1960s on the brain at UM talk Educators discuss teaching the turbulent decade in classrooms

ORONO – Singing protest songs, writing to Vietnam veterans, and reading about revolutionaries like Malcolm X are some of the ways their high school students learn about the turbulent 1960s, teachers said Friday during a conference at the University of Maine.

Drawing parallels between the events of that era, and those unfolding now, also is an integral part of their lessons, according to a handful of teachers who shared and discussed techniques during the conference sponsored by the UM History Department.

“It was a very important decade, very influential. The people who are leading the U.S. now are people who came of age during the ’60s,” said UM History Professor Alexander Grab. He helped organize the event, which was attended by nearly 100 high school teachers from around the state, as well as by UM faculty and students.

Teachers said they point out to their students some of the similarities between the 1960s and today: an unpopular, divisive war; a credibility gap between the president and the public; and heated talks about the draft.

“Teaching the ’60s now is probably, for me, more important than ever before,” said Bangor High School teacher James Smith, recalling a student who recently asked him about the chances of being drafted.

“I haven’t heard that since the ’60s. I could relate to him personally,” said Smith, who was concerned back then about whether he’d be drafted.

“It was such a time of turmoil and change. It’s important for students to understand that decade,” he said.

His students write to Vietnam veterans to ask how the war changed their lives and to former members of the Kennedy administration to ask how the death of the president changed their lives.

Hampden Academy teacher Kathryn King uses protest songs to help students understand the 1960s. “When they look at the lyrics they get a glimpse of the feelings of civil rights activists,” she said.

King also refers to a book of photographs taken by photojournalists in Vietnam who died or disappeared during the war. She uses a 1967 picture of a U.S. tank carrying the uncovered bodies of fallen Marines to launch a discussion about freedom of the press.

Joel Hills, another Hampden Academy teacher, encouraged teachers to pay attention to other ’60s events besides Vietnam. Civil rights, the creation of Medicaid and Medicare, and the rise of the conservative wing of the Republican Party sometimes are overlooked, he said.

He asks his students to pretend they’re in high school in 1969 to get a sense of what young people were concerned about back then.

“As teachers we talk about the 1960s, but we don’t let students experience the 1960s,” he said.

Marc Halsted, who taught at Orono High School for four years before recently moving to Vermont, called the 1960s a “springboard to understanding the last 40 years.”

“You can’t understand Iraq without understanding Vietnam and you can’t understand the black and Indian activism of today without understanding the civil rights movement back then,” said the teacher, whose students read about civil rights leader Malcolm X.

Also speaking at the event was Maurice Isserman, a professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., who said high school students today “still identify with the ’60s.” He suggested that teachers use stories about the decade to pique their students’ interest.