Welcome to Network News Exchange, a semi-annual Perspectives column provided by the Society for History Education, an AHA affiliate. A summary follows of teaching sessions at the last AHA annual meeting. It will be noted that a paucity of reporters reduces us to the embarrassment of the "NNE" editor having to cover a session in which he was drafted to be a last-minute pinch-hitter for one of the panelists. We need your help—the profession needs your help. Please volunteer to report teaching sessions at future annual meetings of the AHA and OAH. Contact the editor, John W. Larner, at Penn State Altoona Campus, Altoona, PA 16601 if you can be of assistance.

The Future of the Profession

If we can accept the testimony of a panel of historians who concerned themselves with the future of the historical profession at the 1988 meeting of the American Historical Association, the prognosis is for trouble. The historians have only themselves to blame for such prospects, and only they can do anything about it.

The session, ably chaired by Richard W. Lyman, Stanford University, was anchored by two prepared papers presented by AHA President Louis R. Harlan, University of Maryland, and AHA Council member Richard H. Kohn, Office of Air Force History. Their papers reflected close agreement on the causes and nature of the crisis facing historians. The profession is becoming increasingly disassociated from its various clienteles: other humanistic disciplines; other professions; university students; primary and secondary teachers and students; the reading public. Because historians are not filling the need for historical knowledge and understanding felt by these varied audiences, two ominous trends are in course. Historical literacy is declining. And others who are not professional historians are seeking to respond to the demonstrable interest in history, usually with an inferior product. As a result, the profession is threatened with redundancy and irrelevance in the larger social and intellectual setting, conditions that are painfully reflected by diminishing support and increasing criticism. Although historians are prone to identify external causes for this threatening situation, its genesis is of their own making. The profession is too narrowly confined to the professoriate in four-year colleges and universities, divorced from the larger education scene, unduly fixated on a constrictive training system, locked into a narrowly defined reward system, over-specialized and technical in its efforts to communicate with a larger community, and inept at any form of political action beyond academic politics.

Both Harlan and Kohn agreed that historians have to act if the profession's situation is to be corrected. Harlan urged academic historians to lend more active support to efforts currently being made by historical associations and other nonacademic organizations to assist an aroused public seeking educational reform. Kohn called for more muscular activities by individual professionals to reconnect themselves with the schools and the public and to seek ways to expand the economic base of the profession beyond colleges, universities, and publishers.

Arthur S. Link, Princeton University, and Diane Ravitch, Columbia University, were then called upon to comment. Link found himself in agreement with the positions taken by Harlan and Kohn, however, he called on his considerable experience to remind the audience that specialization has been and must be the essence of professional life and that historical illiteracy has always been a public affliction. Ravitch lent her considerable voice to support Harlan and Kohn. She was especially vigorous in articulating the dire straits of history in the elementary and secondary schools. She argued that the case for the inclusion of more history in the curriculum has been translated unfortunately into a manifestation of arch-conservatism by the social scientists who control the curriculum of K-12 programs.

During the question and answer period, the audience, of modest numbers, left little doubt that the profession faces a rocky future, but it was not entirely clear, what, if anything could be done about the situation. As the session drew to a close, someone suggested that perhaps the historians should take the medical profession as a model. One sensed that many were not sure whether this course would be good or bad. Such uncertainty seems to point up the lack of identity besetting the profession.

Richard E. Sullivan, Michigan State University

The Place of United States History in World History

This session is addressed by Peter Stearns in his article, "Teaching the United States in World History," under the Teaching Innovations column in this issue of Perspectives.

The Bicentennial of the French Revolution: New Research, New Audiences

NEH provided both sponsorship and a chairman, Thomas Adams, for this session, which highlighted Endowment-supported programs.

Under the title "International Scholars and Scholarly Conferences," Robert Forster, Johns Hopkins University described the U.S. conference on the French Revolution to be held in Washington on May 5–6.

Carla Hesse, Rutgers University, then spoke on "Printing and the French Revolution," and specifically on the exhibit, "Revolution in Print, 1789," which she is curating and is at the New York Public Library Main Branch, February 18–May 13, 1989.

