Laudato Si’ Suggests New Lens for Studying World History

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ALUMNI COUNCIL 2021-22

Pete Adamcin ’59 M.E. Armstrong ’83 Larry Bahill Octavio Barcelo ’82 Clarisa Barcel ’82, Vice President Brian Connelly ’85 Kelly Fleming Pelletier ’88, President Ben Gabrys ’97 Steve Halper ’57 Greg Horkey ’92 Jim Howell ’91 Lisa Jamison ’88, Treasurer Anne King ’64 Joseph Luevano, SCHS Moderator Kathy Mathieu Tammy McKay ’77, Secretary Rafael Meza ’87 Ernie Minchella ’58 Jim Murphy ’54 Alison Smith ’78 Tom Tronsdal ’87 John Urban ’68 Eileen Whalen Vasko ’63

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Brian Holstrom, World History teacher

Laudato Si’ Suggests New Lens for Studying World History

Written by Fr. William J. Harry, O. Carm., Director, Office of Communications of the Carmelite Order. As published in The Sword (PCM Province) and CITOC (The Carmelite Order’s news service)

Among most historians, the traditional approach to studying the history of the world is through the lenses of major figures, political movements, wars, documents, and sometimes religions. Other historians propose using other strategies in order to gain a more complete understanding of our past and therefore an understanding of our present. “Examining what history has been taught and what needs to be taught,” is how Brian Holstrom, a teacher at Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, Arizona, captures the shift that needs to take place.

As part of his professional development, Brian proposed attending the 2019 convention of the World Historical Association in Salt Lake City to Salpointe’s school administration. That year’s theme was “Sustainability and Preservation in World History.” So Holstrom wrote a paper entitled The Case for Ecology and the Environment in World History Instruction and submitted it. It was accepted. Other proposed papers talked about the necessity of archives, preserving historical sites and environmental history, but Holstrom’s paper offered something unique, insisting that widespread instruction in environmental perspectives to global history was required to address cultural apathy towards environmental degradation and climate change. “While most history courses remained obsessed with humanity, human interrelations and state-building, students were not being given adequate historical context for humanity’s complex relationships with the environment. Unfortunately, that year’s conference was canceled due to Covid,” explained Holstrom. “However, the journal of the association, World History Connected, picked up my paper and wanted to print it.”

The Association also asked Brian to serve as guest editior and to gather and publish some of the other relevant work from the conference. He sent out an invitation for other historians to make submissions and eight people responded, submitting relevant new scholarship. Those papers, along with Brian’s, then underwent a double-blind peer review by leading scholars in Environmental History. “I was really shocked by the support and excitement to help with our work. Suddenly, I was exchanging emails and feedback with John R. McNeill from Georgetown University, Richard Tucker from the University of Michigan and several other scholars that are among the best in the field.”

In July 2021, the journal issue was distributed and published online. The authors of the other articles and Holstrom presented their works at the annual conference—held online— with Holstrom coordinating the digital participants. His paper as well as his introduction to that issue of World History Connected were discussed.

As part of his research in evaluating world history instruction, Brian concluded that students needed history that was more global, modern and ecological. “Many traditional courses spend a lot of the fall semester on the Roman Empire and medieval Europe. But there is only so much time. You have to make critical choices for content. We still study the Roman Empire, but our course emphasizes modernity and has an increasing focus on ecology, rather than the deeds of each Roman emperor.”

Holstrom’s second major influence on the content he presents in the classroom is Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. In that document, Pope Francis critiques consumerism and irresponsible development, and laments environmental degradation and global warming. The encyclical is a call to people of all faiths to take “swift and unified global action.”

“I read the Pope’s document and I thought something is culturally off. Why are we so apathetic to environmental degradation? I think it’s because many of us don’t receive ecological perspectives of the history of our world,” said Holstrom. “We have mass production and consumption, but we are blinded, or at least distracted, from how the environment is affected. In our historical narratives, nature is typically only recognized as an obstacle or a commodity. As a history teacher, I want to share narratives that keep students mindful of ecology and the environment.”

“The gift of Laudato Si’ for me was feeling a shift in how to look at the study of history,” said Holstrom. “The typical high school curriculum has only the traditional narrative— names and dates of major events taught in a chronological order. It is all people, people, people. It does not view history through the perspective of the environment. Environmental degradation and climate change have certainly accelerated with industrialization, but we have always had a complex, impactful relationship with the environment. My paper examines why there often exists a cultural aversion to environmental history, why course curricula often avoid the subject, and how world history can be utilized for the positive change in culture that Pope Francis suggests in Laudato Si’.”

As a result of his efforts, in addition to his work with the 2021 annual conference and journal of the World Historical Association, Holstrom was awarded a scholarship named for William McNeill, a pioneer in global history, to participate in the 31st Annual Conference of the World History Association in June in Bilbao, Spain. The theme of the conference is “Distance, Mobility, and Migration.”

Holstrom’s article and the forum he coordinated can be found in World History Connected vol. 18 no. 2, which is digitally available online. Brian continues to teach world history courses at Salpointe Catholic in Tucson.

Salpointe Embraces Laudato Si’

The Care for Creation committee is made up of Salpointe faculty, staff and students who work throughout the year to follow the principles of the Pope’s Laudato Si’ encyclical. Here are some of the highlights from the 21-22 school year:

• Development of a campus wide compost system to reduce food waste from the cafeteria during lunchtime and enhance the soil fertility of Salpointe’s garden and campus greenspaces. • 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) Challenge - a series of homeroom activities such as a reusable container drive and recycling campaign in a contest to be named the Greenest Homeroom. • Continued support and interaction with Salpointe’s student Earth Club, including planting and maintenance of the Salpointe garden. • Earth Week - a week-long celebration of the Earth that culminated in an Earth

Day prayer circle on the Salpointe track with invited guest Jerry Carlyle from the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation leading the prayer. • The presentation of the Care for Creation Award to Isabelle Clanfield ’22 in recognition of her outstanding efforts to promote environmental justice, to advocate for lifestyle change and integrate mindful spirituality into her relationship with nature.

Leonardo da Vinci Awards, presented by the Salpointe Humanities Department

The Da Vinci Award was established in 1978 to recognize outstanding students who reflect the spirit of Leonardo by demonstrating curiosity, intellect, creativity, responsibility, commitment and compassion. The following students were recognized at this year’s awards breakfast:

Seniors Stephanie Bartholomew, Adrian Bernal, Jack Connelly, Danielle Covey, Anaelle DePoint, Stella Fina, Lauren Smith, Ryan Tracy, Lucas Williams and Mia Willis.

Juniors Luke Campbell, Dean Favre, Gavin Haldorsen, Addy Horkey, Akyra Kay, Riley Murphy, Michael Pisani, Sevilla Smith, Camila Soto and Joseph Starr.

Blessed Titus Brandsma, O.Carm., Proclaimed Saint by Catholic Church

Titus Brandsma was canonized on May 15, 2022. Titus Brandsma was a Carmelite priest, theologian, journalist and author who opposed and spoke out against the anti-Jewish laws being passed in Nazi Germany and occupied nations. “He was arrested when Germany invaded the Netherlands and told that he would be allowed to live a quiet life in a monastery if he would announce that Catholic newspapers should publish Nazi propaganda,” according to a Vatican News report when his canonization was announced Nov. 25, 2021. Father Titus refused and, after being sent to several prisons, he was given a lethal injection in the Dachau concentration camp on July 26, 1942.