History’s a mystery to me;

Sometimes I wonder how things came to be.

Could what happened to them…happen to me?

Oh, history’s a mystery to me.

I wrote this little ditty long ago, in reference to Sir Walter Raleigh’s lost colonists of North Carolina.  They vanished.  No trace.  

I thought about this recently when archaeologists at Jamestown, Virginia discovered “Jane”—their name for a fourteen-year-old girl whose “butchered” (their word) skull pretty much proved what they had long suspected (ie, known?)—that during the starving years of the colony, some of the colonists resorted to cannibalism.  

I have always enjoyed—relished, really—teaching history to young people via my books.  A strong believer in “taking the course opposite to custom,” I tried to engage young readers (mostly 3rd-6th graders) with facts, drama, charm, humor, respect for what they think (at Gallopade we call it the Carole Marsh question, as in “What do YOU think?” meaning not your mom, dad, teacher or know-it-all friend or older sibling, but you)…but most of all with that most dangerous of things:  The Truth.

That’s not so easy to do since historical truth is often elusive and subjective.  Sometimes I even wonder if some state educational standards have been written by their departments of travel and tourism.  I don’t want to force my truth down anyone’s throat, but I do like to share the facts, and the likelihoods (often defined by me as the things we should tell kids but don’t, thus overriding and undermining the truth.)  And then, I prefer they draw their own conclusions, again, and again, as they learn more, compare, contrast, debate, discuss, mature, and often, accept what they wish were not the truth.  We each struggle with that.

When I was in high school, at Henry Grady in Atlanta, back in the sixties, we were immersed in historical truth.  It was hard to hide the skeletal prisoners of German concentration camps when they paraded thirty feet tall in newscasts on the giant screen of the Fox Theater before our Saturday afternoon matinee movies.  

It was impossible not to notice the numbers tattooed on the inside forearms of my Jewish friend’s parents and know what that meant.  Nor could I ignore their lack of grandparents.  History and its consequences were all around us.

None more so than on that day in November when our political science teacher came into class with news that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.  We sat in silence waiting for history to happen and wept when the news came that he had died.

Yes, the bad history was somewhat ameliorated by Elvis, the Beatles, and others, and yet, as history and the “truth” spun on, not all that history turned out so well after all.

Could what happened to them, happen to me?  Oh history’s a mystery to me.

Today, I struggle with teaching the facts, the truth, the who/what/when/where/how, and most especially “Why? of history such as “9/11”…the slaughter of a classroom of children…the bombing of innocent bystanders at a parade.  I do not want to teach this history.

Why?  Because over time, between war after war after war, Aurora movie theaters, terrorism, the stuck-in-the-mud sticks-in-the-mud we call Congress, and more, I just despise the idea that what children will really learn if I tell the facts, the “truth,” is that adults are pretty stupid.  Yes, yes, indeed, all this is countered by people who do good, those who run to, not away from, the disaster, may it be forest fire or a fast food outlet filled with families and a guy with a gun.

I feel that we should learn history so that we don’t repeat the mistakes, but I’m not really sure I can see that being the “truth.”  Is the destruction of the rain forest really any different that the ripping up of the American grasslands that produced the Dust Bowl?  Just one example.

Could what happen to them, happen to me?  Oh, history’s a mystery to me.

Children, I feel, need to learn about history (including current events, which are just history as it happens) because more, I hope, than despairing over the poor choices often made by adults, they will find their way to choosing to become part of the solution for a better future, and not a part of the perpetuated problems we often seem to not have enough imagination to fix/cure/prevent.

Thank goodness for space, immunizations, good dads, and more, much more.  But in the equation, how many Taylor Swifts does it take to trump a __________________________?  (You fill in the bad blank.)

I do have faith that if I keep writing, and kids keep reading, that they will not turn into the foolish and foolhardy adults, the stubborn and greedy, the long list of where-we-go-wrongs, but instead, be the ones that finally turn history on its ear because they believe war is obsolete, that late abortions should not be, that nuclear is a word that should never enjoy a 72-point headline above the fold, and more, much more.

Last evening I went to a local program by a paleontologist on megalodon teeth fossils.  He showed a lot of great graphics that took us through geologic time (and dinner) and eventually bumped right back into…well, I’ll let the person who asked the question say it:

“Hey, that graph you just showed…it looks like we’re at about the peak of the nth climate cycle that leads back to an ice age…is that true?”

The greenhouse effect folks crossed their arms, as the bright, young man answered:  “Oh, yes!  About every 500,000 years you can expect that.”

“And then what?” a woman asked.

The paleontologist smiled.  “Remember that graphic we started out with—the one with Pangaea where the continents were all one big blob?”

We all nodded.

“It will all return to that and the cycle will start over!”  

He seemed so excited.  

As we silently pondered that truth, the paleontologist’s young son moved among us proudly showing off a very large megalodon shark tooth.

“Just think,” the paleo-dude said, “back then, those sharks were humongous!  They had about five rows of teeth with about a hundred teeth in each row and they molted them so many times that they produced about 100,000 teeth per shark in a lifetime—that’s why shark teeth are so easy to find!”  He rattled a soup can full of smaller shark teeth.

History ain’t purty, but it sure is fascinating.  The facts are often flabbergasting.  The “truth” is often painful to share and bewildering to accept.  But I guess kids have to lose their baby teeth sometime.  After all, they are the only hope we have.  Maybe they can get it right…before the next ice age and the slouching toward Pangaea II.  

And so, I will continue teaching and writing, and when a kid asks, “Ms. Marsh, could what happened to them happen to me?!”  I can answer in all truthfulness, “Oh, history’s a mystery to me.”