Storyboat.net

This web site is the creation of David Riggs.

I teach history.

I have been teaching history since 1999.  I received my academic training at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  My fields of expertise include American and World history with specialization in comparative colonization, cultural and intellectual history, Native American history, Mexican American history, and Latin American history.  My current research interest is race, power, and the 1960s.

One primary goal that I have, regardless of the specific content I teach, is to demonstrate to students that all people are connected; all are part of an immense tapestry of human experience.  I view it as my job to bring history to the student and to point out the relevance of the past to today’s students.  In practice, I do this by developing curricula around broad interdisciplinary themes.  One such theme that I have found to be useful is that of power, its use, its abuse, and its disuse.  For example, in discussions of colonization I explore the power inherent in small groups deciding to leave their homes for new lands.  I deal with motivations, risks, and fears in addition to the historical facts of these migrations.  I remind my students that the indigenous people Europeans and Africans encountered also acted with their own interests in mind and used power in ways not always understood by Old World emigrants.  Of course, understanding power relationships has proved a useful tool when applied to revolutions and so-called “great” historical events, but I also stress the power of the individual in making a difference.  The stories of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and César Chávez clearly demonstrate this point. Students young and old, new and returning relate very well to this theme as they connect the past to their lives.

The narrative I provide students, even when the organizing theme is power, is not a history filled with “doom and gloom,” abstract academic concepts, or a history only focused on a struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed.  On the contrary, I prefer to use documentary evidence in class to point out the positive and human aspects of history.  In my course on the origins of civilizations, we read ancient Egyptian love letters to show the connections between people from 4,000 years ago and today’s students.  The basic emotions and desires of love speak volumes to contemporary students.  Likewise, I find it very useful to spend time comparing the ideas in the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Sentiments to open up discussions of social and cultural changes over time.  No matter what the topical focus, I encourage my students to gain an appreciation of the various shades of gray in historical interpretation and balance the content of my courses accordingly.

Finally, I try to make it clear that part of my task is to expand students’ knowledge and understanding of people different from themselves or their ancestors.  I believe it is useful here to return to the metaphor of history as a tapestry.  Many students have spent much of their lives standing in front of an immense, intricate tapestry hanging on a wall in a museum.  As I see it, these students are standing six inches from the tapestry and staring straight ahead.  It is my job then to get them to step back and take a look around.  Historians are the caretakers of this malleable tapestry.  It is our responsibility to change the characters and adjust perspectives.

(Storyboat: a conveyance for ideas, concepts, and tales short and tall)

HMS Endeavour from the journal of Sydney Parkinson, 1769