a major challenge, we analyze who/which social groups responded to the challenge, we address the political aspects, and we consider how the “problem” was resolved. Case in point: Reconstruction ended chattel slavery but gave rise to Jim Crow laws, which in turn spurred a national movement for civil rights that continues to this day, albeit with changing dimensions and characteristics. We study tragedies such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire to identify ways in which government action was needed to protect our citizens while they worked.     The SCOTUS decision to end federally protected abortion rights will no doubt create a new marker in how we teach women’s history. Instead of the pre-Roe/post-Roe narrative that once formed so many class discussions, we must now present a narrative that includes the reversal and its consequences. For many historians of US women’s history this new narrative will be difficult to teach as it requires a reckoning with the many factors that have brought us to this place, including (but not limited to) the rise of the New Right, the growing power of Christian conservatives and the severe backlash against feminism that followed the Second Wave. Some women’s historians will no doubt choose to grapple with conservative critiques of feminists who supported President Clinton despite his personal history of sexual misconduct. The Trump administration – also plagued by accusations of inappropriate behavior towards women – may find its most lasting legacy to be a SCOTUS more socially conservative than the president himself.   How will the reversal of Roe v. Wade change the way you teach women’s history? Please share. ... View more

Recently my Macmillan Community colleague Claudia Cruz posted “History of the Word ‘Queer’ and other LGBTQ+ Vocab” . Upon reading this post I was immediately reminded of a heated conversation that took place in my classroom five or so years ago.    A traditionally aged college student who identified as transgender used the word “queer” when describing a particular group of women in 19th-century America. As this student spoke, a classmate in his 60s interrupted to ask that the student stop using what he viewed as a “derogatory” term. A brief argument ensued in which Student One contended they had the right to use the word while Student Two conveyed his belief that the historical use of the word made it unacceptable in the classroom. After class I tried to mitigate their disagreement. It was a difficult conversation. I too grew up in the era in which “queer” was viewed as slang and derogatory. In my youth none of my gay friends were publicly “out.” They disliked the word “queer” as it was often hurled at them as an insult. Claudia Cruz acknowledges in her blog that to some degree in the LGBTQ+ community the word remains problematic. “Student Two” who objected to its use in class identified as heterosexual and said he was uncomfortable with the word because he viewed himself as an ally, hence his decision to speak out against its use.    The conclusion I drew from this encounter, which has been reiterated to me in dozens of classroom experiences in the years since, is quite simple: language is complicated, especially when it relates to personal or group identity.    Students in my Black History class are struggling with this concept this week as they read James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man . When I have assigned the book in previous semesters, I’ve noticed that Johnson’s use of the word “colored” throughout the story leads to students using the word in our class discussion and in their writings. Rather than correct each individual students as the word is incorrectly used, I now introduce the reading with the following statement in an email to the class as an effort to force students to think about the change in language use over time:   This week's novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man , was first published in 1912. In 1912 it was acceptable to use the word "colored" to describe a person who was not white. Today, it is NOT.  Please, when you are writing about the book/characters/themes, do not use the word "colored" as a descriptive unless you are directly quoting the author. In 2022 we should use language appropriate to our time: person of color, African American, Native American, black person, brown person, etcetera. The term "colored" stopped being accepted in the 1960s during the post-World War II civil rights and black power movements. You are invited to learn more about this change in word usage in the following piece on the issue from National Public Radio (2014): The Journey From 'Colored' To 'Minorities' To 'People Of Color' : Code Switch : NPR and in a second article from the Chicago Tribune (2020): Column: Why is ‘people of color’ OK but not ‘colored people’? A reading list for white folks - Chicago Tribune   Students have been incredibly receptive to this invitation to consider the historical evolution of language. Several have emailed me to say that they appreciate being educated on the proper terminology to use because they want to be sensitive to the way people identify themselves. This experience and Claudia Cruz’s recent blog remind me, once again, that as educators we have a duty not only to help our students learn facts but to enhance their understanding of the way in which words can have positive and negative connotations. We cannot assume that their pre-collegiate experiences have modeled them to speak with sensitivity or with an eye towards historical change. This knowledge, ultimately, can lead our students towards more cooperative participation in our classrooms and society in general. ... View more

