Norway Doorway, pt 5: Sean Taylor on Reacting to the Past

Randall Stephens

One of the more enjoyable things about my Fulbright experience in Norway has been getting to know other American Fulbrighters and to hear about the work they are doing. Martin Fisk (Oregon State University, University of Bergen) is studying bacterial life "deep in the Earth and their impact on the rocks in which they are found. This research could contribute to solutions

of a number of environmental problems and help to identify evidence of past life on Mars." He's one of the researchers who is taking part in a future Mars Rover mission. Others are studying climate science, literature, drama, public art, the nature of genocide, and much, much more.

The historian Sean Taylor--a Fulbright scholar at the University of Agder in Kristiansand--is associate professor of history at Minnesota State University Moorhead. His research focuses on colonial, revolutionary, and early national America. While in Norway he is working on a dynamic new pedagogy that is changing the way we draw students into debates about history. Called Reacting to the Past, this history game offers students the chance to engage history on a more direct level.

The Reacting to Past website at Barnard College describes it as follows:

Reacting to the Past (RTTP) consists of elaborate games, set in the past, in which students are assigned roles informed by classic texts in the history of ideas. Class sessions are run entirely by students; instructors advise and guide students and grade their oral and written work. It seeks to draw students into the past, promote engagement with big ideas, and improve intellectual and academic skills.

In the video embedded here I speak to Taylor about his use of this pedagogy and how it has worked in his classroom. He also speaks to me about Barnard College's role in developing curriculum and hosting events. And finally Taylor tells me a little about how he'd like to use Reacting in the classroom in Norway.

Norway Doorway, pt 4: Way up North and Academic Travel

Randall Stephens

Academics do their fair share of traveling. Research trips. Conferences. Job interviews . . . Hiltons. Best Westerns. Off-season dorm rooms that smell of Ramen Noodles and stale beer. Roach motels that smell even worse.

For me, a trip to Svalbard this week for my work as a Fulbright Roving Scholar is without comparison.

Today I join my two colleagues, Sarah Anderson and Isaac Larison, at the Longyearbyen Skole. The three of us will be speaking with students about the American educational system, postwar US history, Native American culture, religion in the South, and more.

Longyearbyen's population hovers around 2,000, much more if you throw in polar bears and Siberian Huskys. The village looks a little bit like an IKEA-designed base camp on the planet Hoth. Very cool. We're thrilled to be up here 800 miles north of the arctic circle. And strangely, thanks to warm ocean currents, it's more mild than one would think. All three of us have spent plenty of time crisscrossing the country in planes, trains, and automobiles. It certainly helps that, like plenty of others in our profession, we like to travel.

In a primer for grad students who are about to make their way into their field of choice, Paul Gray and David E. Drew write in the Chronicle about one of the perks of higher ed: travel. (A shrinking perk, for sure, as states cut budgets, and deans slash and burn.) In "What They Didn't Teach You in Graduate School 2.0," Gray and Drew write:

Travel is a major fringe benefit in academe. The amount of travel varies by field and by institution. In most fields, one or more major meetings a year take place at the national and regional levels. Despite financial stringencies, most institutions pay your way if you are on the program or involved in recruiting (usually restricted to senior faculty members). Furthermore, each meeting is scheduled in a different location. Because it is easier to win approval for a short trip than it is for a long one, take the opportunity to attend nearby meetings whenever they occur.

Food for thought for those, to quote the Pernice Brothers, "contemplating suicide or a graduate degree."

Perhaps the travel bit was a bigger boon in ages past. More than 30 years ago David Lodge parodied the academic jetset in his hilarious, exuberant novel Small World. (Sadly, no characters are zooming north to Svalbard.) As a send-up that's now become a period piece, Lodge's book reads like a Mad Men version of the tenured-and-sinecured classes. A choice passage:

The whole academic world seems to be on the move. Half the passengers on transatlantic flights these days are university teachers. Their luggage is heavier than average, weighed down with books and papers--and bulkier, because their wardrobes must embrace both formal wear and leisurewear, clothes for attending lectures in, and clothes for going to the beach in, or to the Museum, or the Schloss, or the Duomo, or the Folk Village. For that's the attraction of the conference circuit: it's a way of converting work into play, combining professionalism with tourism. . . (162)

Now where was that Svalbard Museum, and where did I put my extra hat?

