The Annexation of the Philippines: An Aberration in US History? Thoughts for teachers

Few stories in U.S. history amaze me more than the war in the Philippines.

That a nation whose founding document is the Declaration of Independence could go to war to free Cuba from Spain and end up with...the Philippines?

I sense that if you told this to the average 7th grader--or even high schooler--they'd look at you like you were crazy.

And if we can believe the results of surveys which ask Americans who is the current Vice-President or in which half of the 19th century does the Civil War occur, then I suspect few adult Americans have a clue that once the Philippines was a colony of the United States. Nor do they likely know how the U.S. came to acquire Puerto Rico and Guam. Or what that has to do with the Philippines.

This episode in American history is one that--I have NO research on this, mind you--I suspect gets far less attention than it deserves. It's in the textbooks, of course, but it seems that much more attention is given to World War I. In seven years of observing student teachers, I have seen only one lesson on the topic.

I'll grant you that World War I is a big deal. Okay, a really big deal. But in a way, I think the Philippines is even more important. If only because they'll learn about World War I somehow. But I fear that if I don't teach about the Philippines, they'll never learn about it. Anywhere.

So what to do about it?

First, it is a great opportunity to show idealism and realism (see my last post) at work. As I alluded to in that post, there are "idealistic" reasons for annexing the Philippines that we would understand as profoundly racist and paternalistic today. In fact, the famous Rudyard Kipling poem, "White Man's Burden" that many of us probably associate with the British in India is actually about the United States and the Philippines! The poem was first published with the subtitle, "The United States and The Philippine Islands." (Check it out here.)

I have always assigned students some kind of essay assignment in which they have to explain the imperialist and anti-imperialist arguments regarding annexation of the Philippines. I prep them for that with a discussion. The key problem to avoid is presentism: students have to understand the debate in the context of the 1890s. This means that, yes, there will be racism. Of course, there were some opposed to annexation of the Philippines on grounds that sit better with 21st century sensibilities. But it is important for students to understand that at least some folks were opposed to it precisely because they didn't want the possibility of Filipinos becoming Americans.

As always, I like to frame the lesson (usually 2-3 days) around some key questions, such as these:

1. Can a democracy rule another people?

2. Why doesn’t the U.S. Constitution deal with the rights of people in acquired territories?

3. In what ways did the problems in Cuba affect our national self-interest?

4. Which perspectives (realism or idealism) guided U.S. policy towards the war with Spain?

5. How did U.S. involvement in the Philippines compare to U.S. policy regarding Hawaii?

And a tangent….

6. What is the role of the press in a democracy?

This article from the February 1998 issue of Social Education is easily adaptable to middle or high school level students as a background reading for a lesson.

I begin my lesson by going through this handout this handout, which asks students to first consider the irony of a country based on consent of the governed having colonies. Then students consider pros and cons, by using documents. See the documents in some of the links below for that. For a "key" see here. 

One really interesting way to begin your lesson might be to pose this question:

If the U.S. granted independence to the Philippines on July 4, 1946, why did the Philippines decide later to move their independence day commemoration to June 12?

The answer -- June 12, 1898 -- is when the Philippine leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, declared independence from Spain, prior to becoming a U.S. colony. This seemingly small detail, it seems to me, speaks volumes about the difference in perspectives between the Americans and the Filippinos.

If you are looking for some documents and/or more specific lesson ideas to use with students, check out these:

