The literal past: a college student’s view of history.

Originally posted on www.seanmunger.com:

I’ve been teaching history at the college level for almost 4 years now. I love it and teaching is clearly the job I was born to do, but, like every job, it comes with frustrations. I think almost everybody who pursues a career in education has moments where they despair what their students don’t know when they first walk into the classroom. This article is not that sort of lament. I don’t mind that some of my students don’t know what much about history when I first see them; it is, after all, my job to remedy that situation. What is interesting–and what will be the subject of this article–is how they think about history, and the implications that it might have.

What’s most striking to me about how many of my students think about history is how literally they interpret things. They tend to view actions, processes and eras…

View original 900 more words