Norway Doorway, pt 3: Trysil and Bergen

Randall Stephens

A couple of weeks ago I gave a series of lectures in Trysil, Norway, on American history, regional culture, and religion in the South. It was a wonderful visit, though, I think I never figured out just how to say "Trysil" like a native. (Spoken, it sounds like "Trusal" to me.)

My hosts were wonderfully gracious. Lively conversationalists and the sort of people you meet briefly and miss quite a bit when you're back on the road.

The school at which I spoke had a culinary, vocational program. Meaning: fantastic multi-course lunches that featured a salmon casserole and then moose burgers. Quite a few of the students here were part of a sports program. And, from what I understand, some of those were on the professional track, with sponsorships and bright futures. Xtreme energy drink ski suits with aggro fonts and nuclearized color schemes.

One of the sessions I gave in this lovely ski resort town was for teachers. I focused on the range of teaching materials and resources out on the world-web, inter-tubes:

"Teaching American History and Culture with Online Newspapers and Images."

The Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division (www.loc.gov/pictures/) and the newly created Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) hold a treasure trove of historical and cultural artifacts. In this seminar we will explore using the free newspaper archive and the vast resources of images at the Library of Congress to reconstruct the past. Students could be encouraged to take a news item from 1860-1922—a political campaign, scandal, natural disaster, technological innovation, etc.—and then investigate that by using both newspapers and visual materials (prints, cartoons, photographs.) Students might be asked to outline what we learn about a particular period in history by examining the item being reported. Students might also explore the biases and perspectives of cartoonists and reporters. Questions like the following might prod the conversation: Why would a reporter or editor in the North take a different view of black voting rights than one in the South would? How did the political battles of the late 1800s differ from region to region? How are the views of contemporary Americans or Norwegians different today from those being studied here? Students should come away from the project with an understanding of the context of late 19^th and early 20^th century history, a greater appreciation of change over time, and insight into how news and other media shape our view of the past.

As part of that talk I gave a handout to the teachers that included the sources we discussed. Here's that list, with some brief descriptions

ONLINE RESOURCES FOR AMERICAN HISTORY & CULTURE

BOOKS

Google Books
http://books.google.com/

DATA MAPS

Bedford/St. Martin’s Map Central
http://worth.runtime.com/browse/Music

HISTORICAL IMAGES

Artcyclopedia (paintings, prints, lists of movements and countries)
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs On-line (cartoons, photographs, paintings)
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/

Picturing America (historical American paintings)
http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/

HISTORICAL MAPS

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (images, manuscripts, maps)
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/

LESSON PLANS/TEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (lesson plans, guides, documents, and more)
www.gilderlehrman.org/

Smithsonian: Teaching American History
www.smithsoniansource.org/

Teaching History: National Education Clearinghouse
http://teachinghistory.org/

NEWSPAPERS

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

University of Pennsylvania Libraries: Historical Newspapers Online
http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/guides/hist/onlinenewspapers.html

SOME OF EVERYTHING

American Memory from the Library of Congress (music, movies, documents, photos, newspapers)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Archive (documents, movies, photos, music)
www.archive.org

Bedford/St. Martin’s Make History Site (documents, photos, maps, and more)
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/makehistory2e/MH/Home.aspx

Today I arrived in Bergen for three days of sessions with students and teachers at the Bergen Cathedral School, founded, according to legend, all the way back in 1153 by Nicholas Breakspear, who would go on to become pope Adrian IV. Breakspear . . . no relation to Burning Spear, right? (Check out where I am and where I'll be on the Google Map.) These are bright, bright kids. They will no doubt keep me on my toes!

When I'm not doing the shutterbug thing around town and on the wharfs, I'll be speaking about the following: “The Praying South: Why Is the American South the Most Religious Region of the Country?” and “What do American English & Regional Accents Tell Us about America?”

Next Week it's on to Øya videregående skole 7228 Kvål. Say that five times quickly.