Most pertinent to this column was a presentation by Darline Levy, New York University. In "The French Revolution and Its Modern Legacy, A Bicentennial Reappraisal for High School Teachers and the Public" described Nyu's program to commemorate the bicentennial. It was interdisciplinary, university-wide, and included at least five arts and social science departments in addition to the history department. Invited public lecturers included Francois Furet, Mona Ozouf, Regis Debray, Eric Hobsbawm, Robert Rosenblum, and three of the five present panelists, not to mention the President of the French Republic and the President of the French Constitutional Council. Especially invited were graduates of NYU's NEH-funded summer institute for city high-school teachers which had already completed its second (1988) session of the Revolution and its legacy.

N. Meyerling, Michigan State University, reported on how to manage a bicentennial regional conference, including everything from lectures, exhibits, and a film course, to how to find private sponsorship and put on a fund-raising dinner.

In his comments, Keith Baker, University of Chicago, observed that much has been done and much remains to do, but Americans have not been idle.

William R. Everdell, St. Ann's School, New York

Recruiting Afro-Americans for the Graduate Education Pipeline: Strategies That Work

The AHA Teaching Division cosponsored this session as an extension of a workshop on the same topic at the 1987 Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History meeting. Chaired by Philip Scranton, Rutgers University, Camden, the session included a paper entitled, "The Graduate Department Perspective" by Robert L. Harris, Cornell University, and a presentation by Michael J. Galgano, James Madison University, entitled, "Recruiting for the Undergraduate Department." Priscilla Dowden, Indiana University, provided an insightful comment, based in part on her own experiences as an Afro-American graduate student.

In his introduction of the session, Scranton discussed the serious problem of, relative to the past few years, the declining numbers of Afro-American historians in the historical profession. All the speakers reiterated this theme. As Galgano pointed out, there is a decline in Afro-American MAs and PhDs in all fields. Galgano stressed the importance of getting Afro-American students interested in history before they pursued the B.A. First, college professors must work with high school teachers to help introduce a multi-cultural approach to the history curriculum. This process could be fostered through interdisciplinary summer programs involving college and secondary education teachers and through the History Teaching Alliance. Mentoring of Afro-American high school students by college history professors could be accomplished through day trips or plans for projects for National History Day.

Secondly, colleges must actively recruit Afro-American students and retain them. James Madison University's history department encourages an interest in history through multi-cultural course content and personal attention. Workshops are held for Afro-American students to encourage them to pursue advanced degrees, and summer programs provide students with a taste of academic life.

Focusing on the graduate program, Harris began by expressing the need for historians to improve their professional image and better convey the satisfaction from their work and the excitement of combining one's avocation with one's vocation. After briefly discussing early identification and recruitment programs, Harris stressed mentoring of Afro-American students on the graduate level. Mentoring could include such activities as joint research and co-authorship of students and professors. Harris also suggested the importance of M.A. programs in history as a first step in encouraging Afro-American students to continue toward a Ph.D. For first generation college graduates the pursuit of a Ph.D. may seem daunting and unreachable. Thus a more realistic goal is the M.A. degree that prepares students, both emotionally and academically, for the rigors of a Ph.D. program.

In its admissions policy, the Africana Studies Department at Cornell University deemphasizes GRE scores, preferring to rely on grades within the major. They are particularly interested in seeing progress in the major combined with strong letters of recommendation. Lastly, Harris discussed the networking of faculty in recruitment of students. Former Africana department students are urged to spread the word in their own undergraduate schools and encourage promising students.

Perspectives plans to publish the papers from this session in upcoming issues.

Noralee Frankel, American Historical Association

The History of Science and Technology in the European History Curriculum of Secondary Schools

Martha H. Verbrugge, Bucknell University, opened the session by pointing to the activities of the teaching committee of the History of Science Society—most notably the plans to reprint within the year some of their materials on teaching such topics as the scientific revolution and public policy issues regarding science and technology.

Frederick Gregory, University of Florida, surveyed the treatment of science in European history textbooks and found it unsatisfactory. Three topics, the scientific revolution, evolution, and twentieth-century physics, make up most of the 4.8 percent of the space devoted to science in post-1648 studies texts. He argued that teachers of the history of science should reflect the trends in current scholarship. They should set aside their former positivist assumptions, their tendency to trace the history of abstract ideas, and should instead make clear that science is laden with cultural assumptions. He offered a definition of science which he argued should inform the curriculum: "science is a product of human beings trying to study and reshape their understanding of nature to serve society."

