History Lessons

摘要

At dawn one morning in early May, Sean Cosgrove is stashing piles of maps, notes and photocopied documents in his gym bag before heading for West Milford High, a rural school in northernmost New Jersey. On his 30-minute commute, the young for- mer investment banker tries to dream up new ways of lifting the monumentally forgettable Mexican War off the textbook page and into his students' imaginations. Can he invoke the storied memory of Robert E. Lee, who cut his first military exploits on the plains of Veracruz—or will he be met with thundering responses of "Who's Lee?" Should he raise James K. Polk out of the mystic chords of memory, and hope, for a nanosecond, that the kids will care about the first U.S. president who stepped aside because he'd accomplished everything he wanted? Let's think some more. Well, there's always the Alamo. And hey, isn't that the teachers' parking lot up ahead?