American History, Period 2, 01/08

[shiroi_tiger]

When students entered the classroom today, they would find not one, but two men standing at the front. One of them was probably familiar to some of them, the other one was a new face... Although his wardrobe probably needed a little updating.

"This, boys and girls, is your all-purpose catchup class on the history of the United States of America," the new teacher said, straightening out his brown duster coat as he surveyed the group. "I'm Nathan Algren." A pause. "Captain Nathan Algren. Just call me Algren if you have to call me anything at all. And I imagine a few of you already have a passing acquaintance with my associate and your other instructor for this class, Mr. Durden."

The younger man stepped out with a slight grin and folded his arms. "Right, I'm Tyler Durden," he supplied. "And, just to break all of your hearts, I'm not blowing anything up in class this term. Call me Tyler, Mr. Durden, Sam might even get away with calling me a Stickbug, I am not fussy. Anyhow, as Captain Algren told you, this is American History. We're going to try to get from pre-Columbian times through current events and hit the turning points along the way."

"Because I'm more than a few decades behind the times," Algren continued, "I'll be taking the brunt of the workload for the first half of the semester, covering whatever I can right on up to America's centennial year. Mr. Durden will take it from there, bringing the lot of you up to date." And bringing Algren up to date as well, but he wasn't going to tell that to the class. "But today, we're going to take pity on you all and get introductions out of the way."

"We want to get you started thinking about history as a living thing," Tyler said. "Something you can interact with and have opinions about, not just a set of dates blah blah blah. So we'd like you to stand and state your name, grade, and one historic figure -- and it can be your world's history, if you aren't from the U.S. -- who you would like to confront."

"We're going to be pretty open as to the definition of 'confront,' here. It can be someone you want to tell off for choosing to do things a certain way, someone who you would like to start a coup against, or even somebody who you think needs a punch to the face." Algren wasn't picky, here. "And then tell us why. For example, I'm Captain Nathan Algren, I'm co-teaching this class, and I would personally like to have a long, serious chat with Lieutenant Colonel Custer for not opening his eyes before getting most of his men killed. But we'll get to that in another class."

"The one before your midterms," Tyler added helpfully. "And I would like to have a long discussion with Mahatma Gandhi and see if we could come to an agreement over the necessity of violence." Possibly with hitting, but the class didn't need to know that.

He gestured to one of the students. "You can start. And Ms. Yamanata, see me after class, please."

[OCD is up! Class roster, rules, and syllabus are located here!]

Comments

Introductions!

[shiroi_tiger]

You! Name, class, which historical figure you would challenge, and why!

Re: Introductions!

[intraspective]

"I'm Ino Yamanaka, a sophomore, and I... guess I can't get away with either of my usual answers for this one, so um..."

A long, long pause.

"You know," she said slowly, "I honestly don't know. I mean, I don't like some decisions of some people, but when my village has done the same or worse as any other village it's hard to pick one person to lecture. Especially when I don't know all their circumstances 'round why they did what they did."

Re: Introductions!

[shiroi_tiger]

"That's an interesting answer, Miss Yamanaka," Algren noted, raising an eyebrow. "Are you simply accepting the way things are, then, without wondering what might have put your villages into situations which cause them to take the actions that they have? You said that yours has done the same or worse as any other, is that because you find yourself in a situation that might be different, were actions made differently in the past?"

Re: Introductions!

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

"I'm Sookie Stackhouse, I'm a sophomore, and I'd confont...William Tecumseh Sherman."

There. That seemed like the best answer for a good Southern girl like herself.

Re: Introductions!

[shiroi_tiger]

"Major General Sherman?" Algren crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head a little, bemused at the reply. "And is there any one reason why you would challenge him in particular?"

Re: Introductions!

[notyourpawn.livejournal.com]

"My name is Alice Liddell," she said, standing and folding her hands behind her back. "I'm a junior this year. I would say that I'd confront the Red Queen, except I already did confront her, so perhaps that shouldn't count. Queen Victoria, then. I would like to have some strong words with her about her notions of propriety."

Alice had been wearing trousers and plain shirts for months, and had yet to descend into unutterable ruin. She should have noticed that sort of thing.

Re: Introductions!

[shiroi_tiger]

"Propriety by her standards does seem to be a bit overrated in this day and age, doesn't it?" Algren hadn't been on the island for long, but he found it difficult not to notice the quantities of women casually walking around in pants. "At least you can console yourself by knowing that standards have changed somewhat over the years, Miss Liddell?"

Re: Introductions!

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

"Gavin Darklighter and I'm a senior," he started while trying to think of someone to use as an answer to the second question. "Ysanne Isard. I mean, she's currently in power back where I'm from but I would assume she's historical and she's caused a lot of kriffing problems and I would love to just...yeah."