Admittedly, I have a difficult time talking with students about our Founders’ intentions when they penned the 2nd Amendment.    As a graduate teaching assistant in April 1999 I started paying more attention to gun violence after the massacre at Columbine High School. I knew that gun violence existed before that tragic day in Littleton, Colorado, but in my middle-class upbringing, the random killing of innocents was a topic relegated to “dangerous” urban areas. There was almost no discussion of gun violence in the white suburban community in which I was raised, nor in the town where I lived in 1999. Columbine, however, gave me nightmares. As an educator-in-training, the idea of being a teacher charged with protecting children from the terror of bullets was to me then, and remains today, horrifying. Columbine, sadly, was not an anomaly. According to the Washington Post more than 300,000 children have experienced gun violence at school since 1999.    Students are often curious about the intent of the 2nd Amendment when it was ratified late in the 18th century. In a previous blog I wrote about the challenge of discussing Roe v. Wade with a generation of students undeniably impacted by social media and 24-hour news channels with obvious ideological biases. Discussions of current concerns about gun violence inevitably lead to students expressing divergent opinions about individual rights versus the rights of the government. In recent years the sides have become entrenched. Without a doubt, as an educator this topic is only becoming more difficult for me to address in a bipartisan manner. I shudder at the suggestion of arming teachers, for example, because I know that placing a gun in my panicked hands would do nothing to protect my students from the unthinkable.   I’m quite adept at avoiding discussion of the 2nd Amendment in class. As a social historian, I touch briefly on the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and focus instead on the women and African Americans who were left out of our nation’s early notions of citizenship. I feel ill-equipped to explain the intentions of our Founders so I am constantly searching for web-based discussions of this now controversial amendment to which I can refer students. While I’ve had some meaningful conversations with students about the issue of gun control, I recognize the limits of my ability to remain neutral on this topic. So here are a few resources that might be helpful to those of you, like me, struggling with the horrible fear of school shootings while also believing in our students’ need to form opinions on their own:   National Constitution Center’s Interactive Constitution is a great starting point for anyone who wants an introduction to both sides of the argument. The site provides a “Common Interpretation” of each amendment, and then offers a brief essay by experts on opposing sides of the debate. The site also posts video aids to share with students, again focusing on the goal of sharing both “sides” of the debate.   Faculty wishing to help students better understand the controversies surrounding this amendment might suggest students check out findlaw.com  This commercial site touts itself as one designed for “legal professionals” but also offers concise explanations, with academic references, of challenging legal questions. The section on the Second Amendment contains helpful information about recent court cases that have fueled public debate over the amendment.   Finally, suggest that students look at new research on the intent of the Second Amendment. In the wake of racial unrest in recent years, historian Carol Anderson’s work examines the amendment’s troubled relationship to the institution of slavery and control of free people of color in the 19th century. NPR interviewed Anderson in 2021 and students interested in the history of race relations and systemic racism will find her arguments particularly interesting given current debates over policing in the United States.    No doubt there are many more resources to help our students wade through the murky waters of understanding the Second Amendment’s historical context. How do you handle this topic with your students? Please share. ... View more

It took two years of hide-and-seek but COVID finally caught me.  Since March 2020 I’ve had my academic life upended by words like pivot, remote, and asynchronous. Somehow, through all of the classroom changes and content delivery modifications, I’ve remained healthy. Earlier in the Pandemic I suggested in a blog that faculty ask students to share their COVID stories as a way to record history as it happens. What was their experience? How did it impact their lives or their families’ lives? This blog, then, is my entry to the historical record. I’ve tried to do everything “right” during this pandemic. I’ve listened to scientists, I’ve continued to mask in stores and public places even after mandates ended. I got a second booster shot when I was eligible. Yet despite all my thinking, over-thinking and handwashing, there was nothing I could do to prevent COVID from visiting my home. After a couple days of a stuffy nose I decided, out of an abundance of caution, to stop in to our campus testing center before my 10am Tuesday class. It was only a matter of minutes before all my plans for the week ahead were canceled. A sense of fear and dread set in: while I felt ok overall, the knowledge that this virus has killed more than six million people worldwide had an immediate psychological impact on me.  I was fortunate to have a mild case of COVID – a week at home, a couple boxes of tissues and a lot of Netflix hours later, I was back on campus teaching the following Tuesday. Though I wish I could say definitively that my students missed me … the closest I can come to an assessment of their feelings is that they were genuinely concerned about my health when I returned. They asked lots of questions, which led me to conclude that we as a society are far from “over” the stress of this pandemic and we are certainly not finished talking about it.  