Is the end of the world coming in 2012?

As an assignment for class we were instructed to watch any show airing on The History Channel. It took me longer than expected to be able to find one I was interested in watching because most of the shows on are Pawn Stars and Axe Men. These shows to me don't seem to be the type of history I was looking for. I settled on a series called The Nostradamus Effect and the episode I watched was titled Extinction 2012. The series is all about the prophecies related to the supposed coming of the end of the world. This episode takes a look at several prophecies and draws connection between them. They discussed the Mayan calendar, Hopie Indian prophecies, astronomical calculations for the gallactic allignment, Nostradamus' predictions himself, Time Wave Theory and the computer age causing a global market and financial crash.

The show started off by saying they would neither refute nor encourage any of the prophecies, they were simply giving the facts and details behind the prophecies. I personally felt the show seemed to encourage the prophecies rather than remain neutral. The people they interviewed were authors of books supporting the end of the world and astronomers were believed the coming gallactic allignment would result in cosmic tragedy for Earth. The narrator mentioned that some people do not believe in these prophecies and predictions but never interviewed anyone who did not believe it. I feel this gives the view that anyone informed on the subject believes it is true.

While watching the show I began questioning why this is on the History Channel. What kinds of history is included in this show? It seemed to me that the show is all about what is going to happen in the future, not what happened in the past. The show discusses the prophecies which were made in the past and how their outcomes will effect the future. To me, the History Channel feels that history is about researching the past and looking to see if the past gives any information about the future. This is quite literal for this episode because they are discussing prophecies. They are using multiple pieces of evidence from all throughout history to show why the end of the world might be coming.

Ken Burn's "The War" Video

Recently in class we viewed part of the epsiode titled "FUBAR" which is part of the series called "The War" produced and directed by Ken Burns. I viewed clips on the making of the series before viewing the episode itself so going into viewing the episode I expected a new perspective on World War II than I had seen previously. I expected it to be harsher than what I had previously seen because the clips discussed how people had never heard the story quite as they did when viewing the episode. When the producers of "The War" discussed how it is important to document memories because the World War II generation is slowly disappearing, I could relate to that and it made me more interested. My grandfather fought in the war and was at Normandy on D-Day. He never talked about it in the past and the only reason I knew he was there was because my father had told me a couple of years ago. The war is never brought up in my family and when I had to interview someone who lived through the war I had to interview my other grandfather who stayed in Michigan for the duration of the war instead of interviewing my grandfather who was abroad in the fighting. This was until recently however. Over the past few months my grandfather has begun bringing up the war on random occasions and discussing the places he had been and what it was like in Eastern Europe. My family guesses that it is because he is getting older and has been in and out of the hospital quite often recently and he may be thinking more about the things he tried to hide and not discuss. If my grandfather had continued to keep all of this stored away then my family would never know the history of this time from this perspective. For this reason, I was very interested in watching this film because I felt I would get the perspective of the soldier that I had never really been able to hear about.

I did not know what FUBAR meant until I looked it up after viewing the episode. The images, videos and interviews shown in the film truly portrayed the meaning of this word I feel. It did not occur to me, before discussing the film in class, to question what the images and videos were actually of. It is definitely quite possible that images and videos were not actually of what the interviewers were describing. This shows me how powerful a film can be and makes me question how relevant all of the films you see actually are. For people who do not know better, they will take the images and videos as true to what the film is discussing. As a future teacher this makes me wonder how many students will view films about history and see past images and videos that are not actually of what they are learning about. I don't feel this is being true to history. Yes the images and videos must have happened at some time but if they are being talked about as something they are not, that is not accurate history.

After thinking about what is missing from the movie, or what the film makers leave out of this story, I think a major aspect they left almost completely out was that of the decision makers in the war. The film was focused on the things that went wrong during the war and the bad decisions that were made and how that affected the soldiers who were fighting, yet did not have any of the people who made those decisions speak on it. The rare times they did, they made the people seem like they were all for it. The film is discussing a global war and discusses more troops than just the American troops yet does not get the point of view from those men.

I thought the film did a good job as drawing in the audience however. The film shows the interviewees in the midst of the war and also includes their family and friends from home. Giving the story of them as men in the army and as civilians at home draws on the emotions of the viewer and makes them seem more real.

