Practice What You Preach: Teaching and Practicing the Art?

This post was originally going to touch on the differences between Teaching History vs. Practicing History. But as I began writing I realized that there is very little to distinguish between the two as both require the elements below to be considered good History. Teaching History only differs in that the Professor is not employing literary skill but, and perhaps more difficult, verbal and organizational skill. Adding this social element to presenting History in an interesting manner while maintaining the interest of your student body is a worthy subject for another post, especially in light of our present battle with shortened attention spans and a spectacular media. The art of teaching History is one that needs to treat the subject with reverence and caution in light of overstatement of truth and boring students to death with seemingly useless facts. In light of the social aspect of History a teacher must accentuate the lessons of History, adding insight and relevance, while cautioning the student of false truths and reminding them of the pitfalls surrounding the subject.

The working historian endues his or her discipline with serious, dutiful research. They belabor the raw data, the sources that endured through time and expunge as much fallacy as possible through cross-checking, examining multiple accounts, both primary and secondary, and accounting for bias wherever it may rear its ugly head. Their preoccupation must be, first, with the facts which they cultivate for posterity and the search for truth as they comprehend it. Through literary skill a historian's work is then elevated to art. As they use the skills involved in writing good prose they are able to bring to life an event or person and the players and surroundings involved in past times. This is perhaps the most personal and idiosyncratic aspect of historical writing as one can do great benefit or harm to their diligent work by a simple stroke of the pen, or in most cases these days, a strike of the key. There is now a third aspect to History that some will argue is necessary or relevant to the discipline. After the historian is done with their work they may find that some pattern or generalization may form before them, a lesson that present day people may apply to increase their understanding of the world in which they reside. This may be due to their approach at the outset, which is usually the case for most regressive and comparative approaches to research, or simply due to the nature of the study (i.e. human activities). But whatever the approach, History may end up serving a social function and through the prerequisites of scientific research and literary finesse it can end up adding to our greater understanding of ourselves.