• Lesson from the History Project at UC-Davis for HS students
• full lesson w/documents from History Matters
• blog about the US and Philippines - couldn't figure out who created this, but it has some good background info and interesting film clips
• historical background from U.S. Dept. of State
• full lesson plan from Edsitement - lesson in which students play roles of advisors to the President; includes documents
• Lessons from SHEG (Stanford History Education Group - I especially like these lessons. There are four lessons total: one on the explosion of the Maine, one on the Spanish-American War, a third on political cartoons from the Philippine-American War and a fourth on some of the atrocities which took place in the Philippines. The collection of political cartoons are fascinating. Check them out at the end of this post.
• Lesson from Zinn Education Project - I was excited to find this one, because it makes use of a reading from a book I found years ago, History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History (also check out the chapters on the Cold War and Vietnam!). Unfortunately, once you are registered for the Zinn Education Project and download this lesson, it doesn't provide the resources! But I have found this book at my local public library, so perhaps you can, too. It is definitely worth checking out. Also, the described lesson is really an adaptation of the lesson described in the next site, listed below.
• Lesson from the American Social History Project - part of this lesson relies on a 30 minute documentary called Savage Acts. You can see a clip of it here. Better for high school. But the lesson also has a nice collection of political cartoons and other primary resources. And the lesson reminded me that American world fairs had exhibits of "exotic peoples," including a Filipino village at the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904. This will surprise your students.
• This 5 minute youtube video does a nice job of explaining about the Philippine Village at the St. Louis Fair. (Be forewarned the words, "bare-breasted women" occurs, and there is a brief shot of an image depicting the same. Use your best judgement if showing to students. Even just the first 2 minutes would be good, and then you could avoid the bare-breasted woman that comes in at about the 2 min, 20 sec mark.)

This brief story from NPR discusses the 2004 commemoration of the St. Louis Fair, in which descendents of the Filipinos at the exhibit discuss the experience.

One intriguing way to conclude your lesson: consider the title of this post. Ask your students, should we the annexation of the Philippines an aberration? Or the beginning of U.S. imperialism? Or as a new manifestation of imperialist expansion, begun with the conquest of Native Americans? Is the U.S. still imperialistic?

I will conclude this post with the image on the right that's easily worth a 1000 words: I found this hard-to-believe-it's-not-being-facetious-advertisement while searching for the Kipling poem.

Also, check out the political cartoons below, and my earlier post about putting the Annexation of the Philippines into a larger context.

Ideas for Teaching about the Constitution: Representative Government

Of the five principles (federalism, representative government, separation of powers, checks and balances and individual liberties), representative government is the one that hits the closet to home in big election years. In Illinois this year, we have a gubernatorial race this year, but that is never quite as interesting to students as presidential elections.

While it is not so difficult to to teach about the ways in which our government represents We, the People, I find it increasingly difficult to impress upon students the power of voting. As we all know, voter turnout in the United States is not something to brag about.  (Check out this link to voter turnout across the world - there is a dropdown menu for the U.S. and other nations.)  I wish I had a magic bullet for how to impress upon students that We, the People, still matter.  (Any ideas welcome.)

One idea I had is to share with students recent findings from a study about fish.  Oddly, a Princeton ecologist makes the argument--based on a study of fish-- that "collective ignorance is an essential feature of democratic governments, not a bug."  He argues that collective apathy helps check the power of extremists. Read this article from the Wall Street Journal for the details. It's kinda wacky and describing the findings to students, especially middle schoolers, might really arouse their indignation.

I was inspired recently by a Ted Talk by Eric Liu, former speechwriter for President Clinton and founder of a program called Citizen University designed to build citizenship (the website notes a curriculum for this coming soon). The title of the talk, "Why Ordinary People Need to Understand Power" is provocative, suggesting to me that one way to engage students is to convince them of the power they have in changing the system. I think many of us today feel we have little power to impact anything, and that the concerns of government are far removed from our daily concerns. Listen or read the transcript of this talk....it might give you some good ideas. Also check out Citizen University's project Sworn Again America, which could work really well for middle schoolers.

Okay, so here are some other more concrete ideas:

1. Have students read about and research the results of close presidential elections in the U.S.  Be sure to check out 270towin.com which is an incredible website that has maps with the electoral results for all past presidential elections, and TONS of other cool stuff.

2. Recently, there have been some stories about pressure on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire. Get kids to consider the way that the principle of respresentative government influences the judicial branch.  Click here for an overview on this in the Huffington Post.  Ask students what this has to do with representative government?

3. As speculation is already beginning about the 2016 presidential election, you could have students do some research about how vice-presidential candidates are chosen. This article gives an excellent historic overview about the factors influencing this decision.

