"Our One Common Country" author talk in Stratford, CT

[L Verge]

David, I apologize, but I think you are being contrary just for the sake of being contrary at this point.

Having nearly a decade of teaching American history to about 2000 8th graders behind me (and being darn good at it, I must say) and with forty years of working with another several thousand or so school children who have visited Surratt House, I can only say that I hope your lesson plan above is not reflective of how you would handle the situation. If you were to use the same approach to every aspect of history that is misinterpreted, in error, or debateable in even a textbook, your students would never get past the chapters on exploration of the New World!

First and foremost, there is a dividing line between "movies" and "documentaries." Although I feel that Mr. Spielberg could do very well with documentaries, I feel more strongly that his strength is in capturing the emotions and broad concepts of the subject matter he is portraying. He plays to a general audience as well as to historians. To me, that general audience is all-important because they go into the theater without a great deal of knowledge on the subject matter and stand a 50-50 chance of coming out somewhat intrigued with learning more. That is the basic principle of any educational endeavor.

As for the effect that the historians will have, it is their interpretation (and I think 85-90% of history is interpreted or mis-interpreted by those of us in the field) that will affect the final judgment of critics as well as those who seek to learn even more. An educated person will read and evaluate more than one source, get confused over right and wrong a number of times in the process, and form their own stand on major issues. Note that I said "major," because I see no value in nit-picking the little things. When carrying arguments to the extreme, one loses the audience.

I have not seen the movie, but from what I have heard from others (both positive and negative aspects), I think that Mr. Spielberg achieved a great deal in making Mr. Lincoln and his struggles with the Thirteenth Amendment issue - as well as the struggles of others - more significant to the average American. Now let's hope that many of them take up the cause of furthering their own education in American history.