Earlier this week news outlets broadcast images of airline passengers cheering the end of the mask mandate as if we as a society could claim victory over this silent killer. My students, however, when faced with discussion of the virus with someone who had recently suffered from it showed only concern. One asked if I wanted them to start masking in class again, in spite of the end of the mandate on our campus. As much as we seem to be bombarded by data about numbers and cases, there are still many people who have never experienced the virus in their own homes and who continue to harbor intense anxiety about how it could negatively impact them or their family. I’m grateful that my college is continuing to actively engage in on-campus testing. My positive test that Tuesday morning led me to test my asymptomatic son, who also turned out to be positive. Our access to testing, thankfully, kept us from our weekly visit to my severely compromised father who resides in a nursing home where spread of the virus was previously been catastrophic.  As a historian I know that this pandemic will eventually morph into something similar to the yearly challenges of influenza. Until that happens, however, I will continue to encourage my students to engage with their intellectual discomfort about the virus: ask questions, read and study the data, and get tested. And most importantly, continue to feel empathy for the emotional and physical struggles of strangers. Sharing our personal experiences from this historic time is a great way to recognize the common struggles of human beings in the 21st century. ... View more

There are no dorms at the community college where I teach, which means students are intensely focused right now on the painfully high price of a gallon of gasoline. AAA puts today’s average in my state at $4.224/gallon, which is just below the reported national average of $4.237.    Yesterday we looked at photographs of “Hoovervilles” in United States History II, shanty towns erected by the poor and homeless in the earliest years of the Great Depression. Our discussion was a weave of current events and history as students pointed out that the blame on President Hoover for the 1930s’ economic crisis was not unlike the sentiment of memes, gifs, and social media posts that place responsibility for today’s high gas prices on President Biden. As we reviewed some of the central causes of the Great Depression – over-lending, under consumption, bank failures, etc – it was as if tiny light bulbs were sparking over the heads of my students. Blaming Hoover for all of the economic turmoil that enveloped his administration was too simplistic. We had to look at the big picture.    The big picture right now is a complicated mix of domestic and international crises, which include a pandemic that has killed more than six million people worldwide, a war with major international repercussions, and a mounting refugee crisis in Eastern Europe. Trying to help students understand all of these issues is overwhelming, especially given that many spend little to no time outside of school exploring about current events. Sharing links regularly with our students is one easy way to guide them towards credible sources and encourage them to think about world events.    Here are two links I’m sharing this week:   Lesson of the Day: 'The Invasion of Ukraine: How Russia Attacked and What Happens Next' (New York Times, updated 22 March 2022) provides a list of key questions for students to consider as they seek a greater understanding of the war, including material that exposes students to Ukrainian history and links to other Times articles and editorials. I particularly like the way the site encourages students to share their views of the conflict and to read ideas expressed by other young people.   People’s and Government’s Choices to Help Refugees compiled by Facing History & Ourselves offers students examples of ways in which European countries have responded to the needs of Ukrainian refugees and suggests ways that students might reflect on the growing crisis. US history classes might use these examples in conjunction with a discussion of how the nation responded to the challenges faced by refugees during World War II.   Finally, this week I’m encouraging all of my students to read or watch news broadcasts about the Senate hearings for Supreme Court justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Live Streaming of the proceedings provides an opportunity for students to evaluate how our elected officials conduct themselves in public hearings. Asking students to reflect on the kinds of questions posed to the nominee can be an interesting lens into their observations of race and gender dynamics at this critical moment in our national history. While most online news sources offer basic background on the nominee, the Alliance for Justice published a more comprehensive history of Judge Jackson’s work as a lawyer and judge on their website earlier this month.   While at times it may feel as if there is simply too much happening in the world for us to introduce more content to our already over-stuffed curriculum, it is essential that we help students to view the context of today's events through the lens of history. ... View more

