Sebastian Major is a teacher at the Crestwood School in Toronto, as well as the host of one of my favorite podcasts, Our Fake History. Sebastian joins us in a fun discussion on topics ranging from the importance of getting kids excited about world affairs and history, to how we can use his discovery methods to make sense of the real and fake history that we've recently lived through.
Sebastian Major is a teacher at the Crestwood School in Toronto, as well as the host of one of my favorite podcasts, Our Fake History. Sebastian joins us in a fun discussion on topics ranging from the importance of getting kids excited about world affairs and history, to how we can use his discovery methods to make sense of the real and fake history that we've recently lived through.
Sebastian Major is a teacher at the Crestwood School in Toronto, as well as the host of the podcast Our Fake History. Sebastian joins us in a passionate discussion on topics ranging from the importance of getting kids excited about world affairs and history, to how we can use his methods to make sense of the real and fake history that we've recently lived through.
Transcript
Erol Senel:
Hello everyone. And welcome to Success Shorts. I'm a Erol Senel. Today we're joined by Sebastian Major. Sebastian is a teacher at the Crestwood School in Toronto, as well as the host of one of my favorite podcasts, Our Fake History. My time was Sebastian was a blast and we get into what I think was some really meaningful stuff, from the importance of getting kids excited about world affairs and history, to how we can use his methods to make sense of the real and fake history that we've recently lived through. So I hope you enjoy our time with Sebastian Major. Let's go.
Erol Senel:
Sebastian, welcome.
Sebastian Major:
Thanks for having me here. It's nice to be here.
Erol Senel:
This is so cool. Just a couple of history nerds uniting, and I've been really amped up to do this. I know that we had to reschedule because I think we had some vacations coming up and those always take precedent, but I'm really looking forward to getting at it. But before we jump into things, I just wanted to start by simply asking a very simple and general question, who is Sebastian Major?
Sebastian Major:
You say that, that's a simple question, but that is a deeply profound question, my friend, who are we? So the basic bio, I'm a high school teacher in Toronto, then I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, lived in Ottawa, Canada for years, moved back to Toronto to do teacher's college. Started my teaching career here, I've been teaching here since 2011. And in 2015 I started a history podcast, and that has become my second job. So now I'm the host of Our Fake History, which looks at historical myths and misconceptions. So it's part a storytelling show and part a show where I do historical detective work and try and figure out, as I say on the show, what's fact, what's fiction, and what is such a good story, but it's simply must be told.
Erol Senel:
One of the things that I always find interesting, because I've had a chance to speak with a lot of folks who have a little bit of a public persona and having listened to, I'd have to say about half of your episodes at this point, which given how many you have, that's no small feat.
Sebastian Major:
Yeah, man. It's a lot.
Erol Senel:
But it's always interesting to delve into it with someone that you feel like you know, even though I don't know a damn thing about you. So I'm going to try to come at this whole thing with a child's mind, because I feel like you have so much to impart on us, but the one thing you did mention is that you are an educator and from everything that I can tell, a very passionate one, and obviously both in the classroom, but also to the point where you have this phenomenal podcast. So I'm just wondering from your perspective, why do you feel like you've been so successful as an educator?
Sebastian Major:
Well, first thank you for all those really kind words. That's nice of you to say. Man, the thing is, when you're teaching, I don't know if I always felt like I was successful as an educator. I definitely cared about it, I definitely think education is extremely important. I have certainly tried to make my classroom an engaging place for my 10 plus years of teaching. But when I got into education in Ontario, there was a hiring freeze across all of the school boards in the province. So I had to really cobble together a teaching career, starting out in small private schools that were the only places hiring in the province when I got into teaching. And from there, I've had to find my way to finally coming to a school that I really, really love teaching at, which is where I'm at now.
Sebastian Major:
But in those early years, when I was definitely hungry and passionate about teaching, and loved being in the room with the students, I definitely didn't feel like I was a successful educator, I felt like I was on the fringes of education in Ontario, and there was a moment where I was wondering if I would even have a career in teaching any longer than the five years I'd been in it at that point. And it was around that time that I decided to start the podcast. I'd been at a school for a while. I wasn't feeling inspired there. I was feeling like I was spinning my wheels. It was not a good job. Teaching in Ontario, if you are in the public school board here, is actually a very good job. Great pension, it is a solid salary. It's not a bad place to work, but I wasn't doing that, I was working in these very small private schools that knew that they could get world-class trained teachers for cheap.
