Courtesy PBS
It’s ba-a-a-a-ack! History Detectives premieres its seventh season tonight. Well, should be around 9 p.m., but since this is PBS, your local member station may have it at a different time.
I love History Detectives. It’s engaging, with some great storytelling. Plus it’s a genuinely tangible way to get kids interested in history. I know I push the science stuff a lot – and that is critically important. But we often forget how important history is, too.
History is about who we are a culture – it’s literally our story. Without knowing where we’ve been, we make the same mistakes over and over. History teaches us where we can go and what we can do. Trust me, there is nothing new under the sun. My husband, the historian and archivist has all kinds of documents at work from the late 19th Century covering issues that sound remarkably familiar even now.
But since history (like science) is often taught as a series of facts and figures about dead white guys and their wars, I can understand why kids don’t get into it. That’s the glory of History Detectives. The artifacts presented represent almost the full spectrum of the different cultures that have come to be part of America. They’ve been a little shy on the Hispanic and Asian side of things, but tonight introduces new host Eduardo Pagan, so it looks like we’re going to start hearing more of the Hispanic story, too.
This is good. The best part is that the segments between the stories show us ways we can start our own research. Which means there’s another excuse to turn off the tube and do something interesting, and you know how I love that.
Finally, there *may* be an extra post today. I’m having a few issues with our good friends at ABC/Disney. Since they only allow me (and other critics) to watch their shows online and since they only let me use their player, if their player is not working, then I’m kinda up the creek. And ABC Family has a new series premiering tonight.
Since ABC Family’s definition of family-appropriate is extremely loose, at best, I don’t want to give particulars for obvious reasons. So if you don’t see an extra post this afternoon, then either I couldn’t get the [censored] player downloaded and working or the show was that bad.
Anne Louise Bannon
Your Family Viewer
