Mike Vigilant

As most people who travel in social studies circles have heard by now, famous historian Howard Zinn died yesterday at the age of 87.

His passing has left a number of my friends, with whom I studied Social Science Education at UGA, numb, upset, and generally a little depressed.  More than one person mentioned that they considered Zinn a personal hero, and someone whom they strive to be like.  That’s heavy praise.  While I heard his name mentioned several times in my classes, as someone who was more interested in economics, I never really gave it much thought.  Just another history thing, I told myself.

I am willing to admit that I may have been wrong.  One particular feature of our class is that we were pretty diverse in thought; many students held particularly liberal views of teaching and social studies, but there were enough people in there with the opposite viewpoint that it made class interesting.  I’m proud of us for having such great discussions, and my handful of classes with these people are, to me, what I was hoping all of college would be like.

So when I saw—on Twitter, which is where I get a lot of breaking news, which is another story—that Zinn had died, I listened to what everyone had to say.  Twitter:  100% positive comments.  Facebook:  100% positive comments.  I know social networking is unreliable and unscientific, and I know how many of my friends lean politically, but for there to be near consensus on Zinn’s achievements is a strong statement in my book.

So I am letting the world know that Howard Zinn is on my radar now.  I may be behind the times, but I hope I am not too late.  I understand a little more about his background now, and that he was open about his liberal “People’s History of the United States” makes me respect it more, and I would like to read it sometime this year, if only to see what all the fuss was about.  I promise I’ll post a review when I do.

It is difficult to turn on your television or your computer these days without reading about America’s economy.  Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its biggest percentage drop in over two decades.  That alone would be a huge news story, if it had not come two days after the Dow’s biggest point gain ever and just a week after the biggest point loss ever.  Lest one think the credit crisis is limited to those in Wall Street and those invested in it, the effects have trickled down to our street, where lending to consumers has mostly dried up, and many banks have either merged or gone out of business.  My own bank sold itself just hours before it was to be seized by the FDIC after essentially running out of money and was unable to obtain loans for more.  We taxpayers just agreed to spend $700 billion–a fourth of our national budget–in an attempt to rescue the banking and lending industries.

Times like these are why I believe a strong background in economics is so important for every American citizen.  This is why I love teaching economics.  Helping students understand what events like this mean–for themselves, their families, their communities, their country, and their planet–is what motivates me as an economics teacher.  If part of education is preparing students to live in the world outside school and be effective citizens, economic education is an important part of that preparation.  Today’s events prove just that.

I love connecting economics theories and ideas with current events, to let me students know how the information they are learning in my classroom pertains to life outside its walls.  When economics makes the news, as it sometimes does, students often ask about the meanings of all these stores, and rather than just tell them, I like to think I give them the tools to figure it out on their own.  Economics isn’t in the headlines often, so I will take advantage of it when it is.