4. See my assignment for problems students can work on in class. Note that with the exception of the first question, they all have to do with the represenation in the executive branch.

5. And, if you're looking for a more elaborate project for students, see question #4 in my assignment above and idea #3 above.  I think it would be fun to put students in groups and have them role-play campaign managers--in an election year, they could research real candidates. But in off years, you could have them make up candidates, come up with a character sketch for an appropriate VP candidate, and then make decisions about where they will campaign, strategically.  You would have to remind students that it's not JUST the numbers on the electoral map that matter, but where the chances are realistic, i.e. even though California has the largest number of electoral votes, it might not be worth campaigning there if your running mate is a popular Californian who seems to have a huge lead there. Similarly, even though some of those smaller Western states have few, if you ignore them, you could be accused of not caring about those parts of the country. And small states also add up.

Using the Constitution & Current Events to Understand Federalism

The Supreme Court's recent decision NOT to hear cases regarding gay marriage remind me of the usefulness of current events when teaching about the Constitution. Students sometimes bring up gay marriage when talking about the principle of federalism, because it raises a key problem:

What happens when state powers (such as marriage, adoption, state university tuition, extradition, school desegregation) come into conflict with the fact that Americans are a mobile bunch and often cross state lines?

Having a class discussion on the constitutional issues associated with gay marriage (as opposed to moral issues) is a great way for students to understand how important social issues are sometimes "solved" by the Court. Gay rights can be a volatile topic in any classroom, but focusing on the constitutional issues--if you are careful and knowledgeable--has the potential to teach students about social change and how the Courts work to solve problems raised by federalism. At the end of this post, I have listed some links that might be helpful resources.

If you are reluctant to discuss gay marriage in your classroom, there are other issues/problems you can discuss that are less controversial.

Less controversial today, but wildly problematic during the Civil War, the creation of the state of West Virginia raises some interesting constitutional issues pertaining to Article IV. For more info, check out these two websites:

http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh30-1.html

http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/west-virginia/

Or a more contemporary problem:

If states have to recognize the marriages and adoptions of other states, why do state universities usually charge more tuition for out-of-state residents and more for hunting or fishing licenses to out-of-state residents?

The Supreme Court has argued that the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV (section 2) prevents states from placing unreasonable burdens on non-residents, while section 1 ensures that convicted criminals can’t escape justice by fleeing to another state, and that things like marriages, divorces and adoptions are valid when one crosses state lines.  The Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV allows residents of one state to have certain privileges as a result of being a citizen of that state.  That also explains why one can’t vote for state officials in another state.  For a fuller answer, check out this site from Doug Linder, Professor of Law at University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School.

And I just recently learned that residents of Washington, D.C., who are not residents of any state and therefore don't have an "in-state" university they can attend, can get tuition waivers of up to $10K to off-set the cost of out-of-state tuition. Check that out here.


If you'd like some problems you can have students work on, check out this document, which I have revised from a worksheet in my files, so I'm not sure where I originally got it. But it's a good class activity that forces kids to READ THE CONSTITUTION. (If you need the answers, you can email me: laurensbrown19@gmail.com. Question #10 is tricky!!)

Gay marriage resources:

Nina Totenberg's post for NPR

SCOTUS blog (Supreme Court of the United States)

article from Slate

article from The Economist

Also, the organization, freedomtomarry.org is not a neutral organization, but it does have a useful timeline that lists landmark cases and legislation.  

8 Ideas for Teaching the Declaration of Independence: Text, Storytelling and Long-term Significance

One of the criticisms about the Common Core as it applies to the teaching of history is that the standards emphasize reading of texts over understanding of context. Thoughtful implementation of the standards should minimize this problem, but it is a fair criticism. Good history teaching should always be about the context of the sources, whether primary or secondary. Even the first standard, which is very text-based, refers to context. Note what I have italicized in this standard, below:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1  

Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.

So yes, students should read the text.  They should read the actual Declaration of Independence--even though the language is challenging-- and not just read about it. Middle schoolers, too, not just high school students.

But, as my dear friend and former colleague used to tell me over and over again when I was a beginning teacher and frantic about what I should teach tomorrow...

