We’ve been back at school for one week now, and so far things seem to be going well, albeit very busy. We’re slowly settling into a groove with our various safety protocols, and most of the schedule changes are solidified. That should make for much smoother sailing going forward.
I’m mostly teaching music courses this year, but I still have a couple of sections of Honors US History. That means it’s another year of telling the “grand narrative of American history.” My main goal as a history teacher is to make sure students receive a balanced, analytical telling of our great nation’s history. That means that while I point out the atrocities of, say, the Spanish conquistadors, I also discuss the wickedness of the Aztecs, who engaged in daily human sacrifices. That the Spanish built a cathedral atop the old Aztec altar to their false gods is a fitting bit of divine judgment.
Of course, as an American I’m more interested in English colonization and settlement in British North America—what would become the United States—than I am in the vast empire of New Spain. We should be getting into Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth Rock today or tomorrow, and I’m quite excited about that. For me, that’s when the story really starts cooking. Naturally, the clash of Spanish conquistadors and Aztec and Inca warriors is cool, but those first saplings of a free country stir my heart.
All that said, this week’s TBT looks back at those cool conquistadors. Here is 3 September 2019’s “Remembering 1519“:
The Portly Politico 