I Teach the Truth (Mostly by Asking Uncomfortable Questions)

By Alan Singer

This fall I will be teaching a graduate methods class in the social studies teacher education program at Hofstra University and an undergraduate history class on the Great Irish Famine. With this post I am informing all students in my classes that we will be discussing controversial topics, that I will be asking them difficult questions, that I have a point of view on many issues, and that as part of class discussion I will at times share my views with the class. I signed the Zinn Education Project pledge to “Teach the Truth.” No one is required to agree with me in order to do well in class, but students are expected to address the questions and points that I raise and support their interpretations with evidence.

In the Great Irish Famine history class, we will start and finish the course with three contemporary issues posed as questions: (1) Why does hunger remain a persistent problem in the world today? Have we learned anything from the Great Irish Famine? Is famine inevitable? Is the world doomed to watch millions more people die or be displaced? (2) Why did the British government allow a natural disaster, the potato blight, to mushroom into a demographic catastrophe? Will capitalism and imperialism prevent the world from addressing severe climate change today? (3) Why did the history of Ireland and Haiti, two troubled nations in the 19th century, take such divergent trajectories in the late 20th century? To what extent are race and racism a factor?

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Source: Daily Kos