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Teaching America in Cuba

Teaching America in Cuba Joseph J. González I teach America in Cuba. It was a step I felt compelled to take. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I love my classroom. I love involving students in what, on good days at least, resembles shared inquiry. I especially enjoy helping victims of his- torical malpractice; drilled in names, places, and dates, these students find history boring and irrelevant, and I never tire of challenging those preconceptions. But the classroom also has limits. It can be familiar—too familiar. Within its walls, students easily revert to passive, empty vessels, taking dutiful notes and asking no questions, while furtively checking their iPhones. Teaching in Cuba, however, removes everyone from their routines. In Havana, where we spend most of our time, students immediately feel different and difference: the smells—of salt air and tropical vegetation, sometimes of diesel fuel and sewage, as well as heat, humidity, and sweat on their bodies. They feel like everyone is looking at them— because everyone is looking at them, while speaking rapidly in an unfamiliar language. At the same time, students confront disparity: decaying infrastructure, occasional power out- ages and shortages of (what to them are) common goods, such as bottled water and Wi-Fi. Surrounded http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of American History Oxford University Press

Teaching America in Cuba

The Journal of American History , Volume 109 (4): 8 – Mar 1, 2023

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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
ISSN
0021-8723
eISSN
1945-2314
DOI
10.1093/jahist/jaad007
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Joseph J. González I teach America in Cuba. It was a step I felt compelled to take. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I love my classroom. I love involving students in what, on good days at least, resembles shared inquiry. I especially enjoy helping victims of his- torical malpractice; drilled in names, places, and dates, these students find history boring and irrelevant, and I never tire of challenging those preconceptions. But the classroom also has limits. It can be familiar—too familiar. Within its walls, students easily revert to passive, empty vessels, taking dutiful notes and asking no questions, while furtively checking their iPhones. Teaching in Cuba, however, removes everyone from their routines. In Havana, where we spend most of our time, students immediately feel different and difference: the smells—of salt air and tropical vegetation, sometimes of diesel fuel and sewage, as well as heat, humidity, and sweat on their bodies. They feel like everyone is looking at them— because everyone is looking at them, while speaking rapidly in an unfamiliar language. At the same time, students confront disparity: decaying infrastructure, occasional power out- ages and shortages of (what to them are) common goods, such as bottled water and Wi-Fi. Surrounded

Journal

The Journal of American HistoryOxford University Press

Published: Mar 1, 2023

There are no references for this article.