Mary Lyon - Pioneer in Education

After searching around the website of radio show "Cavalcade of America", I decided to listen to an episode titled "Mary Lyon - Pioneer in Education" which aired in 1937. The epsiode described Mary's life and discusssed how she changed higher education for women by opening the first public college for women in the country. The epsiode in general reminded me of a movie, with narration and conversations and musical interludes, which had a calm atmosphere to it. I felt as though I was listening to a heartwarming story about a woman and her journey to better the world. While the epsiode was entertaining to listen to, I felt it did not have much historical context to it. The narrator tells the audience that women were not accepted in schools of higher education very well and that Mary Lyon opened the first public college for women but the rest is open for interpretation. I felt that the episode was more for entertainment purposes than for historical purposes.

One thing I found particularly interesting in the episode is how they portrayed what men and women felt about the issue. The episode gives the audience the idea that all men were against women being educated and all women for very much for it. This portrayal is very misleading I feel. While the women's movement was making a push for the educating of women there were also many women who were against this. The same goes men, there were men who were both for and against the education of women. Just because you are a man does not mean you think women should not be educated and just becauseyou are a women does not mean you think women should be. I feel this is important for people to know and the episode overlooks this stance.

Is there something "wrong" with history?

After reading Alan Brinkley's "Historians and Their Publics" and Part I of Ian Tyrrell's "Historians in Public" I thought about the question, is there something "wrong" with history. I do not believe there is something "wrong" with history. Both author's discuss how specializations are threatening historians and their work and how they are able to communicate history to the public. I agree that specializations can be threatening when trying to explore the entirety of history but I only agree when the specializations are sufficiently narrow. On the whole, I think specialization is important. Brinkley discusses the benefits of these new specializations by discussing how they draw in new audiences who feel they have been excluded and feel some tie to this newly explored aspect of history. I agree with Brinkley on this and I feel this is a great outcome of specialization. Yes it may be more focused and yes it may narrow the audience more but it also has the possibility of bringing new meaning to history and new interest in history for the audiences it does reach. Everyone has a favorite time period, event, culture or general topic in history that they find fascinating. Having these interests is what encourages one to keep reading and keep exploring and push for further understanding of that part of history.

One of my goals is to become a high school History teacher. Ian Tyrrell discussed how "historians have faced at least three broad categories of audence..." and one of them is high school history curricula. I would undoubtably fit into this category of audience and I found this aspect of Tyrrell's work particularly interesting. There were various points in his book that focus directly on the history curriculum in high schools and how there was a push for national history standards in the past. While I agree that most people are very ignorant when it comes to American History, I am strongly against national standards in any curriculum. This goes back to the idea of specialization that was discussed earlier. Every teacher needs to specialize their class to fit the needs of their students. Every student is different and has different interests. Therefore, in order to engage students teachers must be able to alter what they teach. If they are stuck teaching specific topics, with controlled texts and resources and exams and their students are disengaged, then the students will not learn and it is back to square one. After completing projects on student learning, being a student myself, and spending much time in high school classrooms, I have found that students learn best when they are interested in the topic at hand. Therefore, I feel it is more important for people to be enthusiastic and interested in learning about some aspect of history than trying to know everything about history.

While academic scholars are fantastic resources for reading about and trying to understand the past, they are not my first resort when I read about history and I would not expect that my future students will read the works of academic scholars first when they learn about history for pleasure. Nonacademic resources can be great tools for understanding the past and I feel it is important to incorporate them into a classroom as well. . Tyrrell states that, "It is also true that for knowledge of the past, the public and the media often turn to nonacademic resources." He discusses the History Channel and while I do not watch the History Channel on a regular basis, it has become a popular channel for many Americans.

Farmington Masonic Temple and Farmington Township Hall

The historic landmark I visited recently was the Farmington Masonic Temple in downtown Farmington, Michigan. The building is located in the historic district of the city along with many other landmarks including the cities first post office, the first quaker meetings, cemeteries and houses. The Farmington Masonic Temple and Farmington Township Hall was built in 1876 and served as the home to the Township Government until 1963. The Masonic Lodge still occupies the buildings top floor while the first floor is used today for dances, banquets and other festitivies.

One thing I found quite interesting about the architecture and design of the building is that above all of the windows there are various symbols displayed all around the building. I have heard that the Freemasons put symbols into everything they do and that they do everything with a specific meaning behind it, that may only be a secret to them.

After reading about this historic landmark and visiting the site to take pictures, I thought about what kinds of questions a visitor and a historian may ask if they were to visit this landmark.

Some questions I thought a visitor might want to know the answers to were:

- How old is the building?

- What is the building used for?

- What is a Masonic temple?

- What do the symbols on the ouside of the building mean?

Some questions I thought a historian be interested in were:

- Why was the building made into a historic landmark?

- What about its past and/or current use is the public interested in today?

- What is the importance of the building?

- What was the building used for in the past?

- What is the building being used for now?