Not gossiping about the day at work, not bitching about conditions, not even engaging in great debates about educational philosophy and policy -- a blogger/podcaster who is actually about TEACHING with his online work!

Fourth period on a midwinter Thursday, Christmas vacation a fading memory by now, and Lars Brownworth took his accustomed place in front of an American history class at the Stony Brook School here. He had been guiding these seniors through the Gilded Age lately, and for this session he planned to personify the era in the form of the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller.

For 45 minutes, Mr. Brownworth deftly orchestrated lecture, discussion and archival photographs to evoke Rockefeller in both his rapacious capitalism and social conscience. When the bell rang, out shuffled the audience, a dozen teenagers who might or might not remember any of this material beyond the next exam. In its satisfactions and its limits, such was the life Mr. Brownworth, the son of teachers, had gladly chosen.

That night, though, Mr. Brownworth, 31, set to work in his own apartment, writing an essay about Alexius I Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. After revision and rehearsal, the text would become the script for the latest installment of Mr. BrownworthÂ’s podcast. And if form held, something like 140,000 listeners from Afghanistan to White Plains would hear it.

In barely 18 months, Mr. Brownworth’s podcast, “12 Byzantine Rulers” (at http://www.anders.com/lectures/lars_brownworth/12_byzantine_rulers/), has become one of the phenomena of the podcasting world. A survey of 1,200 years of rather abstruse history, starting with Diocletian in 284 and finishing with Constantine XI Palaeologus in 1453, “12 Byzantine Rulers” routinely ranks in the top five educational podcasts on iTunes, and in the top 50 of all podcasts.

Now I particularly like Brownworth's humble reaction to all the attention -- and to his fan base. He never imagined that anyone else would listen when he started this little project, which was much more for himself and his own edification than for attaining a wide-scale audience. I'm hoping that there is eventually a book in the works, and that it has the sort of wild success that his efforts deserve. But perhaps most importantly in my book, I hope his work sparks a few young people to actually consider history as an avocation, as a field of study, and as a passion in life. For as I've said more than once -- if I can turn on even one student a year to the glories of the past (or, n my government classes, to the beauty of the US Constitution), my teaching those students who just want a grade and a credit has been worth it.

Posted by: Greg at 11:06 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment
Post contains 468 words, total size 3 kb.