Nathaly Meza

History 301
May 13, 2015

Popular History and Family Memories

The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life, by Roy
Rosenzweig and David Thelen is book that was developed from the studies of a series of
historical professionals. Ten individuals met at bed-and-breakfast on a quest to map
uncharted intersections between the present and the past. In this reading, they discuss the
findings they gathered about high school history teachers and students and how they
approach history. They have a series of comments from students about what were the most
impacting moments of any experience they had with history in school. They were able to
discover that teachers who had students actively engage in history were the most memorable
opposed to those who just followed rules and regulations and never thought outside the box.
I surveyed five people all different ages. It was very interesting to know that every
person in whom I surveyed had somewhat of a difficult time answering the questions. The
people in my experiment had ages the ranged from the smallest being twelve years old and
41 being the oldest. I believe there is a correlation with the easy access of pictures and videos
with todays technology and the fact the all my participants take photos or videos to preserve
memories. It has become very inexpensive to obtain a cell phone that can do both things
therefore, can lead to an easier access to take photos and record videos. Another thing I found
interesting was my findings about celebrating holidays and how connected that makes people
feel to the past 4/5 of my participants had a 10 and in the class statistics they numbers ranges
from 8 or 7. I feel because my participants were all Hispanic holidays become very family
orientated and keep us connected to our roots and tradition thus connecting us with the past.

In my survey the participants ranged from really trusting a family member or relative in
discussing history to not really trusting them. While in the class statistics they averagely
trusted relatives as a source of history. When it came to high school teachers being a reliable
source of history my participants had different scores that ranges from 3-8 while the statistics
from the classroom had all 7s and only one 9. It seems the people survived in the classroom
were more trust worthy on the competent of highs school teachers being a reliable history
source.
During this semester as a future educator the class activities were very helpful. I have
decided that three of my favorite activities to help my students interact with history are the
following. The first activity would be reading primary sources from the time of the historical
events. This activity really makes it easier to relate to that part of history on a personal level.
The second activity would be reenacting scenes of history with costumes that gives you
hands on activities that serve all 3 different types of learners visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
The third activity is discussing in groups what a particular event means to them. This activity
really brings students out of their comfort zones and gets them talking about history. In my
personal experience these are examples of activities that I felt were essential in the way I
processed historical information.