Henry J. Steffens, University of Vermont, offered observations on the success of his "writing across the curriculum" activities in history of science courses.

The interesting discussion that followed was based more on the comments by Alice Levine Baxter, Loomis Chafee School, and Michael Mahoney, Princeton University, than it was on the formal presentations. Both noted that the speakers had paid little attention to the secondary level. Baxter pointed to the fact that science was only one of the many subject areas given short shrift in the survey textbooks and argued that the only way to get better results is for interested scholars to get involved in writing their own text materials. Mahoney referred to his own experience working with school boards and high school faculties, observing that once teachers are prepared to deal with the science and technology, they themselves know best how to teach it. The problem is to help them become prepared, and to offer this help in ways that respect secondary teachers as professionals.

Mahoney added that the overall goals of secondary education must also be kept in focus. Although historians of science are particularly sensitive to the cultural biases of scientific institutions, patterns of research, and subjective judgment, most working scientists and science teachers continue to view themselves as pushing back the frontiers of objective knowledge. If the general goals of secondary education, as Mahoney suggested, center on preparing children (especially those who may not be college bound) to participate in society as it exists today, it may be a disservice to them to over-stress the cultural roots of scientific thought and thereby set up conflicts between what they learn in their science and their history classes. Instead, Mahoney argued for the inter-collectedness and reinforcement of basic knowledge from one class to the next. The thoughtfulness of Mahoney's observations served to emphasize the inattention of the two formal papers to do justice to the announced topic of secondary teaching.

Reflecting the interests of the HSS, the session focused on science almost to the exclusion of technology.

John E. O'Conner, New Jersey Institute of Technology

The Politics of Textbook Adoption

Four of six panelists failed to show: B'Ann Bowman, Prentice Hall, Louis Griger, Texas Education Agency, Allen Wheatcroft, D.C. Heath, and James Wetzler, Pennsylvania Department of Education. Nonetheless, thirty-five persons attended and remained for the session's duration.

Ably filling in for Louis Griger, Sheila Cunningham, Klein Independent School District, Texas, a math teacher and chair of the most recent Texas statewide text adoption committee outlined the procedures currently used in Texas to designate officially adopted titles. In the most recent round, a state committee of sixteen (fourteen were teachers) selected books in five subject areas, adopting eight titles in each subject. The state's more than one thousand local districts, if they wish state funding for their texts, make selections from the state adoption list. Publishers must comply with state curriculum mandates and other stipulations found in the Texas Education Agency's "call" for texts. Strict state regulations limit publisher access to the committee members; tightly structured public hearings permit both support and opposition voices to be heard; and panels including both professional and lay "advisors" are available for consultation.

The perils of Pennsylvania's local option text purchase approach were outlined by John W. Larner, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona Campus, who substituted for James Wetzler. The Commonwealth's 501 school districts each make their own textbook selections according to widely varying criteria and procedures. Teachers and local boards customarily are open to an array of pressures placed by any and all with an interest in schoolbook adoption outcomes. The critically understaffed Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) is unable to contribute little more to statewide curriculum standards than sporadic site visits with occasional resultant citations of districts failing to conform to legislation and PDE program policies. Recently, PDE has attempted to augment textbooks through history teaching packets developed by historians and educators.

Stephen E. Gottlieb, Albany Law School, Union University, and Donald Schwartz, California State University, Long Beach, masterfully characterized the debilitating ills now seemingly endemic to history and social studies schoolbooks. Both, however, reaffirmed that the text adoption process is the cause of the contagion, especially in the twenty-three statewide adoption settings. A feature article in the December 30, 1988 Cincinnati Enquirer ("Educators Criticize History Texts," pages C-1 and C-2) amply summarized the hard-hitting critiques by Gottlieb and Schwartz.

Somewhat desultory discussion and hand-wringing followed. Reluctant to appear on the panel, publishers' representatives proffered apologia galore from the floor. One historian conceded that, all things considered, the Texas system of adoption might not be too bad after all!

John W. Larner, Penn State Altoona Campus

Workstation-based Research and Teaching Techniques for Historians

This session provided a provocative introduction to the future of computer hardware and the exciting possibilities for both research and teaching with this emerging technology. Appropriately, the participants even provided demonstrations of some of the equipment that is in our future.

