Baron, Christine. “One If by Land! Two If by River? or, What If Everything You Thought You Knew Were Wrong?” (2010)

As history teachers attempt to bring student thinking processes in line with that of historians, one of the major recommendations that appears in the end notes of nearly every study on the subject, and every set of state curriculum frameworks, is the injunction to partner with historic sites and museums to help students “learn about history.” But what if the story these sites told were wrong? And what would a history teacher do if he/she could change it? In 2005, the author was hired to develop the education and interpretive programs for the Old North Church in Boston. Almost everything visitors know about the Old North Church turned out to be wrong. As she and her colleagues understood it, their primary task became: How do they begin to change people’s minds about what it is they think they already know? If they could not build a program that could provide a pat set of answers, they might as well create one that let visitors have fun with the questions. That program became “Tories, Timid, or True Blue?” The program represents a step forward in helping not just the Old North, but historic sites beyond, provide students and visitors with a method for challenging assumptions and countering apocryphal, or anachronistic misunderstandings of the history presented.