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As you may be able to tell, our class has now reached the era of the #RussianRevolution
So, continuing our exploration of student #cultural #literacy (as always: descriptive, not prescriptive!):
1) As I expected, "Battleship Potemkin" was something completely new to them. They were suitably moved by the famous scene on the Odessa steps
https://archive.org/details/BattleshipPotemkin
(but why I did I first have to admonish a couple of them focused on their laptops or phones to turn toward the screen? WTF)
1/n
If "Battleship Potemkin" meant nothing to our students, then they were certainly not aware of Eisenstein's great "October," either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k62eaN9-TLY
I hinted that, when their cultural tastes had further matured, I might at last introduce them to
"Aelita Queen of Mars" (1924) 
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014646/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl
3/n
But back to issues of students' cultural literacy, for lack of a better term (as noted, always descriptive rather than prescriptive)
Today, re: Bolshevik Revolution
One had an idea of housing blocks & monumental architecture
The rest: pretty much: 0
I noted opinion polls showing that students/young people had more positive views of socialism vs. capitalism--which I found interesting insofar as they had 0 knowledge of Marxism, socialist theory, revolutionary history
All instructive!
4/n
@CitizenWald
I’m curious what the composition of this class is—e.g. is this upper-division history majors or first-years in a gen ed class?
But I do find that even history majors don’t necessarily come in with a good background in the history of political ideologies (socialism, fascism, or even liberalism).
@tkinias Short answer: small seminar with students at various points in their studies. Our course numbers reflect general levels, and this one is classified intermediate, but there is no set sequence, and few courses have prerequisites, so anyone can take pretty much anything. All but one are in their first year (counting spring-semester transfers)
And as I've said: I am not criticizing or testing them: just need to know what they know or don't know so that I can pitch my explanations correctly
@CitizenWald
Oh yeah, I know you’re not “kids today”-ing!—just trying to calibrate to what I see with my own students.
@tkinias Right, that was just for the benefit of anyone jumping in here in midstream.
And what do you find?
(I have taught a large gen-ed lecture course at UMass but that was via Zoom during COVID and TA's had all the direct contact with the students, so it was hard to draw too many inferences from that)
@CitizenWald
I find students vary quite a lot in what kind of knowledge they bring in—but that I can’t really make any assumptions. (E.g., when I taught modern Britain last year, I wound up taking a class period in the early 20C to explain what socialism and Communism are, because I realized students didn’t have the background to understand the significance of the rise of Labour).
@CitizenWald
But things vary quite dramatically between the lower-division courses which are mostly nonmajors taking their general education courses and the upper-division courses full of history majors. Our history majors are very good at synthesizing material from different courses, so by the time they’re juniors & seniors they’re building a network of good background knowledge.
@CitizenWald
One thing I find interesting is that a lot of our students come in with big holes in their history knowledge, but they *know* they have big holes. A lot of them—especially the more politically engaged ones—are a bit frustrated by what they didn’t learn in K12 history.
@tkinias Totally agree. The students here, too, are aware there is a lot they do not know, and are happy to learn.
Interestingly, I do find a certain kind of, let us say, overestimation of their own expertise or sophistication when it comes to certain topics such as gender and sexuality and religion: which may, historically, have been more complex than they imagine
@CitizenWald
yeah, I find religion is where students tend to overestimate their expertise the most—both students with devout Christian upbringings and students with strong anti-theist views tend to think they understand Christianity (and the influence of religion in general on history) better than they really do
@tkinias Exactly what I meant. Here, of course, it is mostly the atheist/ anti-theist. They just have a very cynical/instrumental view of things--but I should add, that they are not, ultimately, closed to a more complex view; just that it takes work
@CitizenWald
Yes, precisely.
And I can’t be too judgemental, because sometimes they sound a lot like I did when I was 19.
@tkinias Same. I periodically try to remind myself of some of the dumb shit I said when I was that age 