{"id":53244,"date":"2015-02-02T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=53244"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:26:08","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:26:08","slug":"five-years-after-long-live-howard-zinn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/02\/five-years-after-long-live-howard-zinn\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Years After: Long Live Howard Zinn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Historian<\/a>

Historian and educator Howard Zinn said that inspiring students to change the world should be the “modest little aim” of teaching. (Portrait: Painting by Robert Shetterly AmericansWhoTelltheTruth.org)<\/p><\/div>\n

Today\u2014Jan. 27, 2015\u2014marks five years since the death of the great historian and activist Howard Zinn<\/a>. Not a day goes by that I don\u2019t wonder what Howard would say about something\u2014the growth of the climate justice movement, #BlackLivesMatter, the new Selma<\/em> film, the killings at the Charlie Hebdo<\/em> offices. No doubt, he would be encouraged by how many educators are engaging students in thinking critically about these and other issues.<\/p>\n

Zinn is best known, of course, for his beloved A People\u2019s History of the United States<\/a>, arguably the most influential U.S. history textbook in print. \u201cThat book will knock you on your ass,\u201d as Matt Damon\u2019s character says in the film Good Will Hunting<\/em>. But Zinn did not merely record history, he made it: as a professor at Spelman College in the 1950s and early 1960s, where he was ultimately fired for his outspoken support of students in the Civil Rights Movement, and specifically the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)<\/a>; as a critic of the U.S. war in Vietnam, and author of the first book calling for an immediate U.S. withdrawal; and as author of numerous books on war, peace, and popular struggle. Zinn was speaking and educating new generations of students and activists right up until the day he died.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s always worth dipping into the vast archive of Zinn scholarship, but at a moment of increasing social activism and global tension, now is an especially good time to remember some of Howard Zinn\u2019s wisdom.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Barack Obama\u2019s election, in November 2008, the Zinn Education Project sponsored a talk by Zinn<\/a> to several hundred teachers at the National Council for the Social Studies annual conference in Houston. Zinn reminded teachers that the point of learning about social studies was not simply to memorize facts, but to imbue students with a desire to change the world. \u201cA modest little aim,\u201d Zinn acknowledged, with a twinkle in his eye.<\/p>\n

In this talk, available as an online video<\/a> as well as a transcription<\/a>, Zinn insisted that teachers must help students challenge \u201cfundamental premises that keep us inside a certain box.\u201d Because without this critical rethinking of premises about history and the role of the United States in the world, \u201cthings will never change.\u201d And this will remain \u201ca world of war and hunger and disease and inequality and racism and sexism.\u201d<\/p>\n

A key premise that needs to be questioned, according to Zinn, is the notion of \u201cnational interests,\u201d a term so common in the political and academic discourse as to be almost invisible. Zinn points out that the \u201cone big family\u201d myth begins with the Constitution\u2019s preamble: \u201cWe the people of the United States. . .\u201d Zinn noted that it wasn\u2019t \u201cwe the people\u201d who established the Constitution in Philadelphia\u2014it was 55 rich white men. Missing from or glossed over in the traditional textbook treatment are race and class divisions<\/a>, including the rebellions of farmers in Western Massachusetts, immediately preceding the Constitutional Convention in 1787. No doubt, the Constitution had elements of democracy, but Zinn argues that it \u201cestablished the rule of slaveholders, and merchants, and bondholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teaching history through the lens of class, race, and gender conflict is not simply more accurate, according to Zinn; it also makes it more likely that students\u2014and all the rest of us\u2014will not \u201csimply swallow these enveloping phrases like \u2018the national interest,\u2019 \u2018national security,\u2019 \u2018national defense,\u2019 as if we\u2019re all in the same boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Zinn told teachers in Houston: \u201cNo, the soldier who is sent to Iraq does not have the same interests as the president who sends him to Iraq. The person who works on the assembly line at General Motors does not have the same interest as the CEO of General Motors. No\u2014we\u2019re a country of divided interests, and it\u2019s important for people to know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"howardzinn_peacerally-335x253\"<\/a>Another premise Zinn identified, one that is an article of faith in so much U.S. history curriculum and corporate-produced textbooks, is \u201cAmerican exceptionalism\u201d\u2014the idea that the United States is fundamentally freer, more virtuous, more democratic, and more humane than other countries. For Zinn, the United States is \u201can empire like other empires. There was a British empire, and there was a Dutch empire, and there was a Spanish empire, and yes, we are an American empire.\u201d The United States expanded through deceit and theft and conquest, just like other empires, although textbooks cleanse this imperial bullying with legal-sounding terms like the Louisiana Purchase<\/em> and the Mexican Cession.<\/em><\/p>\n

