History Doesn’t Repeat. It Rhymes – with Ben Stein

Today I'm starting a series where I'm focusing on some of my heroes: People who may or may not be a household name, but they certainly deserve to be. These are people that have inspired me and I can't wait to introduce them to you. Listen To The Podcast: Today, we are talking with Ben Stein, an award-winning teacher and golf coach here in MY town… Des Moines, Iowa. Ben has been a social studies teacher for 16 years. He now teaches at the junior high he attended as a teenager. How cool is that? He has had a huge impact on countless young people, including my two boys. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have him on. Ben has an incredible talent for making history live. When he was their teacher, our boys would come home charged up because Mr. Stein had told a great story and got the class talking about it.  As a result, we’d have marathon dinner table conversation. When you look at our history, when you dig into stories of grit, of determination, of collaboration, of healing, of heart, of sticktoitiveness… we can know more of where we came from and who we are. Ben truly wants to help these kids to dream, to think, to do. So let's get to it. Mr. Stein, Ben Stein, welcome to Dream. Think. Do! Thank you for having me. You and I have been friends for years now, but there's a part of me that still wants to call you Mr. Stein, in homage of you being a teacher, and a great one at that. You are too kind. I’m teaching at the school where I grew up, so I have the problem that I still want to call some of my co-workers who were teachers I had by, “Mr., Ms or Mrs.” I love it. We're going to get to some specific stories from history because I think we need to know more about our history right now. Dream. Think Doers are from all around the world. We have listeners from all over Europe, all over Africa - everywhere. So I will say this is a little bit more tip of the hat to U.S. history, but I think these stories are inspiring because they speak to that human spirit.  To grit. We're going to get to that in just a second, but we're going to start with Ben’s story. Did you always want to be a social studies teacher? Is that what you wanted to do or is this something that you found? You know, originally I wanted to play golf. I found out very quickly that I wasn't good enough, so I got my degree in English and then - what do you do with a degree in English? I was going into education to become a teacher, and it was shortly after 9/11. I realized how important it is for us to know who we are. And, as my good friend Oprah tells me - you don't know where you're going unless you know where you are. And as I'm learning more and more of these stories from history, it inspires me to share that with my students, to let them know who they are as Americans and what that means to prepare for the future. That's awesome. One of the things I appreciate is the sort of Socratic method you use in teaching. My boys would come home and mention that you'd share a story but then say, ‘Tim, what do you think of this?’ You would get them talking.  Our boys were fired up because they were engaged. Well, you know, there's a quote in my room which is the theme for the class. It's by Mark Twain, and goes: “History doesn't repeat. It rhymes.” So I start off class with a two minute current event on anything going on and we'll discuss it. It's funny how we can relate that to the same things that were going on 200 years ago, only. It's slightly different. I think that engages the kids because when you're talking about the current events around the world today and then relay that back to the 1700s, I think that's easier for kids to understand. Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you. Let’s dig into it. What are three stories from history that all Americans should know but probably don't? What were some of the stories that come to mind for you? Well George Washington of course comes to mind. To me,