Tell them a story….

So here is your chance.

I am not advocating that history teachers go back to the “sage on the stage,” style of teaching that is so often criticized. But a recent rewatching of Robin Williams's performance in Dead Poet's Society reminds me that there is merit to this approach when used effectively and in moderation. Because one thing that teachers can do that our textbooks and Google cannot is tell a great story. (Perhaps not as well as Robin Williams, but standards for dramatic performance for the screen are different from those of the classroom). Great stories are what makes Ken Burns's documentaries so compelling and why we love to show the film Glory in the classroom. The history comes alive because it is about human beings. This is why when I find a great sentence, or paragraph or chapter in a narrative-style history book or a first-person account of an historic event, I like to read it aloud or have students read it aloud. There is power in oral storytelling that cannot be recreated in private reading.

So...

What to teach when teaching about the Declaration of Independence idea #1:Tell them a story...

That Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who both served on the committee responsible for writing the declaration, died on the same day which happened to be July 4, 1826--the 50th anniversary of Declaration is just too good to be true.  Except that it is true.  Use this story to bookend your lesson.  Use it as your seductive introduction.  Use it to tie everything up at the end of your lesson.  Where to find more info on this:

Click here for the basic story.

Click here for some interesting observations about why they might have both died on the same day.

Click here for some information on the friendship and enmity of Adams and Jefferson.

Make it even better by going on to discuss Jefferson’s views on the legacy of the Declaration. (see ideas #2, 6 & 7 below)

Idea #2: Jefferson’s view of what the Declaration of Independence was about.

See the section on Jefferson’s legacy on the Library of Congress website, and then look at the 3rd document which you can read more fully here. A year before his death, Jefferson wrote, in a letter to Henry Lee, that the whole point of the Declaration of Independence was to NOT to say something new or revolutionary, but, “to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we [were] compelled to take."

You could start your lesson with that idea and then have students read the document to see for themselves the “terms so plain.”

Except, of course, 18th century language is not at all so plain for 21st century students.  So...

Idea #3: Reading the Text

Help students understand the organization behind the Declaration: this is the part of the lesson where you really delve into The Text. This will meet Common Core Standards. Here is the handout I used most recently with seventh graders. (Yes, it was a challenge for them, and yes, they rose to the challenge. It will work nicely for high school students, too.)

a. intro paragraphs - always a good idea to work through these, “translating” the document into language they understand.

b. the reasons - useful to give students a copy of the Declaration on which they can take notes. I like to have them number all 27 of the grievances (it takes only a minute) and then students can see how each of the 27 complaints matches up to an actual event they have studied. You don’t need to go through all 27 of them, but pointing out a few examples will help them see, oh yeah, we talked about the quartering act and here it is in grievance #14.

c. we have done everything we can - go through the next 2 paragraphs- what have the colonists done?

d. therefore, we are going to declare independence

For a fun way to explain the structure of the Declaration, try explaining the Declaration of Independence as a breakup letter. This is very nicely done by a couple of teachers here from teachingchannel.org. Worth a look.

Idea #4. Clear up a few misconceptions.

The website below does a great job of explaining why July 4 is a national holiday, even though independence was voted on by the Continental Congress on July 2, and it wasn’t even signed by everyone until August.

http://www.constitutionfacts.com/us-declaration-of-independence/fourth-of-july/

(Incidentally, this is a great website for a lot of things about the Declaration and the Constitution--two key American documents that students (and adults) too often confuse.

Idea #5: Slavery, the Elephant in the Room

One of the key reasons July 4 is the date associated with the Declaration and not July 2 is that Congress debated some of the clauses in it between those dates.  During that time, the clause blaming King George for slavery was omitted. This is a Pretty Big Deal, if you ask me. Of course, students know that in a few months you will get to the Civil War, but they may not realize that the seeds can be found right here.

Below is the omitted paragraph:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. [determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold,] he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold]: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he had deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

(You can also have students examine a complete rough draft of the Declaration.)

