Results of Ruminations

I happened upon this article from The New Yorker  by floating around Twitter today. It really shook me up, though not necessarily because of what it described, but the process that I've been (inadvertently) a part of. I teach history, but I focus on European civilization more than anything else. I fold in some additional aspects of world history--a sprinkling of Africa, Meso-America, and Asia creep in, but mostly as they intersected with European movements. This is a traditional approach to history; its biggest shortcoming, I fear, is that it's assumed as being the  history of the world, rather than a  history of the world. That is, I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with having a Eurocentric version of history, provided that it's understood that it's one of many, equally valid ways of appreciating the past. In the course of teaching history this way, I know that there are gaps and assumptions. This is the nature of teaching: Anything I teach ...

Tonight I invited those students who had traveled to Europe with me to have a night of reflection, to talk about their experiences, and to reminisce about our shared experiences. It was touching to see and hear the various things that affected them, the variegated impressions and preferences. Each had a place, country, or moment that they felt would be something that they would carry with them. For many, it was the cemetery at Normandy. For others, it was completing something they have always wanted to do--go to the Eiffel Tower, see a London musical, visit the Louvre. It was gratifying to see the things that mattered to them, to know all of the work and stress and worry had paid off. It was a little different for me this time, however, as I had been in a support role throughout the trip, letting my coworker carry the majority of the effort. Despite that, I had been carrying a pretty heavy load of guilt about the fact that the trip had not been as consistent as I had hoped. We whipla...

16 January 2017--The Beaches of Normandy The rain-slicked parking lot spread before the tour group as we disembarked. Signs in English (first) and French (second) urged visitors to treat the place as hallowed and sacred. We sloshed toward the entrance of the museum, shoulders hunched against the cold, and looked at the low-slung building. It was modern, sharp, and in some ways sterile, but it housed the museum and entrance to the cemetery itself. Gayle and I made our way through security and then walked downstairs. A short film clip speaking about some of the soldiers who died during the fighting rolled. We sat and listened, their names fading almost immediately. One man, however, was 32 when he left the British coast, gone to help heal the wounded. He died there, not far from where we sat, learning his story, and watching photos of him playing with his children flickered on the screen. I'm 33. Tears began to surface as the import of the place continued to swell within me. ...

11 January 2017--Sachsenhausen concentration camp As the bus trundled through the sleepy German village, snow fell in whispering piles, collecting on the steep peaks of the colorful houses. Gayle slept on my shoulder as we drove through an Advent calendar. On the German radio, American music played. The British band Depeche Mode came on, singing softly. "People are people so why should it be / You and I should get along so awfully?"  We were headed toward Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp about an hour outside of Berlin. The snow made navigating the narrow roads stressful, so I tried to pay attention to my window, rather than the front of the coach. The students dozed or chatted softly, playing with their phones or thinking their thoughts. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for the future prisoners of the camp, who also arrived in cold and snow, but without the comfort of a warm bus, a recent lunch, or even a coat. We disembarked, the snow slicing between ...