American History: Lies Your Other Teachers Told You [Friday, August 29, 2014, 2nd period]

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Hey, everyone," Josh said with welcoming smile from the front of the classroom as his students filtered in. "I'm Josh Lyman. I used to be the chief of staff for President Matt Santos--if you haven't heard of him, don't feel too bad--" which meant that Josh wanted you to feel a little bad because he used to be someone important, okay, "--and now I'm here to use my considerable knowledge about America and US history to teach you about some of the parts of our past most text books tend to skate past because they aren't pretty."

Josh shrugged. "I was a professional political operative for twenty years. I'm not used to pretty. Anyway, let me learn a little bit about you first. I need to know if I'm dealing with Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists, 'what the hell's America' people, or something in between."

He pointed to the first student that caught his attention. "You. Sparky. Go first. Oh, and I need a TA to bring me coffee and other really important stuff, so if you want to help with that, hit me up after class."

Comments

Re: Introductions [8/29]

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm Kathy Li and my favorite...I'd have to say Obama. Not because of him, exactly? More because of what his election meant to the country. I mean, apart from not leaving us with McCaine and Romney."

Even her dad had been against those guys and he was as far from social justice as you could get!

"My favorite piece of useless knowledge is that there have been more than one historical incident known as the Defenestration of Prague." Sorry, the name just amused the heck out of her! "My favorite bit of American historical trivia is that the Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free anybody. It only targeted the slaves in the states actively in rebellion against the Union and none of them were inclined to listen to what the President had to say."

Re: Introductions [8/29]

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"That's right," Josh said. "Hard as it is to picture now, Maryland was a slave state and if Lincoln had freed them, Maryland would have seceded as well and DC would have been surrounded, and that's the ball game. Lincoln wasn't this paragon of virtue and amazing beard maintenance you learn about in elementary school. He was one hell of a savvy politician."