He took a breath.

"But, if you mean from here, um, probably...Napoleon I. Only because no one man should have that much power. It all goes to your head one day."

Re: Introductions!

[tyler_gone]

"Hi, Gavin," Tyler said. "So, do the problems Isard is causing sort of match your problems with Napoleon? Is it all about too much power?"

Re: Introductions!

[ktarian-wildman.livejournal.com]

"I'm Naomi Wildman," Naomi said, "I'm a junior and I'm not really sure which historical figure I'd challenge. Because even if they made a bad decision at the time, the outcome of that decision and how it was dealt with ultimately changed and shaped what became our present,"

Re: Introductions!

[tyler_gone]

"Naomi," Tyler nodded. "Pretend you're talking to the historical figure in a bubble. It won't change their past or our present. Does that make it a little easier to think of somebody?"

Re: Introductions!

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

After a long, long, long moment to think about it, Cal finally came up with an answer that he felt was appropriate and also not incredibly stupid.

"Wayne Wheeler. He's the quack that thought prohibition was a good idea and wrote up the bill for Congress. I thought of a few other people. Sophocles was a big one, but the good outweighed the bad there. I was also going to say the head of the Greek military in the early 1920s, for attacking Smyrna, but that actually turned out pretty good for me. So I'll go with the Prohibition guy, since prohibition killed one of my grandparents. And it was incredibly stupid, anyway."

Re: Introductions!

[tyler_gone]

"How did prohibition kill your grandparent, Cal?" Tyler asked, putting a little stress on the name to suggest it was conventional to offer it as part of an introduction. "But yeah. Stupid, stupid idea, didn't do anything but make bootleggers rich. And yet we still have a War on Drugs."

Re: Introductions!

[carsexual]

"I'm Sam Witwicky, I'm a junior, and I'd like to confront my great-grandfather, famous Arctic explorer Colonel Archibald Witwicky, about why he thought his last expedition was a good idea." Even if it had gotten him the best car ever, it had almost gotten the world destroyed.

Re: Introductions!

[tyler_gone]

"He's not someone I'd heard of," Tyler said, after checking the roster again to make sure that yes, really, they did have two Sam W.'s in the class. "What happened in his last expedition?"

Re: Introductions!

[death-of-hope.livejournal.com]

"Anemone, junior, and I wouldn't mind punching Colonel Dewey Novak in the face," Anemone said cheerfully. "Mostly because there's better ways of achieving your goal of a peaceful world than destroying the planet. It's counter-productive."

Re: Introductions!

[tyler_gone]

"Thanks for the answer, Anemone," Tyler said, genuinely pleased to have her in class again. "And yeah, killing everybody off is a way to get peace but not a good one."

Re: Introductions!

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo was sitting very firmly in her seat; she wasn't about to willingly volunteer information. Besides, out of all the people she wanted to challenge, none of them were historical figures.

They were too behind the scenes for that.

Re: Introductions!

[tyler_gone]

Tyler skipped past her and let another student go, then circled back to her. "Katrina?" he asked, remembering her name (if slightly wrongly) from class that summer. "Name, rank, historical figure."

Re: Introductions!

[endsthegame]

"Andrew Wiggin," Ender replied, his shoulders a little hunched over for reasons all his own. "Freshman. I'm not really interested in picking a fight with anyone." Well, except himself, anyway.

Re: Introductions!

[tyler_gone]

"You go by Ender, don't you?" Tyler asked. It was a hard nickname to forget, as was what he'd said about military school. "Anyone you'd like to meet for coffee and a chat, no fight-picking required?"

Re: Introductions!

[iruinenglish.livejournal.com]

"Buffy Summers, I'm a senior, and..." Wow, other people knew historical names. "I'd challenge, like, Amelia Earheart. What'd she doing getting lost anyway?"

It should be said that Buffy really sucked at history. At least she tried?

Re: Introductions!

[tyler_gone]

"Buffy, hi. You've probably already heard there was another you who was a cheerleader," Tyler informed her. "And that works. You could give her a better map, or find out what the hell happened."

Re: Introductions!

[likethegun]

"I'm Sam Winchester," he said, "I'm a junior and...I'd probably fight Christopher Columbus. His ego was way too big considering all the mistakes he made, and I think he could stand to be taken down a peg."

Re: Introductions!

[absolutesnark]

"I'm Summer Roberts and I'm a senior," Summer said. "Um, I guess any of the people responsible for the Titanic disaster. I mean seriously. They couldn't have added more lifeboats?"

See? She learned something from watching movies.