Sebastian Major:
So what did that mean? It just meant that I felt like I had to hustle in a different way. I tried to get something going with the podcast and just took a shot in the dark with it. I think with the podcast, it's been a lot easier to gauge success. In the classroom you might connect with some kids, you might not connect with others. You might think that you've put together a great lesson only to have it flop on its face, where with a podcast, I can put it out to the world and I get very concrete numbers that show me how many people downloaded it. And when I see those numbers creeping up, I know I must be on to something. As you can tell, I'm a talker, I'm someone that likes to hash things out verbally. So I think part of the reason, if the podcast is successful for any reason, is that I was able to just channel that energy into that. Thankfully the show has found an audience. So I guess those are my thoughts on success, or lack thereof, in education.
Erol Senel:
Well, I think we're just hitting the tip of the iceberg with that a little bit. You've covered this first five years, as you were finding your foot and going from the private schools, but to follow that up, you found this passion with the podcasting that allowed you to find your voice in what you were doing. How have you since translated that into who you've become as a actual in-class educator?
Sebastian Major:
Well, it's reminded me that creating a good lesson is often about creating a really great hook to get the kids interested, but I've also learned, what things work for the podcast and what things don't work in the classroom, right? When you're listening to a podcast, when you listen to my podcast anyway, which is one voice telling you a story, you're listening to a 45 minute to one hour lecture. And in high school, you really shouldn't lecture at students for an hour. That's actually bad teaching. What's interesting about it is that I guess what I've taken from the podcast into the teaching world is that I actually want my students to do the work that I do when I create the show, right?
Sebastian Major:
So they shouldn't be listening to podcasts, they should be making podcasts, or at least doing the intellectual work that I do when I'm creating the show, or the writing work that I do when I'm creating a show, right? In a history class, you really want the students to do history, not just learn history. And doing history means getting excited about an era, an event, a person, a story, then looking at all these different perspectives and all these different sources, then weighing them and trying to understand which ones are worthwhile and which ones aren't, then debating the entire event with someone else, and then finally creating something. So ultimately, good teaching should be that the kids are doing the work that I do when I make a podcast.
Erol Senel:
I want to key in on history for a minute. At some point you had to have experienced this in your own life as a learner, I would have to think, where someone evoked just this mystery behind what you're learning to the point that you wanted to start to do this and figure it out yourself.
Sebastian Major:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Erol Senel:
I was a history major in college, I have always loved history, my son loves history, it's just what we do, that comes from passion, but when I bring up the fact that I was a history major, one of the first things I always get from people is, history was my least favorite class, but they also share that they wish they were more into it because it's interesting, it's fun. There's a lot there to it. What was it about your past that really made history stick as something that you wanted to pursue so wholeheartedly?
Sebastian Major:
Yeah, I think I had a lot of great teachers. I think that's the key to all of it. It breaks my heart when people say that they hated history, because in a way what they're saying is that they're not interested in the story of humanity, but then if you press them further, they are deeply interested in that story, it's just that the people that introduced them to that story didn't roll it out in an interesting or exciting way. I was a terrible math student, I was always really strong at history and social science and English, but I was a terrible math student. Until grade 11 I had this amazing math teacher, this guy, Mr. [Chadzee 00:09:54], he all of a sudden made math makes sense to me. And all of a sudden I liked it for the first time ever.
Sebastian Major:
So to me, that was just the ultimate proof that it all comes down to your teacher. If you had uninspiring history teachers, yeah, that sucks. That just completely sucks. And I think that's what it is, because I don't know a single human being that doesn't like a good story, right? To suggest that there aren't amazing stories at the heart of our history is bananas. And I think more teachers need to be reminded of that fact. It just hurts me a bit when I hear that, and that's the thing, it's just like, yeah, you maybe had a bad teacher. And I say that only as someone that is a teacher that loves teaching, that knows that teaching is a hard job, I don't want to throw shade at the teachers of the world out there, because I know how challenging a job it is, and I know that we get just so much crap thrown at us completely undeservedly, but there are some people that are uninspiring out there as well. That's also true.