I started my US History II class meeting a few minutes late last Thursday so that I could show my students pictures of Lenin’s Mausoleum in Red Square. When I entered the room that morning the group was discussing the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Many had no idea where Ukraine is and few understood the significance of it having once been a part of the Soviet Union. Undoubtedly, the Cold War that clouded my high school years has been replaced in relevance for today’s students by the War on Terror, which for more than twenty years now has dominated American foreign policy.    The Lenin’s Mausoleum discussion started because I told the class that in 1989 I had the privilege of traveling to the then Soviet Union with a group of students and teachers from my suburban public high school. I shared that one of the most memorable experiences was waiting in line to pass through the Mausoleum. I can remember my seventeen-year-old self wondering if what I saw in front of me was really the physical remains of one of the founders of the Soviet Union or a wax model put in place to force citizens of the communist nation to pay homage. The students in my high school group debated the legitimacy of the body in the days that followed. We could think of no comparable memorial in the United States and its mere existence fascinated us. To our unsophisticated rationale, the willingness of the Soviet people to honor the remains of Lenin in such a public way seemed to support the arguments of American politicians that people in communist nations did not think for themselves but were, instead, puppets under the control of a brutal political ideology. Years later as a college student studying the history of the Soviet Union I learned that the reality of life under communist rule was far more complicated.   I have been thinking about that tip a lot lately because in addition to the Russian cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) our guides brought us to Ukraine to witness life in a Soviet Republic. We toured the city of Kharkiv and saw evidence of Soviet military control in the region. The people were exceedingly friendly, though also desperate for any morsel of life outside of the USSR. I can remember more than once being asked to trade my sneakers or blue jeans for a cheap trinket. The cleaning woman on the overnight train was overjoyed when I gave her my (used) make-up as a tip, and an American dollar was worth far more to a street vendor than the rubles I so carefully counted.     Thanks to Google I was able to quickly put pictures of the Mausoleum up on the screen for the class to view, which inevitably led to a series of questions, most of which revolved around “why”: why would a government put a long-dead body on permanent public display? Why would people wait hours to view it? And, most importantly, why did any of what I was saying relate to the current conditions in Ukraine?    Truthfully, I assumed when I started my Google search that Lenin had been long buried by now considering the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. I was shocked to find that the body remains on display, a testament to the past and an era I believed had ended, which brings me to my most significant observation of my students’ curiosity: there is so much about world history that is completely disconnected to the lives of today’s students. While they can see up-to-the-minute reports of violence in Ukraine through social media feeds and 24-hour news stations, none of those sources provide the context for the horror currently being unleashed on the Ukrainian people. No social media post adequately explains why the Ukrainian people are so willing to fight, again, in defense of their sovereignty.   We, as teachers and historians, must be prepared to help today’s students understand not just the timeline of the Russian invasion but the much longer history of Soviet/Russian aggression in the region. Let’s start sharing resources. Have you found a web site or digital resource that is particularly helpful in explaining the complicated history of Russia and Ukraine? Share here in the comments or email me suzannekmccormack@gmail.com and I will compile a list of resources for a future blog. ... View more

For me, the return to campus after nearly two full years (summer and winter sessions included) of remote teaching has been exciting and somewhat turbulent.    While the students are reacclimating to long-standing classroom practices (shutting off cell phones) and adapting to pandemic-related protocols (wearing a mask in class), I’m thrilled to hear my colleague lecturing in the classroom next door. I’m grateful for the enthusiasm of students who are happy to be back in the physical classroom. There seems to be an unspoken joy amongst teachers and students who relish once again being part of a group.    In spite of it being my fifteenth year of teaching at the same campus, however, I can’t seem to remember which classroom to go to at 10am on Tuesdays. Twice I have impatiently waited in the hallway outside the wrong room wondering why the students were not vacating the space only to discover that the problem was entirely me. And I find myself struggling with my classroom confidence. After so much time without live human beings in front of me, I’m feeling very self-conscious. Can they hear me through the mask? Can they read my handwriting on the board? Am I talking too fast? Am I talking too loudly? These thoughts rattle through my mind as I try my best to keep students' attention on the course content.    Mostly, however, I’m worried about what has been lost by the students over the past two years. At a community college the concept of preparedness and how to overcome gaps in students’ K-12 experiences is under constant discussion. The pandemic has made the challenges we have always faced even more dire and I’m making changes to my syllabus on the fly to adapt to what I perceive as students’ immediate needs.    This week, for example, I’m thinking a lot about note taking in advance of the first exam. I’ve distributed a study guide and asked students to bring all of their notes to class tomorrow in hopes that we can identify deficiencies before they spend the weekend engaged in studying. I’m hopeful that by completing practice questions in small groups we can model the upcoming in-class, timed exam experience that some of my students have never experienced at the college level.   Stay tuned!   ... View more