You could have an interesting discussion with students about the contradiction between the most famous lines of the Declaration, “that all men are created equal” being so completely at odds with the decision to omit slavery.  There is a nice analysis of this at the University of Richmond’s History Engine website. Check it out here.  You could start by seeing if students could figure out on their own why the grievance about slavery was omitted.  Other questions: to what extent does this diminish the significance of the Declaration of Independence? Does it make it “hypocritical”? Or is that ahistorical to think about it that way?  Is it possible for a document to foment revolution in people’s thinking, even if the full expression of that idea (equality) doesn’t come about for another 100 years? or more?

For an elaborate lesson plan that expands this idea to a 3-4 day lesson, check out this lesson from the Library of Congress website.  It has students conducting a trial of Jefferson around the use of the phrase “all men are created equal” and slavery: was it compromise or was it hypocrisy? I’m not sure I would take 3-4 days to do this, but it is worth checking out.  The topic lends itself well to helping students understand the problem of presentism in the study of history: judging slavery and equal rights in the 18th century with our 21st century standards is problematic. Be sure to check out the primary sources that have been selected for this activity.  You can find those here, even if you don’t want to use the whole lesson.

Idea #6: The legacy of the Declaration: What it means to future generations

Jefferson was invited by Roger Weightman, the chairman of a proposed Independence Day celebration in Washington to be attend the ceremonies.  In his response, Jefferson declined the invitation due to his poor health.  It is the last existing letter he ever wrote.  It was dated June 24, 1826, less than two weeks before his death.  In it he offers his view of what the 4th of July should come to mean.

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.  That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion.  All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.  The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.  These are the grounds of hope for others.  For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

You can read the whole letter here. Also, note that this letter was selected as one of the 50 Core Documents, along with the Declaration itself, which is a project of TeachingAmericanHistory.org. Read about that here.

What to do with this quotation? I’d read it aloud--it’s so beautifully put. Of course, not every student will understand every word, but you can work on that by cutting it a bit, explaining a few vocabulary words, giving them the document to follow along with--one with vocab explained in the margins.  And then you could discuss what the main idea of the passage is? What does Jefferson believe is important about the Declaration 50 years later? How does that compare/contrast with what we believe is important about it now?

When I read it aloud to my seventh graders, I edited it as follows and read aloud:

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. . . . All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. . . .These are the grounds of hope for others.  For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

And then (if you have 120 minute long periods or a few days…I never said you should try to cram all of these ideas into one 45 minute period.) you can go to...

Idea #7: What the Declaration means to the rest of the world: Was Jefferson right? Would the Declaration become “a signal of arousing men (and women) to burst the chains"?

Distinguish between the immediate historic purpose of the Declaration: an explanation of why the Colonies were declaring their independence and the larger, future significance: that the words would become an inspiration for oppressed peoples around the world. You can have students look briefly or in more depth at documents that echoed the Declaration of Independence

such as:

• the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789
• the Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls, 1848 (See here for a lesson from the Gilder Lehrman Institute about this that might be more appropriate when you get to the 1840s). And see here for some teacher materials that I put together on Seneca Falls.
• Frederick Douglass's famous speech from July 5, 1852, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
• the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
• See this essay, “The Declaration of Independence in Global Perspective” on the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History website. The author, David Armitage (professor of history at Harvard) wrote an updated version of this essay in the Wall Street Journal. That essay does an excellent job of explaining (for teachers, not students) the difference between the Declaration’s assertion of popular sovereignty and the most famous statement about the rights of the individual. You can read it here.
• Click here for a great story about Ho Chi Minh’s use of the Declaration in working for Vietnamese independence from France.

Idea #8: Don't Forget to Make it Human

And lastly, in the interest of making history a study of real people, most students (I always get a little nervous when I say “most,” perhaps safer to say “many”?) know that Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence. If you want more background on the red-headed author, you can find lots at the Monticello website.

And if you want to have a little fun with John Hancock’s famous signature, click here for some odd details. Unfortunately, the story about Hancock signing his name so big so that the King could read it without his spectacles does not seem to be true. See here and here. You’ll have to stick with the Adams-Jefferson story.