Erol Senel:
It's like any profession, but at the same time it's worth taking a critical look to see, whether you're in business, you're an athlete, you're anything, you evaluate where you at and see are there areas that you can improve upon. But one of the things that has always struck me about you, and you just display this, is your curiosity, is your ability to look at something and weave a narrative off of it. And not to say narrative as far as some kind of fiction, but taking the facts that are presented and to make it very compelling, because the type of show you do, it isn't just like a recounting of history facts, like you would find if you were to be in a, maybe a boring or rough history class in high school. You're doing real detective work.
Erol Senel:
So I'm a struggling history teacher, or I'm a history teacher that wants to just take it to the next level. How do you go about looking at this vast ocean of just so many events, so many narratives, and almost counter narratives that you can find in there? And how do you begin to break that down to identify your topics? And then how do you then take that and then reconstruct it into what you're finding out to be the truth?
Sebastian Major:
In terms of choosing my topics, oftentimes I start with what I know is going to be a really great story. I'll start with something that I know has a real juicy legend at the heart of it, or I'll start with something that I know is a highly contested piece of history. And then as soon as you're there, then you know there's going to be something that's juicy. Now, part of that, for me, comes from just being exposed to a lot of history, reading a lot of history, constantly searching for these things. And then as soon as you find the human beings at the heart of the controversy, then you will find an interesting angle. Part of it is that it was my training when I did my masters, right?
Sebastian Major:
So I did my masters in something called public history at Carleton University in Ottawa. And what that degree was in was studying how we communicate history to a broader audience. So that is, what history are we commemorating in the form of statues? What history are we putting in our museums? And how are we representing that history? How is our history portrayed in pop culture? And at the heart of that was trying to understand how we construct narratives out of the raw historical facts. And so in that master's degree, I got good, or I was just trained to look at every single piece of history, or every historical narrative as a construction. I got good at sniffing out the component pieces of that.
Sebastian Major:
But also when I was doing my masters, the one thing that always bugged me about more academic realm of history is that people often forgot about the fun in it all. People forgot about the great stories and in their quest to be very area date in their deconstruction, they got away from the thing that was joyful and cool. And I'm a fun loving guy at the heart of it. And so I try to bring both of those things to the show, there should be some joy and fun in these stories, but then we can also switch on our brains for a second and pick them apart. I've found that the audience has been more than willing to go deep with me on these topics. Don't know if that's a good blueprint to the how I do it, it's just maybe some guiding lights of how I got there.
Erol Senel:
It is important to remind ourselves that the beautiful thing about history is the fact that it completely taps into that child's mind perspective where you're discovering something new that you didn't know before that actually happened on this planet.
Sebastian Major:
Sure.
Erol Senel:
And to actually find this stuff out and learn the learnings from it and come away with something that you can actually try to internalize and apply, that is a fun thing.
Sebastian Major:
Yeah, oh yeah man.
Erol Senel:
But there's something about education in a way that does make it more serious and it just doesn't have to be that way all the time. Yes. Getting the facts right and having something maybe a little bit more elevated to take away from a learning is important, but to do that at the risk of avoiding some of the things that are just pure joy of learning is important to make sure that we're not doing. So you've explored a ton of different topics, different areas of the world, different times, you name it, you've been all over the place. And this might be a tough question to answer, which has been the most interesting for you to delve into?
Sebastian Major:
I always find something in every single topic that I absolutely love, or I find really engaging, or interesting. I wouldn't pick the topic in the first place if I wasn't in some way intrigued by an aspect of it, but it's also always fun to dive into something that was a bit more new for me as a teacher and a learner. So, I really know my classical European history really well. I know my Romans and my Greeks really well. So sometimes it's fun to go and play in that world. I love to doing just a one-off about Socrates, right? And the question of what's known as the Socratic problem, which is everything we know about Socrates was written by his students. And so there's this big question of, well, is this philosophy that we attribute to Socrates even his?
