In September 2018, Slate ran an excerpt of Sam Wineburg’s book Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone). The article was an attack on Howard Zinn and people’s history teachers. Wineburg argued that Zinn’s approach to history is “dangerous,” because “Zinn’s power of persuasion extinguishes students’ ability to think and speaks directly to their hearts.”
Journalist Jonathan Chait added fuel to the fire when he shared Wineburg’s article and asserted that many teachers use A People’s History as their only textbook.
I’ve heard many students say Howard Zinn’s People’s History is the central/sole textbook in their history course. That’s a very bad practice. https://t.co/PVBeuNxbGI
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) September 23, 2018
Educators and activists responded to both pieces on social media. The Zinn Education Project’s Ursula Wolfe-Rocca wrote an article defending the importance of teaching people’s history.
Here are many of the key exchanges.
Here’s a novel thought: the vast majority of American school children are not middle-class white kids.
History needs to reflect our demographics.
Zinn wrote a history of actual Americans – not just the white elite.
And *that’s* why it remains a best-seller.@ZinnEdProject
— Keri Leigh Merritt (@KeriLeighMerrit) September 23, 2018
I think many educators would agree that there are problems with basically all history textbooks. Yet I find this analysis unfair to the Zinn legacy, in part because it fails to mention the @ZinnEdProject’s excellent presentation and use of primary sources. https://t.co/hsfFxZA7U5
— Allison Horrocks (@allisonhorrocks) September 17, 2018
Second this. The very word ‘textbook’ connotes a main resource upon which a course of study relies. As Zinn advocated, his book should be included as a way to add to and even change the historical conversation. In a history class, no one book, text or reader, should dominate.
— Professor Swogger (@ProfSwogger) September 23, 2018
In @Slate, Sam Wineburg says Zinn does not use qualifying language like “perhaps” in APHUS. Actually, he does. Detmer counts & lists every page. He also counts how many times Wineburg uses “perhaps” or “maybe.” Venture a guess? See: https://t.co/NmxYLX8QgS
— Zinn Ed Project (@ZinnEdProject) September 22, 2018
Wineburg says “Zinn went to teach at Spelman [HBCU]. . . but was fired after he organized the college women.” Not true and promotes white/male/Northern savior stereotype. @SpelmanCollege women organized themselves. Zinn & others offered support. https://t.co/qvfxnwHpyw
— Zinn Ed Project (@ZinnEdProject) September 23, 2018
Thread from Show Your Work
This is a pretty shoddy @slate article about Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of The United States,” so of course Chait picks it up for a long run towards the end zone, reaching the 40-yard line and throwing down the ball to do an awkard touchdown dance. 1/severalw https://t.co/BiWWDHDyGj
— Show Your Work (@showusyourwork) September 23, 2018
Sam Wineburg’s article in Slate is date September 16, 2018; however, it’s actually excerpted word-for-word from an article Wineburg wrote in 2012 for “American Educator” (this is not noted by Slate, because it would undercut Wineburg’s gripe about Zinn’s footnotes)
— Show Your Work (@showusyourwork) September 23, 2018
The thrust of the polemic against The People’s History is that it doesn’t contradict itself enough (unlike Wineburg’s insistence that Zinn uses too many secondary sources, while a negative review by Michael Kazin in Dissent Wineburg references approvingly maintains the opposite) pic.twitter.com/TLs8o9MUGL
— Show Your Work (@showusyourwork) September 23, 2018
Of course, the context of Zinn’s book is that it’s a counter-narrative to the state-mandated textbooks students are assigned in public schools (and there’s no reason to think private schools would be more likely to assign a history book which is critical of capitalism), and yet.. pic.twitter.com/9Qq72D4RsT
— Show Your Work (@showusyourwork) September 23, 2018
The American Textbook Council doesn’t list Howard Zinn’s “The People’s History of The United States” among its top assigned history textbooks because it is not often assigned (at least to high-schoolers). But Wineburg, a respected scholar, rebuts with a primary source (HBO, 1999) pic.twitter.com/k0DuZrnpsy
— Show Your Work (@showusyourwork) September 23, 2018
For Chait and Wineburg, the central sin of not giving enough quarter to the linchpins of our glorious Empire, (e.g., TR’s charge up San Juan Hill) is “bad practice,” veering dangerously to the left of the Stanford University School of Education where Wineburg wonks (er, works) pic.twitter.com/5UkOGQXZh0
— Show Your Work (@showusyourwork) September 23, 2018
This is the larger point: all history books are edited. All memory is selective. If we think of history as a narrative (as every textbook does) it must have a viewpoint and exclude the perspectives of others. Zinn’s work assumes you’ve already read the official versions.
— Show Your Work (@showusyourwork) September 23, 2018
Thread by Lisa Gilbert
The idea that Zinn is the primary textbook for a lot of people is a right-wing meme recently spread by @JonahNRO. It is completely not true. I reviewed the evidence here. https://t.co/Mye5SaIpX5 @shamuskhan @HeerJeet
— Philip N Cohen (@familyunequal) September 23, 2018
People use Zinn to frame debates, to set up particular units, and to teach historiography. It’s not a survey textbook. https://t.co/5NxfXRy6mY
— Philip N Cohen (@familyunequal) September 23, 2018
In pages 9 and 10 of People’s History, Zinn invites doubt about the absurdity of the idea of a “voiceless” & “definitive” history, & does what many historians should do, but don’t: invite doubt about even his own work. Zinn makes the reader constantly aware of the…
— Ian Desroche (@IndivCincy) September 17, 2018
…perspectives from which the history is being told, and thus, the limits of those perspectives. PH leads the student to a place of appropriate uncertainty about sources, of having to actively participate in one’s own education. Hardly methods for “extinguishing thought”.
— Ian Desroche (@IndivCincy) September 17, 2018
It’s interesting to see the continuation of debate regarding Howard Zinn’s People’s History. Why not push students beyond the popular narrative? Also, teachers AND students aren’t dictated/limited by a single text. Continue to build on student’s perspectives! @ZinnEdProject https://t.co/WLMHO5yHKL
— Sydney DeBoer (@sydneydeboered) September 24, 2018
Name them. Name the schools. Name the professors.
In 20+ years of teaching U.S. history at the college level, hundreds of conferences, scores of workshops with high school teachers, I’ve never heard of anyone using Zinn as a textbook. https://t.co/THVJrdtTGh
— And no I do not yield. Not one second to you. (@GilmoreGlenda) September 23, 2018
” I teach students that historians make arguments and that any historical book, chapter, essay is just that: an argument about the past.” Excellent thinking about the teaching of #history via @LadyOfSardines . #twitterstorians https://t.co/ITiXanObBS
— Sherri Spelic (@edifiedlistener) September 26, 2018
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