July 2017 update:
Last but not least, check out another post I did on "Patriotism for Grown-ups." It is a little dated now, but there are still some good links worth checking out within it.

Lesson Ideas for the American Revolution

An updated version of this post can be found on Substack. What follows is the original post.

A few key things for students to understand about the Revolution:

1. It was NOT inevitable--is anything? Check out this webpage from the BBC.
2. It did not happen overnight--remember, it happened after “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations.” (Declaration of Independence).
3. Not all colonists supported it. (See myth #2 in this article.)

Common Core Materials

So if you’re looking for a way to help students understand points 1 and 2 above, and go deeper than the textbook, check out the materials below. This assignment is, I think, a very simple, but good example of using the Common Core standards (especially CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10 which is for grade 9-10, but equivalents exist for grades 6-8 and grades 11-12.

Here is a link to some primary sources (which includes other links) that can be used in conjunction with this worksheet. Yes, I know--we are supposed to shudder at the thought of students filling out worksheets. But “worksheet” doesn’t always mean “bad.” What we should avoid are bad worksheets. I like this one because it helps guide students through a series of primary sources that show how the colonists moved from merely resisting British rule to actually declaring their independence from British rule. It provides enough guidance to allow many students to work independently on their own or in groups. Of course, you could also do this as a whole class activity. And, depending on the abilities of your students and their grade, you will likely need to provide more guidance or at least a glossary to help them with the primary sources.

Students will also need additional materials to help answer the final question about the colonists being “reluctant revolutionaries.”  Any decent U.S. history textbook will likely do, but I urge you to check out this amazing website from the University of Houston: Digital History.  It is organized both by era and topics and is not just for the American Revolution, but the whole website is geared toward K-12 teachers of U.S. history. It really is incredible...I’m kicking myself that I didn’t find it earlier.

Debating the Revolution
Interested in having students do a debate? I've always loved doing debates in class, but had a hard time figuring out how to arrange them so that everyone in a class of 30 has something to do. With help from a colleague, I came up with an idea to have students debate from the position of a loyalist or colonist as to whether or not the Revolution was justified. And then, to solve the 30 student problem, I simply eliminated it. I chose six students, 3 per side. That's it. Everyone else wrote a paper, due after the debate which gave them incentive to pay attention to the debate and take notes. But everyone had to do research in the library beforehand, which the non-debaters still needed to do in order to write their papers. And the debaters were excused from writing the paper. How to solve the problem of fairness? Have more debates later in the year, choosing different students to debate. (e.g. debate the Compromise of 1850, should Andrew Johnson be impeached? Should the U.S annex the Phillippines? Go to war in WWI,II or Vietnam?)

A few other random links:
And here is a lesson on Thomas Paine's Common Sense that might be useful.
If you are a new-ish U.S. history teacher and need a recommendation for a great, simple book on the Revolution, check out the classic Birth of the Republic by Edmund S. Morgan. Now in it's 4th edition, there's a thoughtful recent review of it here.

Lesson ideas: September 11, History & Memory

Please see my updated version of this post on Substack. 

July 2016 update to original post: Check out this documentary collection from the Library of Congress about 9/11. Also, since I've wrote this post I now teach students who were born before 9/11. Many of them don't know the bare-bones basics. It is important to fill students in on that at the beginning of any lesson on the events of that day.

Original article:

Tomorrow will be the first time that the 9/11 museum will be open on the anniversary of the events of 9/11/01. This got me thinking about how differently we view events that we have lived through compared to those we haven't. Depending on the grade you are teaching this fall, your students were either not born, very little or at most five or six years old. But all of their teachers lived though it.

For those of us who are old enough to remember that day, teaching about it is a very different experience than teaching about past American tragedies. It is a far more visceral experience, I think. I remember what I was doing, where I was, how I felt...

But knowing where I was and how I felt is not the same thing as "knowing" all about what happened on September 11 and why. If you heard F.D.R. on the radio on December 8 talking about the previous day's attack on Pearl Harbor, that is not the same thing as understanding Japan's military ascendency in the Pacific or Roosevelt's efforts throughout the late 1930s to open Americans' eyes to the problems in Europe.

