Interview with Bob Galante: Part II

This is the second part of an interview I've conducted with the historian and teacher Bob Galante. To read the first part, click here.

On Fake News

It's no secret that our society has had political tumult in the last two years. There is no doubt that our discourse has become radicalized. I do think that social media has a lot to do with that. We are in a new phase of our history, and the new kinds of communication technologies have arisen that have changed people's relationship to information and ideas. It is a worrisome trend that families are split over political questions and friendships seem to be dissolving at this point as well. It is saddening to think that Americans now may be resembling the Sunnis and Shia.

Part of the problem with fake news is that any kook with a modem and a camera can create any story they want and broadcast it to the world in just a few moments. There have been some documented cases in the New York Times a couple months ago, in November, about how fake news spreads throughout the Internet. As Mark Twain once observed, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes on. I think we're seeing that idea writ large in the instantaneous global communications that we now have. Add to that the emotional human desire to believe what we want to believe. It seems in our society today, the stories people want to tell themselves matter more than the realities they're enduring.

Teachers need to elevate the discourse with their students. To present to the students ideas of greater sophistication, more detailed factual bases, court issues and problems, to keep the students reading, writing, and thinking. While for some people it's a dark moment that our society has political tumble, it can also be a gold mine of teachable moments for teachers.

One thing teachers can do to help on this is to keep the students grounded in core questions within their curriculum, [in order to make] students truly interested in the problems. Look for ways to create consensus over things like crime and punishment, the budget, alliances overseas, war and peace. There is still much consensus in American society. The foundations of our institutions are strong. America's Constitution is durable, it has proven the test of time. Through many dark times [like] 1862 [and] 1942. These were dark times as well and we did not know the outcomes of the day’s events either and America turned out okay. Keep the students grounded in their roots as Americans in our unifying principles.

On Facts vs. Ideas in History Education

Too many of America's history teachers are just dragging their students through a parade of dates and facts. Teachers are packaging their students. Do you recall that video of that young man that berated his teacher for not teaching? He urged his teacher to stimulate the students and "touch their hearts." Some people say the boy was insolent, but others say you know he deserves a medal.

In any case there can be too much emphasis on just facts and the [bare] information of history. What teachers need to do is give students the ideas of glue that hold the facts together in the first place. In an age where students can Google anything, get any piece of information or nearly any document they want, it is essential that we teach them how to think.

The role of the history teacher is to show students how to build arguments, to anticipate and refute counterclaims, to integrate the best and most relevant factual records.

Clearly, Bob knows his stuff, both from personal experience and devoted study. I'm very grateful he was able to pass along so much knowledge to me, and by extension all of you. He is a rare voice of clarity and wisdom for the times we live in, but he's not just a man of words. Indeed, whether by researching and learning, teaching others, or refusing to accept the proliferation of BS in our lives, we can all follow in Bob's example for the rest of our lives. There's no time like the present!

Interview with Bob Galante: Part 1

Bob Galante has quite the resume. He has a Master of Arts in Teaching Social Studies from Fairleigh Dickinson University, is an adjunct professor of American history at Syracuse University, is a Two-Time Teacher of the year in Rumson, New Jersey, and has received the Philip Merrill Award from the University of Maryland in 2012, just to name a few. He also runs The History Dr.com, a consulting site for teachers as well as the Educators' Blog and the Boomerang Blog, the latter of which deals specifically with history. I reached out to him for his opinion on a range of subjects pertaining to history and how it is taught. As you can see, his brilliance in history is only matched by his passion for it. 

What attracts you to history?

I'm attracted to history because it's alive. It's all around us. The study of history allows us to perceive patterns in society. It enables us to go back and forth quickly between the present and the past. I believe very firmly that in the history of the world there are very few questions; they just keep playing out as ferociously as if it had never happened before. By studying history we can get out in front of the trends in society. We can see where society is going, so we can get out in front of those changes and make them work for us.

History allows us to take present controversies and see where they have happened before. We get to see previous examples of current issues and problems and then we get to see how it turned out in the past. We can then think [about] the results [and the lessons of them] and applying them [to] now. History is all around us.

Take something like Shays Rebellion in 1787. Revolutionary war soldiers were being thrown into the debtors prisons because they couldn't pay their bills. They were having farms foreclosed on by the courts, with their possessions seized and auctioned off. They rebelled against the system. Where do we see something like that right now? Think about the treatment of veterans coming home from our foreign wars. Should Congress exempt them from foreclosures if they fall behind on their mortgages? Something like Shays rebellion would get all of three sentences in an average history textbook for students but the issues of Shays rebellion are enormous. And they are all around us right now.

I'm attracted to history because it allows us to pick up a newspaper, read the current events and stories, and very quickly come to conclusions about what is at stake. The goal of history is to take today's problems and see where they've happened before. Or to take problems in history and determine current manifestations and current examples of them. History really matters.

I'm attracted to history because it makes us smarter and better people who were able to make more enlightened decisions about the human future by knowing its past.

Why start a blog?

I started The History Dr.com in July 2016 with the mission to share the meaning of democratic citizenship with others. While I no longer teach full time in the public schools, I still want to make a contribution to societal discourse. I want to help move some issues along in our society. 

The blog History Dr.com is a very exciting project, because it allows me to practice what I believe is important: that is, seeing of events around us in exploring how the past reveals examples and outcomes of the core problem. The blog allows me to try to go back and forth quickly between past and present, looking for similar motives of people, arrangements of power, and the interests of different factions of people. The blog allows me to try to be valuable to my readers in illuminating the connections between past and present, and hopefully writing in a clear and direct way.

Join us for Part II, coming soon!