Sebastian Major:
That one's fun just because, again, that's something that I looked, I spent a lot of time with when I was in university. I know that argument really well, when I'm talking about people like Plato it feels like I'm visiting an old friend that isn't too pretentious, but I like going back and put my head in that world. But two seasons ago I looked at the story of the first Chinese emperor and I have to admit, the Chinese history is something that I know less about. So doing the research for that episode was awesome. I loved it because what do you know? That giant part of the planet is filled with amazing stories and an incredibly rich and fascinating history. And having that revealed to me for the first time in depth anyway, was great, was so exciting. Sometimes I love drilling down on something that I thought I knew a lot about.
Sebastian Major:
This past season I did a three-part series on Marie Laveau, the voodoo priestess of New Orleans. And New Orleans is a city in the United States that I'm just obsessed with. I love New Orleans. I think it's maybe the coolest place in America. I'm going to throw that out there, come at me Americans. But when you start looking at it through the prism of the voodoo tradition and what people perceived it to be versus what it actually was, it just gives you a deeper and more profound understanding of that place. So that was really cool, but honestly, every single topic I've done I've found something about it that I really love and really enjoy.
Erol Senel:
I was just reading a book. And when you're speaking about Marie Laveau, the whole tradition around voodoo and a lot of the other mystics and some of the other things that we dismiss as, I almost want to say, why would they even think that way? When you think about proximity and history, it was only a few hundred years ago that we went through the enlightenment.
Sebastian Major:
Sure.
Erol Senel:
Prior to that, the way people thought was so incredibly different. And I like how you expose some of that and how you make the connections between now and then as you're going through some of these histories, because it's important to remember that as a people, our mindset has just recently gone through a massive transformation that doesn't relate well to what happened three, 400 years ago, because [crosstalk 00:19:27].
Sebastian Major:
Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. No, it's important to understand that the way that we perceive the world, the way that we think in 2021, is in no way the way we thought in 1821, and is definitely not the way we thought in 1321. But the other thing I like to remind everyone in my show as well, is that even though our mindset has changed so much, our intellectual paradigms have completely shifted, they were still people. And what I love finding in the sources are moments when those actors from the past are surprisingly familiar. There's one that comes to mind, actually. So I did a series on Mansa Musa, who is this famous king of Mali, and legend has it that he was the richest human being to ever live, and Mali's fortunes came from these massive gold mines and other precious metals in the kingdom.
Sebastian Major:
But there's these long conversations that appear in the Arabic sources. And I guess Arabic historians, the way that they wrote is that they would introduce two speakers and then they'd say, these guys had a conversation and now here's that conversation in full. And because of that, you get these very human moments. And there's one moment where Mansa Musa is talking to another king and he goes, "Everyone thinks I'm rich because of the gold, but actually it's these copper mines I got, man, these are the real source of my wealth." And even though that conversation allegedly took place in the 1300s, to me that just seems like a couple of Wall Street bros hanging out right now being like, oh, everyone thinks it's Bitcoin, but actually it's this other thing. And I love finding those little gems.
Erol Senel:
That's fo fun. I wanted to use your brain for a second, I mean that in the nicest way.
Sebastian Major:
Sure.
Erol Senel:
If we were to look at events today through this inquisitive lens that you're used to looking at history through, we've heard the term fake news a lot in the last four to five years, thanks to a certain somebody, but eventually fake news can potentially become fake history depending upon who's writing that history. So if we were to look back at our recent past, not necessarily in the past few years, but it could be even a little bit further back than that. What's something that you're looking at right now and wondering, that could be a really interesting episode in 2030, or something like that?
Sebastian Major:
Sure, man. Well, great question. And I do think about this stuff all the time. What's been interesting in the last, let's say five, six years, has been that almost every major news event has been covered drastically differently by different media sources. And the partisan bias of every media source is more prominent than it has been in a very long time in our media, you can go back to the 1800s hundreds and of course find super partisan media sources back then as well. So I don't want to say it's unprecedented, but it's drifted back in that direction hard in the last 10, 15 years. So what historians in the future are going to need to try and figure out is how to evaluate all of those sources. So even if we just take like major American news events, not only would you be looking at American news sources, but you would have to use an international source as well to get a sense of what actually happened, or even let's say, let's take it out of the American context. You put it in the UK context, you get look at something like Brexit.