Patriotism is another premise that we need to question. As Zinn told teachers in Houston: \u201cIt\u2019s very bad for everybody when young people grow up thinking that patriotism means obedience to your government.\u201d Zinn often recalled Mark Twain\u2019s distinction between country and government. \u201cDoes patriotism mean support your government? No. That\u2019s the definition of patriotism in a totalitarian state,\u201d Zinn warned a Denver audience in a 2008 speech, included in Howard Zinn Speaks<\/em><\/a>, edited by Anthony Arnove [Haymarket Books, 2012].<\/p>\n

And going to war on behalf of \u201cour country\u201d is offered as the highest expression of patriotism\u2014in everything from the military recruitment propaganda that saturates our high schools to the social studies curriculum that features photos of U.S. troops heroically battling \u201cenemy soldiers\u201d in a section called \u201cOperation Iraqi Freedom\u201d in the widely used high school Holt McDougal textbook Modern World History<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Howard Zinn cuts through this curricular fog: \u201cWar is terrorism. . . . Terrorism is the willingness to kill large numbers of people for some presumably good cause. That\u2019s what terrorists are about.\u201d Zinn demands that we reexamine the premise that war is necessary, a proposition not taken seriously in any high school history textbook I\u2019ve ever seen. Instead, wars get sold to Americans\u2014especially to the young people who fight those wars\u2014as efforts to spread liberty and democracy. As Howard Zinn said many times, if you don\u2019t know your history, it\u2019s as if you were born yesterday. Leaders can tell you anything and you have no way of knowing what\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Howard Zinn wanted educators to be deeply critical, but never cynical. When speaking to the teachers in Houston, Zinn insisted that another premise we needed to examine is the idea that progress is the product of great individuals. Zinn pointed out that Abraham Lincoln had never been an abolitionist, and when he ran for president in 1860 he did not advocate ending slavery in the states where it existed. Rather, it was largely the \u201chuge antislavery movement that pushed Lincoln into the Emancipation Proclamation\u2014that pushed Congress into the 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zinn urged educators to teach a people\u2019s<\/em> history<\/a>: \u201cWe\u2019ve never had our injustices rectified from the top, from the president or Congress, or the Supreme Court, no matter what we learned in junior high school about how we have three branches of government, and we have checks and balances, and what a lovely system. No. The changes, important changes that we\u2019ve had in history, have not come from those three branches of government. They have reacted to social movements.”<\/p>\n

Thus when we single out people in our curriculum as icons, as \u201cpeople to admire and respect,\u201d Zinn advocated shedding the traditional pantheon of government and military leaders: \u201cBut there are other heroes<\/a> that young people can look up to. And they can look up to people who are against war. They can have Mark Twain as a hero who spoke out against the Philippines war. They can have Helen Keller<\/a> as a hero who spoke out against World War I, and Emma Goldman as a hero. They can have Fannie Lou Hamer as a hero, and Bob Moses as a hero, the people in the Civil Rights Movement\u2014they are heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to this, there is one final \u201cpeople\u2019s history\u201d premise we need to remember\u2014whether in education or the world outside of schools. As Howard Zinn reminded the audience of social studies teachers in Houston: \u201cPeople change.\u201d Zinn did not look to President Obama to initiate social transformation; but in 2008, he saw the election as confirmation that the long history of anti-racist struggle in the United States produced an outcome that would have been inconceivable 30 years prior. And this shift in attitude should give us hope.<\/p>\n

Immediately following Zinn\u2019s death, the writer and activist Naomi Klein said, \u201cWe just lost our favorite teacher.\u201d That\u2019s what I felt, too. As we remember Howard Zinn five years after his passing, let\u2019s count him among the many social justice heroes and teachers <\/em>who offer proof that people\u2019s efforts make a difference\u2014that ordinary people can change the world.<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 The Zinn Education Project\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill Bigelow taught high school social studies in Portland, Ore. for almost 30 years. He is the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools<\/a> and the co-director of the Zinn Education Project<\/a>. This project offers free materials to teach people\u2019s history and an \u201cIf We Knew Our History\u201d article series. Bigelow is author or co-editor of numerous books, including <\/em>A People\u2019s History for the Classroom<\/a> and <\/em>The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration<\/a>, and most recently, <\/em>A People’s Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 commondreams.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2014Jan. 27, 2015\u2014marks five years since the death of the great historian and activist Howard Zinn, best known, of course, for his beloved ‘A People\u2019s History of the United States,’ arguably the most influential U.S. history textbook in print. Immediately following Zinn\u2019s death, the writer and activist Naomi Klein said, \u201cWe just lost our favorite teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}