Recently a Catholic school in Massachusetts found itself immersed in controversy over their decision to serve a fried chicken lunch as part of Black History Month. The public attention and discourse surrounding the incident reminded me how far we still need to move as a society in terms of understanding our national history and integrating non-white perspectives. While I’m certain that as a society we will never be in complete agreement over what constitutes the “truth” about American history, I do believe that as teachers and historians we must guide our students towards a more comprehensive view of our nation’s diverse past.   For me, the “fried chicken” controversy speaks to the general problem of “Black History Month” – a mere month to turn the public’s short attention span to the history of a people that is far more complex and important than can be covered by snippets over the course of twenty-eight days. Those of us who teach black history recognize that it is filled with both triumphs and tragedies – too many to squeeze into a singular four-week period. I worry, for example, that years from now students will remember the fried chicken controversy but will have gained no lasting, concrete knowledge or understanding of the lives of black Americans.   Here, however, are two web-based resources that I have recently recommended to students and teachers to help integrate black history into every day , not just the days in February:    Joel Christian Gill is an illustrator and historian whose Instagram posts showcase his efforts to bring black history to a wider audience through comic books and graphic novels. Students love his illustrations and are inspired to research the subjects about which he publishes. Gill’s posts also include his sometimes funny, often painful, observations as a professor of color, which can offer prompts for honest conversations about race in the classroom.   The Zinn Education Project is valuable to teachers but useful to students of history as well. Of particular interest currently is the site’s publication of the National Report on the Teaching of  Reconstruction (January 2022), which includes a state-by-state analysis of what K-12 students are learning about the topic. For those teaching US history at the college level the report provides valuable information about what public school students are taught prior to high school graduation based on state guidelines and standards. The information is both enlightening and alarming. While I’m often surprised at my students’ lack of knowledge of Reconstruction, I was shocked to learn that in my state public schools are not required to teach any Recon struction history. This new insight will certainly inform my planning for future curriculum.   What black history-focused resources that should not be relegated to February have you encountered recently? Please share!  ... View more

Last week’s planned return to campus after three and a half semesters of remote teaching/learning was foiled by Omicron. Instead of meeting in person with students, I found myself lecturing to a screen full of black rectangles. Our college will spend the first four weeks of spring semester completely remote. Most of my students, it seems, are fatigued from on-camera class meetings and so it was that I appealed to any last sympathies they might have for their professors. “Please, don’t make me lecture to a screen with black rectangles and face-less names,” I pleaded. “When we meet in person next month it will be much less awkward if we are familiar with each other’s faces.” My pathetic begging resulted in about half the students turning on their cameras. A (very) small victory.   This afternoon I participated in a time management seminar for students run by our college tutoring center. While the number of students who attended was small, their willingness to participate in such a program during the second week of the semester reiterates the importance of recognizing that students generally start out the semester hoping for success. Attendees of today’s program, just by being present, were acknowledging the challenge of managing academic demands with family and work responsibilities. Likely they have struggled with balance in the past and are hoping that this semester things will be different. Their presence made me wonder how many of my students are, in fact, engaged in this juggling while their cameras are off during my lectures.    In my head I know that there are many reasons students do not turn on their cameras. Perhaps they feel uncomfortable having strangers see into their homes/workspaces. Maybe they are still in their pajamas and sipping their first coffee of the day during my 1pm class. Or they are shy and unwilling to have their images broadcast via the internet into their classmates’ private spaces. Or maybe they are texting or gaming or doing anything but listening to my lecture.   I’m trying hard right now to convince myself that it’s not all about me. I have been working with college students since 1994. Nonetheless, the hour before my first remote lesson of this spring semester I was an anxious mess. It was as if I had never taught a class before in my life. Although by this point in the current pandemic I have attended dozens of remote events, I found myself overcome by nerves before opening that first meeting. I played with the backgrounds, adjusted and readjusted my speaker and microphone, and changed my sweater twice. There is something about teaching through the lens of a webcam that is incredibly intimidating even for the most seasoned professional. The screen of black rectangles intensified this anxiety for me: were the students listening and taking notes? Or were they logged in to class but doing something more interesting instead?    All of this angst surrounding teaching remotely has made me even more nostalgic for the return to traditional in-person learning. But then, I wonder, how much will have changed? What will the new normal look like? I’m desperate to hear from those of you who are back in the traditional classroom. What has changed? For better or for worse? Please share. ... View more