Unfortunately, Michael Carter, Stanford University, could not attend. In his stead, the chair, Robert Cavalier, InterUniversity Consortium for Education Computing, offered insights into workstation technology. Charting the evolution of computers and machine-mediated learning in the past twenty years, Cavalier suggested the workstation hardware goals that soon promise to be within reach of most academics.

These machines will have at least a megabyte of RAM, a million pixels in screen resolution, and operate at a speed of one to ten MIPS. They will use graphical interface and pointing devices on a high-resolution color display. Part of their usefulness will derive from their connectivity for electronic mail and distributed networking. Their computing power will allow rapid processing of large amounts of data and complicated programs. Finally, their costs will continue to drop. The workstations that cost $30,000 in the early 1980s have now dropped in price to between $4500 and $7500, a price below the most expensive microcomputers.

To illustrate the types of teaching software that these machines will make possible, Cavalier showed a video of "The Would-Be Gentleman" a software developed at Stanford University by Carolyn Lougee and Michael Carter. This prize-winning program simulates life in the age of Louis XIV by giving students the opportunity to make decisions on marital partners, political protectors, investments, and political office that let them advance, or fail, in the French court and society. This software runs on the Macintosh and is available through Kinko's Software Exchange.

David Miller, Carnegie-Mellon University, then showed his "Great American History Machine" software now being developed at his institution. The software combines county-level maps for the entire United States with social, political, and economic data from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a format that gives students easy access to the information. With it they can use and reorganize the data to analyze and answer specific historical questions and to display the results on a national or regional map.

Miller explained the ways he incorporates the software into the introductory American history course at CMU to guide students into investigating and perhaps reinterpreting particular historical arguments. In a brief demonstration of the software, he showed how easy it was for students to explore both broad and specific themes in American history by refining their questions and looking for answers in the data. The audience could also see how the software lets students understand how historians pursue their craft.

Emphasizing those aspects of the program's design that involve historical thinking and problem solving, Miller speculated on a variety of ways this program might also be valuable to researchers. This software is available from Miller, along with documentation on how to customize it. Currently, the software is only available for the IBM RT.

The session ended with many questions remaining, suggesting high interest in the teaching and research possibilities of workstations. The presentations also promise that the future will be exciting.

Jan Reiff, Case Western Reserve University

National History Day: What Historians Can and Are Doing

For the uninitiated, National History Day (NHD) is the brainchild of David D. Van Tassel, Case Western Reserve University. For nine years this outstanding competitive program for junior through high school students has attracted a dedicated following with enthusiastic advocates from the secondary school- and college-level teaching ranks. NHD enthusiasts consider the program a proven motivational and learning opportunity. The emphasis is on high quality historical research with students "doing" history rather than simply studying it from books. Students compete in two age divisions in seven categories: historical papers; individual and group performances; individual and group projects; and individual and group display and media presentations. Each year there is a theme that must be scrupulously adhered to but which provides unlimited opportunities for student innovations. Past themes have included: "Conflicts and Compromises" and "Triumphs and Tragedies." The theme for 1989 is "The Individual in History." Local, regional, and state history days culminate each June with the national competition at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Although many in the audience were familiar with the competition, Van Tassel opened the session with a well-done, seven minute video presentation which is available from NHD and is a useful introduction to the competition. W. David Baird, state coordinator for Oklahoma, followed with a lively presentation reflecting experiences derived from past programs.

Based on considerable first-hand experience, Baird outlined what he considered to be keys to a successful history day program. Essential requirements include district coordinators to help with organization problems; foundation support to alleviate financial demands; student interest; and district awards. Foremost among the problems to be overcome is the shortage of professional historians willing to make the time commitment and professional sacrifices needed to be coordinators. Other problems to be overcome include convincing school teachers who may feel overburdened to take on yet another "extra-curricular" activity and the lack of interest from the media in promoting a "non-athletic" activity. Despite these barriers, Baird still argues the results are worth the commitment. Students learn to use libraries and manuscripts and "doing" history changes young peoples' lives.

