A
New Appreciation
By Jeff Hendershott
It has been a long minute since I've submitted anything to this page.
But that doesn't mean I have not been busy. In fact,
quite the opposite. I just returned from a vacation to Virginia
Beach, and when you’re a history freak from Ohio, you can't resist stopping by
some old favorite historical sites as well as adding in some new ones.
Yorktown was fantastic as was a ghost tour in Old Town Winchester, Virginia, a
town that headquartered Stonewall Jackson for a time, was a stop for a young
George Washington, and a town that changed hands many times during "The
War of Southern Rebellion" as our tour guide insisted we call it.
But being in education - which includes being mandated to continue formal
education - I've been busy working on my Masters degree.
That's what has really led to this little missive.
The more I study and investigate the condition of education in the United
States, the more troubled I become - the more I second guess what I do as a teacher
on a daily basis. I'm getting too old to second guess myself! Never
the less, here I am.
I've mused previously in a couple other articles on this page about the
condition of education in America, or what John Taylor Gatto
calls compulsory government education, where teachers "teach school,"
but teaching and learning really doesn't take place given the regimented
structure and uniformity our system is based upon (but that's another story for
another time). In short, I'm pretty disillusioned, but can now better
understand the "why" of our failing education. As Gatto professes in his book "Dumbing
Us Down," I don't teach math, social studies, English or science, I teach
SCHOOL! I teach to OBEY! I actually LIMIT learning. I teach
conformity and uniformity. I teach DEPENDENCE on "experts" and
tests for approval and acceptence. I work in a business
that segregates by age.
That's the short story as to where I'm at in my profession, and I
promised myself to limit myself to just a few lines on that soapbox.
Having been out of "The Hobby" for a number of years now, I have experienced
a perspective shift. Having mellowed a bit and now in a position to
really take a step back to examine the twelve years I invested in Civil War
reenacting, I don't look at it with the same indifference or even a degree of
contempt as to the educational purpose reenacting proposes to offer to its
participants and observers.
I'm now not only appreciative of what we "Tubby Bearded Guys" do
and did, I admire it with an appreciation I thought I had when I was doing it,
but didn't really have.
I've discovered that for REAL education to take place, it's not necessary to
have books and pencils, power points and desks and bells and rules and on and
on and on.
Now, I don't want to over-emphasize the point and suggest everyone who buys
a musket and gets outfitted deserves a doctoral degree in history. We do
and did it for our own reasons. Yet, taking my experience and the
experience of those I observed in the field, I have a new appreciation for what
reliving history provides educationally. Oh sure, some are just
cowboys who want to burn some powder and could give a damn about the failure of
the Missouri Compromise that helped lead to the Civil War… oops, I mean
"War of Southern Rebellion." I know many of my comrades, God
love them, would rather discuss weapons or battle strategy over more abstract
concepts I seemed to enjoy.
But looking back, I can see how not only US, but the spectators, learned, to
one degree or another, more about history than any classroom could
convey. What REALLY struck me during this time of reflection was
remembering all the book swapping we did and, what was perhaps more stunning, actually
READING those books! Some of the most knowledgeable people I've ever met
when it came to history were from my days as a quasi-farb. And I don't
even look upon what I deemed as "farby"
with the contempt I did all those years ago. If a guy was honestly trying
to learn history, indeed ENJOY history, well, you just have to admire
that. After all, something moves within us to compel a person to take
part in The Hobby. I was a lean, mean fighting machine during my years as
a Union private, but today I can appreciate those Tubby Bearded Guys we used to
laugh at (and what I would be now!) did.
Okay, I intended this to be a more lucid and tight if not somewhat scholarly
article, but as you can see I lapsed into essentially jotting down what's on my
mind. Maybe my profession where I "teach" regimentation has led
me to finally ENJOY free flowing thoughts, throwing off the yolk of structure
my graduate school professors demanded.
So anyway, if you bother to read my previous articles,
yes, many of them sort of made fun of "The Hobby" and its
participants. Those were my honestly held thoughts at the
time. But time changes perspective; time and learning and maturing
and growing.
So if you're still out there rolling rounds and sleeping
on the ground and tolerating questions from the public and saying "Yeah,
we actually DO sleep in those tents," keep doing it. You're
doing not only our historical heritage, but our country's education, a service
more critical than you may realize.
