I am currently assembling the materials for an American history course I hope to begin teaching on Outschool in the next year or so. In the process, I have combed through the short stories, poetry, plays, and novellas I once taught, intending to use some of it in this new class. I personally have never loved dry history textbooks, so instead I have added a number of historical documents from the Mayflower Compact to Patrick Henry’s Speech to the Virginia Convention to Martin Luther King’s mountaintop speech. I initially intended to use the lyrics of a few politically charged songs like “This Land Is Your Land,” “Deportee,” and “Fortunate One.” That list has expanded to even more songs, like Neil Young’s “Four Dead in Ohio.”
This week, I added a new song for this period: Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis.”
Here’s a reminder that music is art just as literature is. It can help us cope with the world, but it also tells the stories of our time. As you teach–whether in homeschool or in the classroom–embrace it.
Never stop learning,
Erin
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