Norway Doorway, pt 2: Getting Students Interested in Historical Questions

Randall Stephens

I'm giving a talk on Wednesday to high school teachers in Trysil, Norway, which happens to be the largest ski destination in the country. Poor me. I'll be focusing in on how we might best engage students in historical, political, and cultural debates. That's always a tough task, especially if students arrive on the first day with absolutely no interest in the topic.

As a guide I plan to use a course I teach on America in the 1960s. (Admittedly, it's a bit easier to generate interest here. Would be more difficult if the class was about Medieval court records or Byzantine statesmanship.) Larger guiding questions, I've found, work well in a class like this. I want students to better understand change over time, the connection of the past to the present, and the debates that rage over American history. Here are some of the questions that help direct the 60s course:

Can we sum up an entire decade? Can we make coherent generalizations about America in the 1960s?

In what ways was America in 1969 different from America in 1959?

How is America in 2012 different from America in the 1960s?

What explains the degree of activism—anti-war movements, the black freedom struggle, the New Right, liberation movements—of the decade?

How did American politics and culture have a world impact in the 1960s?

How have the debates and key issues of that decade continued to shape American culture? (Hint: culture wars.)

To describe how best to make use of these sorts of questions—and more micro ones as well—I'm going to draw on some material from the National History Education Clearinghouse (NHEC). (This is a stretch for me. I don't typically cotton to endless pedagogy talk.) The NHEC website includes some great material on "Inquiry Lessons," which:

introduce students to the "doing" of history. Through using evidence to investigate historical questions, students are given the opportunity to see that history is not just a collection of facts, but rather a rigorously constructed set of arguments. As students encounter new and in some cases contradictory evidence, they are asked to reconsider their initial views, learning that interpretations of the past can change based on the available historical evidence.

The idea is to choose a historical question that can then be examined in detail with primary and secondary sources. Other questions might follow that will help students think about the sources. How do the documents relate to one another? How can one judge the relative value of one source against another? The evidence can go well beyond written materials. In the case of the 1960s one could use posters, video clips, music, photographs, and more.

I'm looking forward to my first interactive session with teachers. And I'm hoping that we'll have a good discussion about what works best to draw students into the debates. Maybe I'll get some skiing in as well.

Norway Doorway, pt 1

Randall Stephens

Last week I had the pleasure of teaching several lectures in Stavanger and Bryne, Norway, as part of my work as a Fulbright Roving Scholar here. The students were bright and had, for the most part, high proficiency in English. Some, I figure, have a better grasp of English than do many American college students. (Thanks to all the teachers for being such great hosts!)

I gave a few talks and generated some discussion with students at the Stavanger Katedralskole, an institution that dates back to the early 19th century. The cathedral that looms next to it is Norway's oldest, dating to the 1100s. The beautiful interior of the school looked like something out of a Carl Larsson painting.

The school describes itself with the following on its website.

Stavanger Cathedral School, Royal Farm, is one of the oldest schools and has since 1800 been one of the most prestigious and tradition-rich school in Stavanger. The school is located between the city lake, Cathedral Square and within walking distance to almost everything in the city center. The school has teachers who are deeply committed and have a high professional competence. Stavanger Cathedral School is characterized by high job satisfaction among the approximately 485 students, and as a student here, you will develop friends for life! Student Activities at the school are varied and we have much to offer. Stavanger Cathedral School is a modern school, with well-equipped classrooms and special rooms.

I spoke to the students about American advertising in the postwar era, the 2012 election, and the founding of America. It was interesting to talk with them about the role the US plays in the world and to hear what they had to say about America from the vantage of Norway.

We started out our look at the founding by asking what role the government should play in the lives of citizens. "It should guarantee the welfare of all," said some. Others thought that governments should be responsible for securing education and equal opportunities. We had some time to talk about the long anti-government tradition in America and to focus on some of the debates among the founders over less or more government. That theme tied in well with the 2012 election, the Tea Party, and the views that GOP candidates have expressed about President Obama. I used a recent quote from frontrunner Mitt Romney: "President Obama wants to make us a European style welfare state, where instead of being a merit society, we're an entitlement society, where government's role is to take from some and give to others."*

One of the challenges for me will be to try to explain why so many Americans have a low opinion of the government and how that has been critical to the debates that have roiled the public over the decades and centuries.

Now, on to give talks in Porsgrunn and Oslo this week.