Sebastian Major:
Down the line when historians are trying to answer the question, why did Brexit happen? They are going to have the challenge of going like, well, here's the narrative of the Brexiteers and here is the narrative of the pro-EU faction in the UK, but then you're like now here's the perspective of the Europeans, but then you almost really would need just a completely disinterested perspective on it. Some people go like, oh my God, how are people going to know anything about our present moment because there's maybe so much information, or all the information is so tainted by politics? But I'm actually not concerned about that, because when you go back and you read Roman history, every single one of the Roman historians was deeply partisan in some way, shape, or form. And modern historians are pretty good at establishing what the partisan biases of those ancient historians were. Right? We know whose side the Roman historian Tacitus was on. Right? And we also know that the biases that Plutarch had.
Sebastian Major:
And so when we read those guys a responsible reader now doesn't just go like, these guys are telling me the unvarnished truth about the Caesars. We understand that they were either pro-Caesar partisans, or they were supporting another faction within the Roman society at that time. So I think when people look back at our present moment there'll be able to do the same thing. Now, the one thing that also complicates it, it's just there's way more information to sift through. I don't envy the future historian that is looking at what Twitter did on the day of an American election, right? Or something like that. Right? That's going to be crazy. Right? And so it's going to be aggregating just more data than we've ever had ever in our history.
Sebastian Major:
So yeah, I think like any controversial moment that we've lived through in the past 30 years is going to just come up for debate yet again and yet again. And the way that we perceive people in the last 30 years, I'm going to put this in the American context, let's take it back to a president like Ronald Reagan, there's a guy whose legacy is still being hotly debated, right? And depending on where you are in the American political spectrum, you have a deeply different understanding of that person. And so it will be interesting to read in 30, 40, 50 years how people are understanding presidency of Ronald Reagan. But I truly believe that actually hindsight can give us greater clarity. And I think that's my pro history bias is that.... you know what I mean? I do think that as we get further away from things, sometimes we can see them better.
Erol Senel:
Most definitely.
Sebastian Major:
Even though we might lose some of the heat and the passion of living through a moment, but in a way it gives us a intellectual perch. There you go. I answered your question without talking about any specific moments, but there you go.
Erol Senel:
Well, you said Brexit and you said Ronald Reagan, so we'll [crosstalk 00:26:52].
Sebastian Major:
There you go.
Erol Senel:
But I agree and I always find it fascinating, the first time I actually came up against that concept of time being a massive player in why history is important. And yeah, I think it was about the end of the Cold War if I recall. They were saying that it's almost still too soon to have a definitive view on a certain point.
Sebastian Major:
Sure.
Erol Senel:
Because things are still playing out, the ripples are still taking place. There's still people that are very jaded by their own experiences with it because basically enough time and enough people haven't died out yet for that passion component to play out so that an honest assessment of the facts can take place. And it's really interesting. So maybe not 2030 for assessing what's going on now, maybe we need 2050. So, when you're still doing the show then you can do [crosstalk 00:27:43].
Sebastian Major:
Yeah. We'll see, we'll see. Yeah.
Erol Senel:
But I Want to bring things to a close. On a similar note to that, because a lot of what you do hinges on just your ability to have a historical perspective and the ability to research, but also to think critically. And we're constantly just faced with so much stuff coming at us on any number of topics from COVID to race relations, you name it. I can go through a list that would make our head spin, but in this fast paced world of 280 Twitter characters, or two minute Instagram reels where people are consuming their news. How can they use some of the tools that you've harnessed to assess history, to try to make better decisions, or more informed decisions on what they're facing in just this data dump that we continuously get?
Sebastian Major:
Yeah. That is the question of our times, right? How do we sort through this stuff and not be bamboozled by all of the crap that's floating around out there? I think a good rule of thumb is always assume that a meme, even if you agree with that meme, always assume that that meme has not given you the entire story on an issue. Right? So do not get your takes from meme. Memes have been turned into propaganda so effectively, they lend themselves to propaganda, right? But I don't know if the scholars are yet talking about memes as propaganda, but they are, they are, right? The harmless jokes. As soon as you have a political meme, it's a form of propaganda. And even if you agree with the sentiment of it, you should be, just assume that it is flattening an issue and not giving you all of the context you need to be fully informed on it.
