Emphasis Preaching Journal
Columnist Leonard Pitt claims to...
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Columnist Leonard Pitt claims to be a history buff despite what he learned in school. He recalls his eleventh grade history teacher, who sought to teach history, but all he remembers "was a procession of dusty names and dates that creaked by, imparting nothing of discernible evidence." So much teaching of history is "telling" rather than "showing." For example, we gain a bit of knowledge from facts and statistics about the great economic Depression of the 1930s. But such a rendering pales in significance with Studs Terkel's oral history of the Depression.