abandon his supply lines and attack Vicksburg from the south and east. Despite
this roadside marker’s words, “the people” Grant’s forces encountered were
mostly African Americans who responded to “the blueclad invaders” by
supplying them with food, showing them the best roads to Jackson, and telling
them exactly where the Confederates were.
By 2000, perhaps because of this book, the marker had been removed. The
Mississippi Department of Archives and History does not admit to knowing
what happened to it, but it no longer stands in southwest Mississippi. A
marvelous teaching device would be for a class to examine roadside markers
and monuments in their own community, deciding which is least accurate. Then
students could propose a corrective marker to stand next to the biased
commemoration; they might even help raise money to erect it. In the process,
they might stumble upon some of the forces that influence historical memory,
especially when it is on the landscape.
The first critical change must be in the form: we must introduce fewer topics
and examine them more thoroughly. There is no way to get students to explore
and bring primary and secondary sources to bear on the thousands of topics
that now clutter history textbooks. Rather than having students memorize the
names Amerigo Vespucci, Giovanni Verrazano, Ponce de Leon, Hernando de
Soto, etc., and a phrase telling what each allegedly did, teachers can help
students focus on the larger picture—the effects of Columbus’s 1493
expedition upon Haiti and Spain, and then on all the Americas, Europe, the
Islamic world, and Africa. So many details connect with major issues such as
this that I suspect students will come away remembering more particulars than
if they had merely regurgitated factoids. Certainly, students will recall the
projects they worked on and the issues they worked through themselves. Many
educators have already put into effect teaching methods that deviate from the
deadening “learn the textbook” routine and provide models for other
teachers.^11
Covering fewer topics will enable classes to delve into historical
controversies. Doing so is an absolute requirement if students are to learn that
history is not just answers. The answers one gets depend partly upon the
questions one asks, and the questions one asks depend partly upon one’s
purpose and one’s place in the social structure. Perhaps not everyone in the
classroom will come to the same conclusion. Teachers need to put themselves
in the position that for students to disagree with their interpretation is okay, so
long as students back up their disagreement with serious historical work: