Knowing my students, I chose pictures I know would have the greatest impact. Whether its because they are memorable (“Oh yeah that fat guy was eating a hamburger! I think those Indian people thought cows were sacred or something…”), engaging (“I don’t see the old woman, oh wait, now I do…), or relevant (“You mean you can have a BigMac in India too? It’s not made from beef?”), pictures can be great instructional tools.

What follows is the story behind India’s First War of Independence, otherwise known as the Sepoy Mutiny.

International ‘trade’ on the loose.

Source: http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/02/08/mcdonalds_global_same_store_sales_outpace_us/

The East India Company swept across the Indian subcontinent, seemingly benign but casting a large looming shadow of its future consequences. Before long the Company took on the attributes of an independent government. Like its multinational corporate offspring, the British East India company was able to alter lifestyles of average people through manipulating the local economy. Consequences of the Company’s decisions were often grave, most notably causing the death of millions of Indians by starvation due to reducing food production in favor of cotton.

The consumption of a sacred being. Vile in so many ways.

(Source: http://www.landingthedeal.com/2006/10/but_wait_if_you_order_now_youl.html)

The Indian subjects were able to stomach desecration of their holy places, continuous degradation of their language and culture, and general disrespect for their way of life. The final insult came in the form of a bullet cartridge. The cartridge for the Enfield rifle was smeared with fat from pig, unlawful for Muslims, and beef, sacred to Hindus. It is hard to imagine that the authorities could have simply lapsed in their judgment, and a more dubious motivation was at play in their decision to case the cartridges in such a vile substance. In the end, their arrogance or ignorance proved to be overwhelming. It’s unthinkable that something like that could happen today.

Old woman or young lady? Act of heroism or insanity? Independence or mutiny?

(Source: http://theliterarylink.com/illusions.html)

Like any major event widely recorded in the annals of history, understanding the nature of this event is a matter of perspective. Historical perspectives of the event are most clearly evidenced in the very name given to the event in different cultures. To the British and the Western world, it has come to be known as the Sepoy Mutiny, implying that paid Indian soldiers rose up against a legitimate power. For Indians, the acts of one perhaps crazed sepoy were the highly anticipated spark that lit the powderkeg of decades-long frustrations and resentment to their British overlords. In India, it has come to be known as none other than India’s First War of Independence, a battle whose aim would not come to fruition for nearly a century.

Left: Indian “Braveheart.” Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan portrays the Indian national hero during his final moments in the film The Rising: The Ballad of Mangal Pandey, 2005. Right: The commemorative stamp.

(Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/content/image_galleries/the_rising_gallery.shtml?6

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/9/9c/Mangalpandeystamp.jpg)

The actions of the sepoys against their British superiors were incited by one Mangal Pandey. Very little is known about this man, but speculation surrounds his motivations, some claiming he was simply high on that fateful March day in 1857.

For his actions, whether understood as being heroic or insane, Mangal Pandey was sentenced to death. He was hung on April 8 of that year, and the rest of his troop was unceremoniously disbanded.

His legacy is still celebrated to this day. Most notably, the events of his life, largely fabricated, are portrayed heroically in the Bollywood film The Rising, and a stamp commemorating his memory was issued by the Indian government in 1984.

For my research on Valentine’s Day, I attempted to find the most obscure and questionable sources possible. While looking through history’s grocery checkout lane magazine racks, rather than its bookshelves, I sought to find out just how reckless cyberspace had become with the democratization of knowledge. To my surprise, I found that most of my sources were remarkably consistent. After reading through a variety of sources, and clicking on O’s in the double digits in Google search results, I was disappointed not to have found anything especially juicy. The sites mostly fell in line with more commonly used sources (Wikipedia) which I checked after doing my initial research. This illuminating fact is either troubling as sites like Wikipedia steadily become the gold standard for historical research on the web is, or reassuring in the fact that wildly imaginative interpretations (or complete fabrications) of history were difficult to locate. What follows is my mostly tame findings on Valentine’s day history.

With love often comes sacrifice.

Many recognize modern Valentine’s Day connection to ancient civilizations, and one site proclaims that the “true origin” of Valentine’s Day stems from the ancient Roman tradition of Luprecalia. The festival was meant to honor the wolf that nursed Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, in their infanthood. The Lupercalia grew into a festival of spirit cleansing and fertility.