Baird presented two critical proposals. First, NHD activities must become part of the school curriculum to underscore their importance. To accomplish this integration, guides for teachers must be available early so lesson plans can incorporate the NHD theme for that year. Also, workshops are essential to help teachers make it part of the curriculum. Secondly, and most importantly for the audience, the coordination must come from academic historians, and they in turn must receive professional recognition for their contributions in order to retain their interest and participation in the program. Consequently, there must be reduced departmental duties and recognition that the program provides salary, promotion, and tenure value and increases one's professional standing.

Pamela Bennett, director of the Indiana Historical Bureau, reminded everyone that there are different models of organization. The Indiana History Day competition, for example, grew out of a traditional connection with the state arts and humanities commission and the decline of a junior history program. In Indiana's case experience, some of the coordinators come from museums rather than higher education. She felt the key to success is expansion through increased involvement of teachers and the use of academic coaches. Making a strong case for the increased role of historical societies as a stabilizing force, she emphasized the possibilities of considerable interaction with academic historians, especially as these organizations often have strong ties to academic institutions. Her experience suggested that state departments of education will fund the program but do not want coordination duties. Agencies can also provide district competition sites but often are involved only because of individual efforts. Further recommendations include the use of library commissions which can provide considerable help for students' work and attract a new clientele to use their facilities.

John J. TePaske, representing the AHA Professional Division, reaffirmed the AHA's support of history in the public schools and of NHD for its practical emphasis on training students' to "do" and not just study history. He also emphasized the program's potential value in recruiting future historians. Responses from the audience noted that overworked teachers—not just academics—often suffer from "burnout" and lack of recognition and that the involvement of historians for judging and helping student's research rather than acting as coordinators was helpful.

Historians and teachers interested in involving their students or themselves in the program should contact National History Day, Inc., 11201 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44106; 216/421-8803.

Jake Seitz, Morgantown High School

Incorporating Women into World History and the History and Histories of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America

This joint session of the AHA Teaching Division and the Conference Group on Women's History was chaired by Lynn Weiner, Roosevelt University and included the following panelists: Iris Burger, SUNY-Albany; Virginia Sanchez Karrol, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Sharon L. Sievers, California State University, Long Beach; and Judith Tucker, Georgetown University. Comment was given by Anard Yang, University of Utah.

This session was held to publicize the third NEH-funded OAH project on integrating women's history into traditional introductory history courses. Earlier projects produced packets for Western civilization and United States history, while the current project covers the rest of the world.

The panel consisted of four of the eight historians who wrote the introductory essays and gathered the bibliography. Their goal was to give a general overview of the four global regions covered, indicating areas which still need work.

The panel agreed that the project's bibliographies were the most valuable resource, although it was suggested repeatedly that all four regions need additional translations of both oral traditions and the newer scholarship which is appearing. This would be especially true in African and East Asian studies, where there is not only a lack of translations into English but also few translations into other European languages. In all areas, however, greater study is needed of the traditional roles and cultures of women from the perspectives of women themselves.

All presenters mentioned that a common theme emerging from each of the sections was the changing role of women as contact with the West and modernization increased over the years. This and the activity of women in various anti-colonial and political revolutionary movements in all parts of the world are well documented, providing a different perspective on modernization outside of Europe and the United States than is often taught. The current (and future?) conflict between what is often perceived as "traditional" roles and modernization was also discussed.

Many of those present, drawing on their own experiences, agreed with the remarks of some of the panelists that this project, albeit incomplete, provides help for those who feel that social history, and especially the role of women in culture and society, should be given a larger role in introductory courses. Judging from the fairly large, mixed audience at this session, there are a fair number of instructors who wish to do just that.

Terrence L. Lewis, College of Charleston

Why All the Studies of History in the Schools?

This session, sponsored by the AHA Teaching Division, had an upbeat mood, the sense of a strong new movement for history teaching both within the organization and without. Patricia Albjerg Graham, Harvard University, who has just completed her term as vice-president of the division, opened the meeting as chair with the claim that there is a revival of history going on in the schools stronger than any since the 1930s. The initial focus of discussion was the recently released Bradley Report on History in the Schools, its curricular proposals, and its potential influence in state and local school systems. Kenneth Jackson, Columbia University, chair of the Bradley Commission, gave a sketch of the changing place of history in high school curricula and in the long tradition of similar commissions. He put the peak of history's prominence in the schools at the turn of the century, showing that a report made in 1916 began to lead schools to subordinate it to the new social studies. He cited, as forces working against history since 1945, the influence of federal science programs, the movement toward student—rather than subject—based methods in "inquiry" teaching, and the increasing specialization of history writing, all of which led to the "subjugation" of history to contemporary problems.