So the problems for historians, educators and the museum curators at the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum are complex ones which illustrate the potential contradictions between the goals of museums and teachers versus those of memorials. As pointed out by Jim Gardner, the Executive for the Legislative Archives, Presidential Libraries and Museum Services for the National Archives, "Museums are about understanding, about making meaning of the past. A memorial fulfills a different need; it's about remembering and evoking feelings in the viewer, and that function is antithetical to what museums do." (Quoted from New York Times article on challenges facing the 9/11 Museum.)

There are many things you could do in class to commemorate the day. Below is my idea for a class discussion on the ways commemorating 9/11 can get us to think about history and memory in a broader sense. Please note that the lesson has nothing to do with the events of 9/11 itself or why it happened, but rather focuses on how the way we think about 9/11 compares to how we think about other historical events, particularly tragic ones. And how such events should be remembered. Because it doesn't explain 9/11 itself, you may have to provide at least a little background information.

September 11, 2001: Examining History, Memory & Memorials

Note to teachers:

Below are a list of decisions museum curators at the National September 11 Memorial Museum had to make about what to display. Underneath each decision are examples of other related decisions/questions from other historic events. Each of these can be used separately or together as material for whole class or small group discussions. These are designed for 9-12th grade, but have been using them quite successfully with 7th and 8th graders. If you'd like a GoogleDoc version of this that you can reproduce for students, click here. If you scroll down to the very end of this post, I've linked to some other questions I came up with that might be good as either an intro or conclusion to the ideas below.

The Decisions:

1. Whether or not to include images of trapped victims leaping from the burning towers.

Actual decision made by museum: show photographs, but not video, and only if the person jumping cannot be identified.

Other historic example: In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911, 145 people were killed--mostly young, immigrant women. The tragedy brought renewed attention to the problems of factory workers and their safety. The event is recounted in most U.S. history textbooks. Witnesses to the event saw young girls jumping out of the window to their death. Should textbooks or your U.S. history teacher show you images of this or read accounts of it? How is this similar/different from the 9/11 example?

2. Whether or not to include photographs of the hijackers.

Actual decision made by museum: show photographs, but use the evidence photo images from the FBI that have a sticker on them, marking the hijackers as criminals (so they look like criminal mug shots). The size of the image will be 1 ½ X 2 inches each and displayed at a low angle, so visitors can choose whether or not to look at them.

Other historic examples:

Should we read about Adolf Hitler or other Nazi war criminals so as to better understand their motivations? Does doing so humanize them? Does humanizing them seem to “excuse” their crimes? Or does it help us understand what happened? Something in between?

Curators at the Oklahoma City Memorial Museum--the museum commemorating the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building (in which 168 people died) had to make a similar decision about displaying the photograph of Timothy McVeigh, the man responsible for the bombing. They chose to show it.

3. Whether or not to include “composites”--chunks of compressed floors that demonstrate the destructiveness of the impact of the crash into the towers. Family members of victims--many of whose bodies were not recovered--say that such pieces could contain body matter.

Actual decision made by museum: show one of the composites in a secluded alcove in the footprint of the north tower. The composite has been tested and there are no human remains. Nearby is a stand with a box of tissues.

Other historic example:

In 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The purpose was to establish the rights of Indian tribes to reclaim human remains, sacred objects and other artifacts from federal agencies and museums. How should the interests of researchers and Native Americans be balanced? What about a skeleton that is 10,000 years old? Does that make a difference? See this article for an interesting example about Indian scalps displayed in a German museum.

Click here for an interactive look at some of the displays in the National September 11 Memorial Museum.

Click here for an article in the New York Post about the gift shop at the 9/11 museum.

Click here for a perspective on visiting the 9/11 museum written by a man who lost his sister in the attacks (You can get a sense of his ironic take from the title: "The Worst Day of My Life is Now New York's Hottest Tourist Attraction"). Click here for an excerpt from that article, along with my suggestions for questions to go along with it that you could use with students.

If you decide to use any of this material, let me know how it goes!