Alan S. Marcus

It Is as It Was: Feature Film in the History Classroom

John Paul II after previewing The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s controversial film about the last hours of Christ that was released on February 25, 2004. At least that is what was reported by Steve McEveety, Gibson’s producer. Several days later, a Vatican spokesperson denied the authenticity of the Pope’s statement, fueling the controversy already gripping the film. Maybe only the Pope’s boss knows what the Pontiff really thought, but his specific views are not what caught my attention; it was the notion behind the unsubstantiated remark. Can any film, or any historical representation, be “as it was”? The answer for most historians is no, and Gibson has come under attack for saying the film is “just the way it happened” (Lampman 2004), and for denying the creative leaps necessary to tell any historical narrative in which documentation is sketchy, as detailed in the Los Angeles Times (Shapiro 2004). Hollywood films based in history are inevitably a blend of historical record, fiction, and a filmmaker’s perspective. If films are not perfect representations of the past, then how can and should we interpret their images and messages? How might teachers talk about or show historically based films during lessons in a way that promotes students’ historical understanding? In this article, I write about more than simply using film as a pedagogical tool, which we accept as a given, and focus on exploring more deeply what it means to interpret inevitably inaccurate film portrayals in a way that promotes, rather than diminishes, historical understanding. In the following sections, I examine previous conceptions of the relevance of Hollywood film in high school, consider what recent researchers tell us about Hollywood film and students’ historical understanding, and offer specific suggestions for how to use films to promote students’ historical understanding. I use the topic of World War II as a context.

More Than "Showing What Happened": Exploring the Potential of Teaching History with Film

In a world where students and the general public are likely to access historical information from a television program, film, or even video game, it is important to equip students with the ability to view historical representation critically. In this essay we present arguments for using film to engage students in rigorous and authentic social studies pedagogy and support these arguments with data and examples from our research over the past ten years. Our goal is not to promote film as the ultimate classroom source or as a replacement for a teacher, but to highlight how effective the use of film can be in engaging students in authentic intellectual work with important content and issues. If we have learned anything from our research on using film to teach about the past, it is that it is important to have a clear purpose for selecting a film, both justifying the use of time and presenting the perspective that the teacher wants to portray.

We Need To Talk: Improving Dialogue between Social Studies Teachers and Museum Educators

Researchers have argued for increased collaboration between teachers and museum educators to improve the outcomes of museum education on students; however, significant gaps in understanding between the two remain impediments to effective collaboration. We surveyed fifty-one museum educators, conducted in-depth interviews with ten of these respondents, and analyzed the data with use of an inductive lens. In this article we use a composite dialogue between a museum educator and a teacher to present a series of questions teachers should ask of, and information they should provide to, museum educators. Such questions and information can be used to initiate more effective collaborative relationships that may ultimately improve the quality of museum education for our students. We argue that gaps in museum educators’ understanding about teachers’ needs, objectives, and concerns about museum visits could be bridged if teachers knew what questions to ask and what information to volunteer to museum educators before arranging a museum visit.

Knight at the Museum: Learning History with Museums.

This article presents an approach that teachers can use to strengthen students’ ability to make sense of the past at museums. Specifically, we propose a photography exercise to help students to learn from museums and to view museums critically, weighing both the objective realities and subjective interpretations offered by museums. To get the most from a lifetime of museum-going and history learning, students should learn to view museums as reflecting the kinds of perspectives, decision-making, and challenges that accompany any effort to make sense of the past.

Museum Footnotes: Helping Student Visitors Understand Museums

ABSTRACT Teaching history with museums is hampered by a lack of transparency or “footnotes.” This article discusses a rationale for opening up K-12 students’ understanding of the process in which history museums construct the past and advocates for a new conceptual model akin to traditional book footnotes, explored through a case study of footnotes imbedded in a history museum exhibition in Connecticut intended to help K-12 students better understand the past as presented at museums.

Feature Editors' Introduction

Schools, teachers, students, and administrators are common subjects in film and television, and viewers share many school experiences—from sitting at desks in rows, trudging through homework, squinting at multiple-choice exams, and lugging textbooks to resisting exhortations from teachers and swooning at their compliments. But the messages about the quality of schools, the challenges of teaching, and the purposes of education vary widely. For most adult viewers, in fact, school is a distant memory, easily upstaged by depictions of it on the screen—depictions that soon shape their perceptions, beliefs, biases, and values toward education in general and toward school life in particular.