Hello and welcome!
This website has two purposes. First it is intended to communicate my philosophy and information for students and families of students about the Individuals and Societies (Social Studies) classes I teach at San Jose High School. The secondary purpose of this website is for me to compose my ideas about the writing of history and how I think about learning in different ways. Most of the content of this website is intended to explain who I am and how I think about history as an academic discipline.
If you are looking for information specific to a SJHS class you should visit the Canvas course for that particular section.
This website has two purposes. First it is intended to communicate my philosophy and information for students and families of students about the Individuals and Societies (Social Studies) classes I teach at San Jose High School. The secondary purpose of this website is for me to compose my ideas about the writing of history and how I think about learning in different ways. Most of the content of this website is intended to explain who I am and how I think about history as an academic discipline.
If you are looking for information specific to a SJHS class you should visit the Canvas course for that particular section.
Ms. Muntz's philosophy:
Why is it important to continue rewriting and reconsidering the historical narrative? History has been revised and rewritten for ages, haven't they got it right yet? It is always important to consider not just what happened in the past, but what has been said about it, and how we think about it.
I remember the textbooks I had in school. They were a narrative of the accomplishments of white men, with an occasional inset page in green or red that told of some woman or person of color who was being added to the book in an attempt to be multicultural or politically correct. The problem is, those inserted pages were (and still are) the ones that students and teachers skip.
That textbook sidenote that tells about the women who married retired Roman soldiers does not tell where the soldiers were from. Were they from North Africa and posted in Britain? Did they hate the weather in Northumberland? Was there a language gap that prevented them from forming a meaningful relationship?
It is not only important to rewrite textbooks to include underrepresented individuals within the narrative, but the entire narrative itself needs to be questioned. If we simply believe the version of events given to us by the dominant group in the past, we miss some of the truth. There is a saying that history is written by the victor, and this is to a certain extent true, but more true is the fact that history is often written by those who are able to write. Why do we revere the Romans over Carthage, or the Athenians over the Persians? Because Roman and Greek sources tell us to. If we are told “this group is civilized” and “this is barbaric” and we believe it, are we simply believing the political propaganda of the past?
There is also the tendency to privilege Christian over non-christian sources, and English language ones over non-English. The standard American history narrative is a good example of this. Why do American history textbooks tend to start with the Pilgrims? Because the Puritans in Massachusetts told us to. They wrote more than the settlers at Jamestown, or the missionaries along the Mississippi, or the priests in Spanish colonies at St Augusta or Santa Fe.
Everyone knows there were Amerindians in America when the Europeans arrived, but they are often not in the story. Why? Because they left so few written sources. The same thing is true for most women, African Americans, immigrants, and children.
Some say this is not as much of a problem as it might at first seem. Those groups, who didn't have access to documenting their experiences, didn't do much of interest anyways. And if they did, then some member of the elite white male group would surely have recorded it. If a thing were completely unrecorded, then it must not have been important.
If this is true, then the limited historical record is not problematic. It leaves out things, sure. But those things are unimportant. But, if the people who were deciding what to write down were biased in some way, which affected their judgment of what to include and what to leave out, then the records they left behind are suspect. Why would a slave master record how much his slaves were suffering? Why would a husband record the way his wife might feel powerless in society? Who would write about the human struggles of the poor illiterate immigrant?
This is why we need to use creative approaches to reconstruct those who are missing from the standard narrative. Material Culture, Censuses, Bank Records, and archaeology can all contribute something to filling in the gaps. What these sources cant do, sometimes can be done through a careful re-reading of those existing documents which gave us the old version of history. For students to engage with the past and relate to it, it is more important than ever to include the whole population of the past.
As a teacher of the twenty-first century, the history we learn should be like my students: diverse and inclusive.
I remember the textbooks I had in school. They were a narrative of the accomplishments of white men, with an occasional inset page in green or red that told of some woman or person of color who was being added to the book in an attempt to be multicultural or politically correct. The problem is, those inserted pages were (and still are) the ones that students and teachers skip.
That textbook sidenote that tells about the women who married retired Roman soldiers does not tell where the soldiers were from. Were they from North Africa and posted in Britain? Did they hate the weather in Northumberland? Was there a language gap that prevented them from forming a meaningful relationship?
It is not only important to rewrite textbooks to include underrepresented individuals within the narrative, but the entire narrative itself needs to be questioned. If we simply believe the version of events given to us by the dominant group in the past, we miss some of the truth. There is a saying that history is written by the victor, and this is to a certain extent true, but more true is the fact that history is often written by those who are able to write. Why do we revere the Romans over Carthage, or the Athenians over the Persians? Because Roman and Greek sources tell us to. If we are told “this group is civilized” and “this is barbaric” and we believe it, are we simply believing the political propaganda of the past?
There is also the tendency to privilege Christian over non-christian sources, and English language ones over non-English. The standard American history narrative is a good example of this. Why do American history textbooks tend to start with the Pilgrims? Because the Puritans in Massachusetts told us to. They wrote more than the settlers at Jamestown, or the missionaries along the Mississippi, or the priests in Spanish colonies at St Augusta or Santa Fe.
Everyone knows there were Amerindians in America when the Europeans arrived, but they are often not in the story. Why? Because they left so few written sources. The same thing is true for most women, African Americans, immigrants, and children.
Some say this is not as much of a problem as it might at first seem. Those groups, who didn't have access to documenting their experiences, didn't do much of interest anyways. And if they did, then some member of the elite white male group would surely have recorded it. If a thing were completely unrecorded, then it must not have been important.
If this is true, then the limited historical record is not problematic. It leaves out things, sure. But those things are unimportant. But, if the people who were deciding what to write down were biased in some way, which affected their judgment of what to include and what to leave out, then the records they left behind are suspect. Why would a slave master record how much his slaves were suffering? Why would a husband record the way his wife might feel powerless in society? Who would write about the human struggles of the poor illiterate immigrant?
This is why we need to use creative approaches to reconstruct those who are missing from the standard narrative. Material Culture, Censuses, Bank Records, and archaeology can all contribute something to filling in the gaps. What these sources cant do, sometimes can be done through a careful re-reading of those existing documents which gave us the old version of history. For students to engage with the past and relate to it, it is more important than ever to include the whole population of the past.
As a teacher of the twenty-first century, the history we learn should be like my students: diverse and inclusive.