Among the many sacred rites and practices of the festival, young men sacrificed dogs and goats. Following the ritual sacrifice, young men ran through the streets nude, slapping women with goat hides to rid them of evil spirits and infertility.

Surprisingly, ancient civilizations may be the ones to thank for the steaminess associated with this day. Eight centuries before Valentine’s Day came to be known as it is today, the Romans had adopted a rather unusual practice to commemorate the rites of passage from young men to adult. As part of the Lupercalia festivities, young men would draw the names of teen-aged girls from a box. The “lucky” winners would then be claimed by the young men as their, politely put, concubines for the year.

Ruining all the Fun

It was only a matter of time until the Catholic Church crashed the party. The holiday is another example of how the Catholic Church re-appropriated pagan traditions, effectively co-opting them into Church-related activities.

The mid-February holiday of Lupercalia coincided with a strange coincidence in Church history. Catholic records identify three separate St. Valentine’s. One was a priest in Rome, another a bishop in Terni, and a third St. Valentine who is buried in Africa. According to this site, all three died on the very same day: February 14th. It seemed only appropriate then that the day would come to honor those saints.

The most beloved of these St. Valentines was the 3rd century priest who defied the then emperor Claudius’s ban on marriages meant to encourage single men to join the army. His defiance earned him a jail sentence, but also a great deal of notoriety and admiration from the public. One of his admirers, the prison guards daughter, managed to capture his heart. On the day he was to be executed, he left her a signed, “Love from your Valentine.” Alternative perspectives maintain that Valentine was executed for aiding Christians in escaping Roman jails where they were persecuted.

In case anyone has come to doubt the divine element of Valentine’s Day, a new Valentine has arrived as a clear sign.

True (Commercial) Love

But we all know Valentine’s Day has nothing to do with religion, whether monotheistic or pagan in orientation. Its about the stuff.

Among the holiday’s essentials, is the ubiquitous Valentine’s Day card, replete with pre-programmed yet heartfelt messages. The amorous Charles the Duke of Orleans is recognized as having sent the first Valentine’s Day card in 1415. Imprisoned in the Tower of London after the Battle of Agincourt, the Duke passed his days composing poetry for his beloved. As he let his heart bleed on to each page, he came to compose many letters, which would later come to be regarded as the first Valentine’s cards.

Also, changes in the indispensable candy hearts have reflected the times. The hearts were once far more penetrating than the overly impersonal and no nonsense “Be Mine” of today. Instead of simple hearts, the candy used to be shaped as baseballs, horseshoes and postcards. The larger surfaces allowed for more touching (or freakish) messages like “Please send a lock of your hair by return mail.”

Finally, if things didn’t work out this year, don’t fret. The candies are supposed to stay fresh for at least 5 years. So, stock up for, oh say (hopefully) the rest of your life.

Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) is a website created by the NPS to provide resources to educators regarding the study of history through historic places.  The site is strong on central content, but weak in presentation and user effectiveness.  As I discuss the organization, online community, and educational resources the site provides, its substance will stand out over its style.

Organization

Content on the homepage would indicate that the website is updated regularly.  The front page offers lesson resources relating to Black History Month, suggesting that something topical regularly greets the viewer upon their arrival.

One of the website’s greatest strengths is also one of its greatest weaknesses.  While the website certainly has a wealth of lesson plans and educator resources, it does a relatively poor job in organizing them for efficient use. Teachers and educators can browse the available lesson plans by location, theme, time period, and social studies standards.  But little is possible beyond that.  Visitors cannot specify their desired query by utilizing more than one field.  For example, one could not find out quickly or efficiently whether Depression era lesson plans are available for their specific state, but would have to troll through the individual fields themselves.  Unfortunately, visitors cannot look through a complete and comprehensive list of all the lesson plans on one page either.  To make matters worse, no search option exists where visitors can input a query to search all lesson plans for even more specific information.

Among the site’s central downfalls is the incredibly poor navigation structure.  After leaving the front page to peruse the lesson plans, it is difficult to return to the home page and impossible to return to the previous page.  Only after scrolling to the very bottom of a very long page can one find links back to the main page.  For people so concerned with places, you would imagine they’d have better blueprints.

Community
While focused on studying places and how they bring people together, the effort of TwHP to build an online community is modest at best.  One positive feature is the ability to submit new lesson plans.  To streamline the process, the organization has created an online Author’s Packet to create a uniform structure to the lessons submitted.  Providing such a feature can invigorate a virtual community and keep it fresh by facilitating the sharing of  new ideas.  However, to make this a reality, especially on a teacher website, visitors must be able to leave feedback. For lessons provided, teachers should be able to  rate, ask questions, and share testimonials about why lessons did or did not work.  To simply make them available is not enough.  It is unclear when the website was last updated with new submissions, but it appears that it has been some time.  This would indicate that the site has hardly galvanized a community of educators to regularly share new insights, which is of particular concern as new research and insights bring new changes to educational practice all the time.

Educational resources

The organization and format of the lessons presented are clear and consistent.  All lessons consist of the same core sections: Inquiry Question (central objective), Setting the Stage (historical context, Locating the Site (maps), Determining the Facts (Readings), Visual Evidence (pictures), and Putting it All Together (activities).  The clean presentation of the lessons makes it easier for teachers to pull what they need, and if desired, follow closely the outline for lessons provided.  Archival photography and maps adorn many of the pages and provide great resources for the classroom.

But as far as in-class educational utility, the website comes off as little more than an online textbook.  Links within the lesson plans lead to informational texts and pictures.  And although the design is relatively clean and intuitive in organization, it is not appealing or engaging to young people. The dull and relatively lifeless blue and green color scheme can make the website come off more corporate than educational.

Other developments in web design are also noticeably absent.   It would seem only natural that a website dedicated to the study of important locations in this day and age would include the common virtual tour option, but TwHP does not.  Common features like embedded video, audio clips, or Flash animations to enhance the virtual visit to these historic places are no where to be found.  Perhaps these features were not in the budget or beyond the scope of the NPS’s project. As a result, the hollow images can only do so much to manifest the magnificence of our nation’s greatest historical sites for students who constantly crave more and more concrete exposure to the world around them.

Due to the reasons mentioned above, it would appear that the website is really meant for teachers to seek out the resources and then to apply them in their classes, rather than a website for students to peruse indpendently while in class.  As a teacher, there is little utility in having students do something on the computer that does not utilize the technology it provides, especially when you don’t have them in abundance.

If all else fails, do it the old fashioned way: plan a field trip.

“The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War” 

To me, there are few better ways to approach history for teenagers than to use primary sources. For every unit I teach, I provide students primary sources to personalize their experiences with the people they read about. Not only is it fascinating to see the presentation, font, and overall aesthetic used in historical documents, but depending on the type of primary source, it can be made relevant and actionable in everyday life. “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War” is a wonderful resources for activities relating to primary documents, not only because they present both sides of the conflict, but because a variety of perspectives of both communities are shared. Another reason primary documents are so powerful is because it is impossible to argue with the authenticity of the document. They lay bare historical prejudices, knowledge deficits, and the overall attitudes of the time.

The clipping that describes Union soldiers as “the hyena-like Vandals of the North” provides a first-hand account (however singular) on a Southerner’s disposition towards them. Also, there are times when historical tales seem to fantastic to believe, but primary documents provide the evidence. The newspaper article that tells the story of 16 year-old Sophia Cryder who disguised herself and joined the Sumner Rifles company only to be later found out is one I would love to share with my largely female classes.

Whether the registry of free blacks, chruch records, or the letters and diaries, all neatly organized that give visitors the impression that they are virtually touring the site itself, provide a student of history important insights into the way things were for everyday people.

National Museum of American History

As the Museum is currently closed and its exhibits traveling or being housed in other Smithsonian venues, its website has become all the more relevant. The website is more or less a virtual tour of the museum itself, only better because of extra content. Furthermore, teachers or overly-zealous parents can find lesson plans, learning activities, and games that accompany different exhibits to enhance their instruction. The website is easily navigable and provides a good introduction to the use and skill of reading artifacts as equally valid tools for historical research as primary documents, a fact some students have yet to fully understand. With such a wide range of collections from domestic furnishings to the music of Celia Cruz, there are enough artifacts to catch nearly anyone’s attention.

DoHistory

DoHistory provides an excellent and well documented model of how to become a historical investigator. With the spawning of new CSI shows nearly every other week, there is no doubt that many people are eager to put on their detective caps. Unfortunately, since history capers are no longer pressing issues, they rarely are able to deliver the kind of excitement or interest other types of investigation. But with the right story and evidence, interest will follow. The story of Martha Ballard, and the book and movie that have been created from it, present thorough evidence for investigation. The best thing about DoHistory is that it actually trains visitors in the skill of historical analysis. In schools, history is seen as a content class with little to no skill value for students. English, math, and science teach kids how, social studies teach kids what. But as the importance of historical investigation becomes more important with mysterious or complicated historical events, the need and excitement around the skill will only increase.