Fay Metcalfe then presented the program of the National Commission on Social Studies in the Schools, a body that she heads and is attempting to bring together the different fields in this area for common curriculum reform. It is enlisting 800 teachers to give information on their curricula and provide guidance in the difficult problem of hammering out proposals among the various fields. It will later move on to study the problem of teacher training.

A research program along similar lines was mapped out by Charlotte Crabtree, University of California, Los Angeles. Her program, funded by NEH, will study curriculum and teacher training programs throughout the country, with the goal of establishing guidelines for teaching history more from the standpoint of the humanities than the social studies. She argued that psychology and sociology are foring history out of the curriculum and misrepresenting it as the study of trivia. Citing the writings of such commentators as NEH Chairman Lynn Cheney and Diane Ravitch, Columbia University, Crabtree stated that we "haven't seen anything the likes of this in what is gripping the nation in the regeneration of history."

Julia Stewart Werner, Nicolet High School, Wisconsin, and a member of the AHA Teaching Division and of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of the AHA, gave a call for historians to focus more attention on teaching and what is taught. "Historical scholarship won't get us far," she said, "if we don't have students interested in studying history."

The discussion focused partly on whether curriculum should be focused on content or skills, an issue that has come up in criticism of the Bradley Report. But the commentary also brought out a common sense of purpose and the need for historians to work together in the long haul. Closing the session Arthur S. Link, Princeton University, hailed the growing commitment to education in the AHA with this comment, "There are no quick fixes, there are very difficult problems."

William Weber, California State University, Long Beach

Primary Sources in the Teaching of History

Four history teaching projects supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, each stressing the use of primary sources, were featured in this session. James Axtell, College of William and Mary, read a paper by James Deetz, University of California, Berkeley, on archaeological field institutes for teachers. Conducted at sites in the vicinity of Colonial Williamsburg, these programs provided teachers "in-depth" experience with both the process and interpretation of digs. Other than the considerable personal-professional enrichment derived by teachers from these activities, there was no evidence of concerted action to translate the teacher's newly-won skills and insights into classroom materials and activities for their students.

Augustus Burns, University of Florida, described four History Teaching Alliance collaboratives addressing constitutional and legal history. Eschewing pedagogy, the collaboratives concentrated on historical substance. However, participants' uneven backgrounds required successive re-tooling especially to better set the stage for examination of documentary sources. Follow-up visits to classes seemed to indicate the success of these endeavors.

Paul Ziegler, Assumption College, in an admirably candid assessment of an effort to convey key themes of European and American history to 1500 students via documents, revealed that students initially subverted the process by basing assignments on the textbook to the exclusion of documentary evidence. Even though document access had been eased by headnotes and glossaries, it became necessary to make frequent lecture mention of the sources, to design assignment topics compelling document use, and to provide preparatory assignments explicitly addressing specific document utilization skills. Once taken, these measures better ensured student interaction with the primary sources.

James Woefel, University of Kansas, discussed recent revision of a long-standing Western great books program. Western civilization, a common two-semester requirement for many schools and programs in Kansas, examines four central themes (human nature, liberty, science and religion, and the interplay of individuals, society, and the state) through a wide array of source readings from philosophy, theology, history, political theory, and scientific discovery. Lecture-discussion section formats vary according to staffing and student need; a director and six faculty assisted by graduate teaching assistants essentially team-teach the course. A rigorous enterprise, the course is not open to freshman. Kansas also offers high school and community college teacher seminars to help prepare students for Western civilization classes. While lectures provide context, the course stresses the sources through discussion and writing assignments.

Marcia Colish, Oberlin College, offered many cogent, sage observations. Central was the cautionary note that "primary sources cannot be multiple-purpose pedagogical events." Objectives must be clear to all and students must carefully be conditioned for document-based tasks consistent with planned learning outcomes.

John W. Larner, Penn State Altoona Campus