With so much focus this past year on COVID-19 I asked some of the young people in my life (high school and college-age students) to tell me which news stories from 2021 they wished they knew more about. While we have been necessarily hyper-focused on the pandemic as we live through it day-to-day, what do today's students think future generations will need to know about the year 2021 to fully understand its history?   Topping their list of lessons for students of the future is the removal of US troops from Afghanistan and the rebirth of the Taliban. Many young people have never known a time when the US military was not active in the Middle East. For those born after the year 2000, the “War on Terror” is to them what the Cold War was to children of the 1970s like me. While it’s likely that it will likely take decades before historians fully understand what went wrong with US policy in Afghanistan, I’m hopeful that future generations of students will have access to government and military documents that provide a more complete picture of our nation’s policies overseas.   The students I spoke with also emphasized the importance of future generations studying the environmental crises of 2021, both natural and man-made. From wildfires, hurricanes and tornadoes to oil spills and air pollution, today’s young people see climate change as a fundamentally important topic of study for their lifetimes. Perhaps more than any generation before, students in 2021 have been charged with generating tangible changes that will benefit the environment. Issues relating to sustainability are becoming part of the business school curriculums and today’s students see the socially active young people of today as critical to the future of our environment’s survival.    Finally, I was heartened to hear today’s students emphasize the changes in public discussion about mental health that have taken place around the pandemic and spread into nearly all aspects of American life as critical to understanding the year 2021. One student cited the Summer Olympics as a flashpoint in the way that we as a society talk about stress. US gymnast Simone Biles’s decision to withdraw from competition led to other athletes and nationally known figures publicly acknowledging the mental toll that anxiety, depression, and stress have taken on their lives. The measurable surge in demand for counseling services for people of all ages during the pandemic will add to the importance of future generations looking to 2021 as a time of significant challenges (and hopefully progress) in the field of mental health.    Without question, COVID-19 with all of its variants has remained the most talked-about news story of the year. As a nation we’ve debated vaccinations (Moderna v. Pfizer v. J&J) and boosters (which to choose and when). We’ve seen major economic challenges as a result of the virus – job losses and creation, career changes inspired by the pandemic, unemployment, and work-from-home have all been part of public discussion. It could be argued that not one single aspect of American life has been untouched by the pandemic. As the year comes to an end, many of us find ourselves again facing COVID-based restrictions and shutdowns and wondering when this chaos will finally dissipate – hopeful that in 2022 the pandemic will move from being a current event to a topic for the history books.    Happy New Year!   ... View more

I have the privilege this year of parenting two students in their senior years: one in high school and one in college. As a result, I’m spending a lot of time thinking about higher education and the paths to undergraduate and graduate degrees. In particular, I’m hearing about the stress of making seemingly enormous decisions at the tender ages of 18 and 22. While I’m quite certain my own children are tired of hearing my personal story for the thousandth time, I think as faculty it’s worth sharing with the students in our lives why and how we made the decisions we did regarding education.    I can only vaguely recall being a high school senior with a handful of college acceptances. I remember not wanting to move far away from home and knowing with certainty that I would be limiting the number of math and science courses I took to the bare minimum. I emphasize how little I remember about this decision-making process because so many of us as parents and educators want to see young people quickly and assertively make decisions about their academic and career paths. When we reflect on our own, however, we are reminded of how foggy and unclear it all seemed in the moment.    As a professor at a community college, I’m perhaps even more sympathetic to the challenges of academic decision making than most parents. I see first-hand, regularly, how the college search process can go wrong. Teaching in a state with a program that offers free community college to recent high school graduates means I have a lot of fresh-faced 18 year olds in my classes each fall. I also, however, work with just as many students for whom the first choice of their college search process did not work out as planned. Students have found themselves too far from home or with financial aid complications or at a university/college that was too big/too small for their learning style. Community college for those students is an opportunity to re-group and re-think their futures. Oftentimes, it is in our classrooms at the community college that these students find the path that they did not know they were searching for.   As we approach the semester’s end, let’s do our best as faculty and teachers to help guide our students through the challenges of decision-making and path-building. Being open and honest with our students about the right/wrong choices we made along our own journeys can be enormously helpful to both young people just starting out as well as to those non-traditional college students seeking a life reboot. With all of the stress and challenges facing students today, let’s do our best to show empathy for how difficult it is to make decisions amidst the turmoil of the pandemic. No matter our academic discipline, the students we teach amidst this chaos will remember us in the future for our kindness.  ... View more

