“History is useless if it is not shared” Knupfer said

What is public history? Coming into this class, I thought public history was something specific, like a certain type of history. Maybe even a focus, like a lot of our classes are, such as "US in the Cold War" or "The Vietnam War from the Vietnamese perspective". Not realizing that everything that has happened in the past and what is happening now in our world is public history. People are impacted by it, a part of it, move because of it, and oftentimes don't even realize how important their role is in impacting history.

So what kind of history is presented to the public? The thing about history is that most people don't know how to communicate their academic knowledge with the public (or a large audience), so they only end up sharing it with one another. Reading through our books, like the one by Tyrrell, this semester supported this dilemma along with our examinations of how history is presented in the media. They showed that history is often made glamorized, elaborated/fictional in parts, and diluted to the general audience. The majority of the History Channel's shows on prime time were in this fashion, such as Ganglands, Pawn Stars, or Ax Men. If any show pertaining to our country's past is presented in a special or to a prime time audience, it tends to be about war or controversy. Granted, both are very apparent throughout our past, but what does this say about the audience we are trying to reach by that? This is the sort of history that is made 'public', not the history of our political framework or the "less exciting" events of our past.

This blog topic sort of relates to a conversation a friend and I were having the other day. We were discussing the importance of exams, in that most are for simply regurgitating information to show we know what has been lectured to us. In an age of resources and technology, why are we given exams where we cannot use them on? Where in our careers will we be ALONE as we answer a question or plan? Never. Books, letters, photos, interviews, etc. will be at our fingertips, whether you are a teacher, interior decorator or even a scientist. We never are alone, we are working with and off of what other people before us have, and there is nothing wrong with that. Historians work in the same way, and this class project helped open my eyes (and stubborn self) to the idea of depending on others for help/advice/resources.

What have I learned about public history?
It is useless if our knowledge is not shared to others. Finding our audience is crucial in spreading this information, and finding the medium to connect with them on is a challenge we must face. As we go on researching or teaching as historians, it is also important to use others' help and information, because we are never alone on a project/lesson plan/lecture/research. We need to always be open to new ideas, new teaching styles, and be critiquing ourselves constantly so that we can better our practices always. My opinions on teaching and the idea of public history have dramatically changed throughout this semester in this class and working on our I496 project. I will be a better educator because of it, and for that I am eternally grateful.

The light at the end of the tunnel

Today's presentation went wonderful, and I was so happy to see everything come together visually. The planning team did an excellent job utilizing our resources, along with ones they found, to create a proposal for an exhibit. I feel that Maria was engaged and had a lot of questions pertaining to our exhibit. We all worked so hard, and it was nice to see it all come to an end. Having Dr. K say that he was proud of all our work was honestly very rewarding to hear, because in the end this was his project/idea he bestowed on us to take on and do the best we can with it. I agree with Scott though in the idea that as a research team we should have interviewed people to give a more personal feel to our proposal. If the museum ever wanted to go through with the I496 idea I'm sure that is something they would follow through on. Along with creating visual artifacts for the exhibit from the research we found. Overall, I am very very happy with our project proposal.

Pressure, pushin down on me...

I am really beginning to feel the pressure of everything this semester as things come close to an end. Our history class project still doesn't feel like its coming together which is frustrating, since its been months and months of work. Hopefully this week will be productive for us, because on top of that we need to get our individual projects done as well. My individual project is coming along well, but I am struggling to bring the public history perspective into the TE lesson plan template norms. I'd hate for things to fall apart this close to the 'light at the end of the tunnel'.

No, I did not forget about my blog :)

Several days have passed since the last time I wrote about "clarity on individual projects". May I just say that since then, we all got a great explanation on what to do/how to do it/when it's due... everything someone like me needed! I'm working away on my individual project and so far feel pretty good with where I'm at.

Dr. K was impressed with all the research we were able to dig up, and the planning team seems to be crunching together their ideas now having more of our information/help. Hopefully tomorrow will be just as productive as last class, because I would love to see nothing more than the finished product of this class project. As much as I hated the idea of a WHOLE class project at first, I really don't hate it as much now :) People were able to find things I couldn't find, or use resources I don't understand, and we were able to compile that all together; which is amazing!

I know we still have more work to do, details to figure out, and probably more research to do.. so hopefully we figure that out tomorrow!

Clarity on individual projects

Class today was nice because we were able to talk about our individual projects, which have been on the back burner for weeks now.Unfortunately, it is due in the upcoming weeks, so we cannot put it off any longer. Discussing citation requirements, ideas, and presentation possibilities are all things that I personally needed to work out and know, because I needed a path to work towards with this individual project. Hopefully my research for it will come up with what I need in order to create my example for the project I am creating my lesson plan around. We have a few weeks left, and pulling off a proposal for our group project AND make a fantastic individual project is going to cut my sleep time in half til finals are over.

Strength in numbers....

Friday was by far the most productive day I've had with the research for I-496!!! A large group of us met up at the Library of MI at about 1 and didn't leave until after 4:30. We divided up tasks, talked to the librarians, looked through surveys, books, articles, newsletters, and anything you could think of to find information on I-496. I surely hope its useful Tuesday (or whenever) the planning team takes a look at it. Friday really showed me how much more productive research is when you work together, divide tasks, and depend on one another. I feel really good about going in to class Tuesday with what we found and hope this can all start to come together soon :)

Tomorrow should be interesting...

I thought we were making some progress so far on our class project, but Dr. K seems slightly concerned. I thought Tuesday was a great use of our time in coming together, eliminating information that was no longer needed, having the design team give us a visual, assign more research tasks, and plan a date to the library (again). We are right now, as a research team, hacking away as best we can and I am very proud because working with a whole class of people is INCREDIBLY difficult. The design team has come up with some incredible ideas as well and has been working hard. Hopefully we can find the negative impacts more so as we dig deeper, because the planning team says they looked through our things and have found mostly the positive impacts on Lansing's economy/workforce. Tomorrow will be more work, continuing on coming to a place where everyone eventually feels that "this is it" and we are satisfied with our research/planning for the proposal. Until then, only time can tell :)

Crunch time

Today was a surprisingly productive day, granted it was difficult getting started/organized without Dr. K, but we did well. The planning/design team did a great job of giving us a visual to what they are proposing the exhibit to look like and that was very beneficial to the research group. We uploaded more to the wiki and assigned further research tasks for our I496 assignment, so now a bunch more of us (I believe Marc, Dan, Kelly, Brandon, Ed, and myself) are headed back to the library again on Friday for more digging!

As for my individual project, I am feeling a bit lost. Well a bit is an understatement. I know who I want my audience to be, and an idea of what to do, but the details are not falling into place for me yet. Is assigning students to research/create a public service announcement about community issues (past or present) "public history-e enough" as Ed says? I'm one of those people who usually need more structure/guidance, so not having a lot is killing me.

It's a beautiful day at the library...

Yesterday Brandon, Amanda, Erica and myself had a very productive day at the Library of MI. Granted, we could not stay for too long (with class/work conflicts) but working together the four of us really multiplied our productivity. Brandon and Erica went through newspapers, while Amanda went through some books, and I complied the information on a document to be loaded on the wiki. The information we found was mostly in newspaper clippings from the late 50's through 70's regarding I-496 and GM's role in that through expansion, and also some amazing photographs of the area. I'm really happy right now, but I am still concerned. I feel in our smaller groups we are making progress and that is wonderful. But as a whole we are as a class maybe heading in two different paths (not all that different from one another), because we are all not exactly clear on the specific one path we should all be geared towards. We need to talk across groups more and more so that we can all come together and our research/planning can come together!