The History Channel

In order to maintain its elevated status as the premier history site,

The History Channel keeps its finger steady on the pulse of pop culture, and develops programming to reflect recent trends, popular music, or events. One of their new series, “Gangland,” which looks at the “most violent and influential gangs of our modern times,” no doubt owes in part its popularity to Americans’ odd obsession with gangsters, most recently rekindled by the popular movie American Gangster. Another one of the Channel’s “most watched” shows entitled “Human Weapon” explores the histories of different martial arts fighting styles, appears to target the young male demographic with cultish interests in cage-fighting and martial arts movies. Many of the other featured items on the History Channel website seem to cater to tabloid-esque interests of ordinary viewers who more than likely find traditional history programming stale. “UFO Hunters,” “Cities of the Underworld,” and others like them, are featured prominently. These programs are part of the Channel’s attempts at creating a more widely consumed version of pop-edutainment.

Some history puritans may claim that the channel is diluting history and presenting information irrelevant to the more pressing issues of history. They are right. But the History Channel also makes history fun. Not only that, but it expands the definition of what comprises history. Furthermore, shows like “Gangland” or “Cities of the Underworld” may give voice to populations or events that may otherwise not be as well reported on or documented. The History Channel is meeting the needs of a population that are ever more interested in simplifying information and being entertained while receiving it. Not coincidentally, the very same trend is found in schools today, where students expect (and at times demand) to be entertained by their teachers. For better or worse, with the added features of video, games, and other interactive features, the History Channel is ideal for conveying history’s messages to today’s youth.

With discussions on race lining the election trail, astute journalists have been making connections to the culturally-pervasive and opinion-informing hip hop community.  What better place to turn for up to the minute news and information on the intersection between hip hip and politics then, than the self-acclaimed Source On all Hip Hop  (SOHH.com). In addition to the feature section and community forum spaces, the site hosts 10 different blogs that are arranged topically and regionally. Overall, the selection of blogs are a good reflection of hip hop culture as a whole, detailing new fashions, artists, and overall societal influence.  A variety of media entice visitors, as pictures and embedded video make pages more interesting and allow for a more lively visit. The particular blog that I perused was SOHH Dailies which is updated (not surprisingly) every day, providing all the hip hop news that is fit to post.

The blog was especially hot this past week as two Chicago-based rappers quarreled spiritedly over democratic nominees for president.  Lupe Fiasco and Rhymefest, supporting Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama respectively, sparred on issues relating to foreign policy and the merits of democracy.  Other posts on Obama’s interests in hip hop and Bob Johnson’s comments directed at the Illinois senator were also relevant to my research.

Skimming through the posts, the blogs are clearly written for a young general audience, but would appear more familiar to those more intimate with the hip hop world and its associated vocabulary.  Blog post titles like “Dem Franchize Boyz: Poppin Of Floppin? Plus, Atlanta…Show Ya Love For Monica Arnold Because She’s Taking A Beating On The Blogs!!!” or “A Throwback You’ve Been Feenin’ For… I Know I Have…” would suggest that the blogs are targeted at pros, not hip-hop vocabulary novices.

Although sometimes a credit to a website, SOHH may suffer from its comprehensiveness.  Blog posts and news updates discuss far more than the core hip-hop community, and delve into TV shows, movies, sports and other modes of entertainment loosely or completely unrelated to hip-hop.  When the site ceremoniously came online in 1995, it was the only game in town, providing a single site that served as a gateway to a variety of hip-hop recording artists.  Blogs were introduced later, as were different video applications, with the outcome being a website that appears a bit overwhelming for newcomers. It is unclear precisely what the focus of the site is as a whole, but the individual blogs are uniquely informative.  Perhaps it is fitting that the “Source on all Hip-Hop” is as diluted as the hip hop world itself, not maintaining a coherent idea of what hip hop is or isn’t.  As a central source for information on all different topics loosely related to hip-hop, the site may serve a purpose, but it is more appropriate for those already aware of hip-hop’s varieties and choose to focus on narrower interests within the wide (and ever growing) world of hip hop culture.

Of interest:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/02/14/bhm.felicia.palmer/index.html

article on SOHH’s founder, Felicia Palmer