I recently had the opportunity to view the film “Loving” (2016), a dramatization based on  Loving v. Virginia (1967) in which the Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage. For those who have yet to see the film it is a fictionalized account reportedly inspired by “The Loving Story” (2012), an HBO documentary. In addition to the obvious significance of the case in the history of civil rights, viewing the feature film reinforced for me the many areas of US history that can be enhanced by class discussion of the Loving case.    Watching the entire film in class is not always optimal timewise but there are some excellent online resources to introduce the case to the class in its place. Encyclopedia Virginia offers a summary of the key people and events, which can be assigned in conjunction maps and figures documenting the history of interracial marriage in the United States. Both the ACLU and vividmaps.com have accessible visual aids to help students understand the geographical component of the debate. While general histories of the case often portray its importance within the broader movement for civil rights, in-class or online discussions may branch out to include such diverse topics as the civil history of marriage in the colonies and the States, miscegenation laws, the 14th Amendment, and the post-Civil War rise of Jim Crow. Students may also wish to discuss connections between Loving v. Virginia and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which guaranteed marriage equality.   The Loving case offers an opportunity for students to talk historically about inter-racial relationships and the challenges faced by black and white families who sought to navigate friendships and marriages amidst brutally restrictive racial customs enforced by state laws. It also sheds light on the hypocrisy of a culture that long accepted sexual assault against black women (free and enslaved) by white men but believed that consenting adults should not have the legal right to create interracial unions. These conversations are no doubt difficult in the classroom but meaningful for students to fully understand the foundations and lasting-legacies of slavery and racism in our national history.   I find the Loving case to be particularly relevant to students because, at heart, it is about the right of two people to create a family of their own choosing. It is sometimes easy to lose sight of the human beings behind Supreme Court rulings, but it is these historical actors that many of our students will engage with most willingly. Encourage them to read interviews with Mildred and Richard Loving, and to watch some of the short video clips of news coverage of the case. In learning about this case many students will be able to see connections to their own family histories and to reflect on how their lives may have been different without the end of miscegenation laws that Loving v. Virginia brought about.  ... View more

Every year around this point in the semester -- past midterms, almost at Thanksgiving Break, and starting to think about final exams -- I find myself needing some additional inspiration to push through the last weeks of fall courses. I can feel my motivation lagging and the early sunsets only add to my lethargy. I’m taking some time for reflection this week in hopes of reinvigorating my mental focus so I can finish the semester with the same (or close to ) enthusiasm I had the first week of September.   The first step in my reinvigoration process has been to take some time to think ahead to next semester. Half of my course load is different in the spring so I looked back through some of the notes I kept from last spring to remind myself of particular changes I want to make to those courses. Giving my brain a future project to think about, even briefly, gave me a momentary break from the weight of the current semester. I like to make at least one significant curriculum change each time I offer a course. Reviewing my notes from last time around reminded me of ideas I had for spring 2022 and gave me an opportunity to feel excited about their implementation.    Next I spent just a handful of minutes today browsing the current registration numbers for my spring courses. Registration just opened this past Monday and already my US Women’s History class is full. To know that there are so many students interested in the subject matter made me more excited to think about topics I will be teaching in the spring and how to better connect them to my students’ lives.   Finally, as a last bit of motivation, this morning I pulled one of my all-time favorite books down from the shelf. Many years ago as a graduate teaching assistant at Boston College I was assigned to a Western Civilization II course. As a US history major I remember dreading the shift in focus to European history for so many precious hours of the week. The professor assigned Pat Barker’s brilliant Regeneration (1991) for the students to discuss as part of their World War I materials. While I cannot remember anything about leading those discussion sections, I have reread Regeneration every single year since that fall semester in 1999. The book itself is now in its thirtieth year of publication. Each time I read Barker’s fictional account of a British asylum for soldiers during the war I am reminded of how the book initially led me to read more about World War I when the course finished, and then many years later inspired me to start researching asylums in the United States around the same period of time. As I reread the book now I’m hopeful that some new inspiration and motivation will grow from the familiar story.   How do you handle late-semester fatigue? Suggestions welcome.   ... View more

