By: Steven Garcia
The craft of history has developed in many ways over time. Commemorating victories in battle, maintaining a cultural heritage, keeping track of tax records, etc… historians take these primary sources and craft the narrative that is then passed on. In the modern education system, students read these historical narratives, analyze historical documents, and learn who and when. They are observers of history who memorize and only know the story as told by others. Here at Menaul students get the opportunity to become Historians and learn the craft.
The Historical Research class is an honors course designed to familiarize students with college level historical analysis and writing. The students get explore various aspects of being a historian such as oral history, comparative analysis, and philosophical discussion. They then use these new skills to create their own historical narrative of a topic in New Mexico history.
While daunting at first, the students craft and fine tune 6-7 page term papers throughout the semester. Some topics from this fall were “The Tuberculosis epidemic”, The Wild West and the Lincoln County War”.
In addition to receiving this introduction into being historians, the students at Menaul get an experience like no other. Located on the campus of Menaul School is the Historical Library of the Southwest. Starting off from a set of documents buried in a safe in a basement, the library has expanded to hold many collections such as the Presbyterian church, boarding schools in New Mexico, and personal collections from across the four corners area. Students are taken to the library in the first few weeks of class. There they get to handle documents and learn about the preservation process. Many students have found sources relevant to their topics in the stacks of the library. This year’s class was special in that they were the first students to explore the new building and conduct research there. In addition to helping the students through the process of learning history, the volunteers of the library were also the audience for the students’ research presentations at the end of the semester.
This year’s class also visited the Center for Southwest Research at Zimmerman Library on the campus of UNM. They received a tour of the center and got to spend time in the research room. They also got the opportunity to go into the stacks under the library. This is an opportunity that is extremely rare as typically only library staff enters the repository. As this course continues to develop, I hope to be able to send students to conduct more formal research at the center.
As the class continues to develop here at Menaul, I hope to expand it with more partnerships and other fields such as genealogy and environmental history. It is important to preserve our history and heritage especially here in New Mexico. These students will serve as the link to their generation for that heritage.