I’m getting my COVID booster today and am feeling very hopeful. If enough people in my neck of the woods follow through with vaccinations and boosters maybe, just maybe, I will be able to return to campus in the spring. Student reluctance to register for on-campus offerings has meant a third semester of all online teaching. I’m starting to optimistically think about what I might take back to the brick and mortar classroom space with me from this three semester-long remote experience.    A colleague noted this week that she plans to continue using her online discussion board even when she is teaching in-person. Students who are reluctant to speak up in a traditional classroom space often submit eloquent, thoughtful discussion posts in online classes. My colleague is wise to take advantage of this reality and I plan to as well. I’ve also thought about using a chat-style system during my in-person lecture so that students who might be shy about raising their hand will still get their questions answered in class. Perhaps an open “chat” during my live lectures will allow me to engage more students in classroom meetings than I have in the past. While my attention span is too short to allow a scrolling chat to interrupt me during lecture, I can foresee looking at the chat in the last couple minutes of class to catch any questions that need to  be addressed.    I’m planning to continue to use the journal-based research assignment that I first wrote about in a blog this past spring (see “Summer Project: Assignment Reboot” ) in which I break down a traditional research project into sections and grade each separately. I designed this project because I felt my students were fatigued from online learning and not fully engaged in their semester-long projects. Forcing them to submit the project in sections has enabled me to keep tabs on their progress while providing feedback along the way, and has significantly reduced the problem of procrastination on the students’ end. I also find that the grading process for me is quicker (shorter chunks of work submitted at a time) and that I’m writing more comments.   And finally, I’m planning to continue to take advantage of the abundance of human resources that are available virtually as a result of the pandemic. I encourage fellow faculty to follow the social media feeds of historical and cultural organizations that relate to the topics you are teaching in class. On November 1st, for example, my students will be attending a virtual artist talk by Nikole Hannah Jones titled “Examining Slavery’s Modern Legacy,” hosted by Massachusetts College of Art & Design ( register here ). Later in November they will be assigned to view (live or via the post-event recording) a talk by Gayle Jessup White hosted by the National Archives. “Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for Her Family’s Lasting Legacy” will be moderated virtually by historian Annette Gordon Reed ( register here ). I have no doubt you’ll be amazed by the access your students can have to fabulous speakers and resources with just a little time web surfing.   If there is something that you’ve brought back into the traditional classroom with you from your experience with pandemic-era online learning, please share!  ... View more

When I was 22 I made it through only half of the movie “Pulp Fiction” in a theater before leaving. I couldn’t see past the violence on the screen to the creative story being crafted underneath. I was simply too uncomfortable to see anything artistic through the blood and gore. Nearly three decades later my son, an aspiring filmmaker, convinced me to give the movie another try -- reminding me of a lesson that I have forced on him many, many times: discomfort can be a tool for learning.   I’ve been thinking a lot about my (admittedly simplistic!) example of a personal life lesson lately as public debate abounds about the teaching of critical race theory and the level of discomfort by which many white people approach discussions of race. I’m heartened by the fact that since the death of George Floyd more white students at my college are taking Black History and courses that examine race and ethnicity through the lenses of sociology and literature. The students’ willingness to confront discomfort makes me hopeful in spite of news stories that highlight the hatred and ignorance that still festers in so many predominantly white communities and institutions in the United States.    This week’s coverage of the resignation of NFL coach John Gruden’s over racist, homophobic, and misogynistic emails is a reminder of how far our society still needs to go to move the needle on hate and discrimination. Gruden’s flimsy explanation that he “never meant for [the emails] to sound that bad” reminds us that many white Americans in positions of power -- Gruden had a contract that paid him $100 million over ten years -- are incredibly ignorant of history and the context through which racism, sexism, and homophobia have negatively impacted countless people. As history teachers, we need to continue to work to ensure that the next generation of leaders in business and industries, like the NFL and so many others, do not enable the acceptance of hate speech.   In spite of all the negativity present in our current world, as an educator I have to remain hopeful for the future. I welcome fellow history teachers to share such hope with their students and academic communities. This month I’m encouraging my students to identify stories of hope and inspiration from black history by entering this year’s “Black History, Black Stories” video/writing competition sponsored by Macmillan Learning. Visit the Macmillan Learning web site for details and consider assigning the video/essay prompt as an extra credit assignment. Learning more about who/what inspires our students can be a great help for curriculum design and can give us deeper insight into the lives of the young people in our classrooms, which can only lead to greater compassion and understanding.  ... View more