Sebastian Major:
The next step is don't just read the headline of something. That's the other thing, especially when you're scrolling through Twitter, you might even be going past what are reputable sources, but a headline can sometimes give you a take on the story that even if you just read the body of the article, it all of a sudden has flushed it out with context that has actually made the headline seem a little ridiculous, or a little misleading, or a little skewed. If you see a headline and you are interested in it, or you are unsure about it, actually read the article, actually read the article. And again, these are maybe very basic things, but I feel like a lot of people aren't doing that. And then if you have read the article, again, look at the site that it's coming from, look from the source it's coming from. Is this a source that is vetted by fact-checkers? Is this an opinion piece, right? Look to see if it's an editorial or not.
Sebastian Major:
So many times people share around editorials and opinion pieces as though it is the hard news. Even news sources that have a very clear partisan bias often separate out still their news and their opinion. And they still have to have a modicum of balance in the stuff that is labeled hard news, where they can just throw it out the window and the stuff that's labeled opinion. So just look for those labels, that is essential. Then if you are like, okay, I'm really invested in this, I'm interested in this story, I want to learn more, then please read multiple sources on it. Don't just stop at Wikipedia either. Sometimes Wikipedia can be a great place to get started on a topic, but you can't stop there, because I've discovered all sorts of things on Wikipedia that are incorrect, or things on Wikipedia that don't reflect what the best newest scholarship on a topic is saying. Right?
Sebastian Major:
So you just can't stop there. So then from there you just got to read more before you come to a conclusion about something, and make sure you're reading more from sources that are peer reviewed is something that you should go to. And I know some people are just allergic to the idea of a mainstream media source. However, things like the BBC World Service, things like the CBC News here in Canada, things like The Washington Post in the United States, even though editorially they certainly have a bias, their reporting is vetted and lives up to international standards. And then read things from different perspectives. Now I know that sounds like a lot of work, right? But that's what I truly believe that if you're going to go deep on something, or form an opinion about something, that's what you need to do.
Erol Senel:
It's really mind blowing when I see people that are just so passionate about a certain topic, no matter what it is, and they're quoting the same thing that everyone else is quoting.
Sebastian Major:
Sure, of course.
Erol Senel:
Let's take a step back, and let that be the initial, that could be your hook, you spoke earlier about the importance of a hook to get you interested in something. Okay. Now you're interested. It's important to you. Take that down a step further, like you said, get beyond the headline, get beyond the single news source. If this is something that you really want to spend your energy on, getting emotional about, and having arguments with your family about, and all these things, make sure that you're doing the work to make sure that you're truly understanding what's going on. And the only way to do that is to spend a little bit of time with this. You owe it to yourself, because you're going to live for the rest of your life with this information in you. So try to get it to be as accurate as possible so that you can have a really good and well thought out viewpoint on it. And it's not the lazy approach, but in my opinion, I think in your opinion, quite the right approach.
Sebastian Major:
And then, but also if you don't have time to do that on a topic, then maybe don't go to the Mat for that issue. It's okay to say, I just haven't learned enough about that yet. And that's fine, I don't think there's any shame in that. Right? And that's honest.
Erol Senel:
That's a very confident person's approach to knowledge. Whenever I hear someone say that when they're being asked about a question, or they take pause and they actually admit, I haven't had a chance to think about this enough, or to work through this enough to actually offer that, that is such a telling moments about that person. So thanks for bringing that up too, because that's equally as important is to admit to ourselves when we simply don't know, or we shouldn't necessarily have a die on the hill moment for something we know nothing, or not enough about.
Sebastian Major:
Yeah. Yeah.
Erol Senel:
Sebastian, this was great. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. And also just great work with Our Fake History. It's inspiring for me to be able to listen to something that just motivates me to do this show and also to continue my own curiosity when it comes to history and just continuous learning.
Sebastian Major:
Wow. Thank you so much. Thanks for the kind words. It was a lot of fun to talk to you.
Erol Senel:
Hey, I always like to make sure that my guests feel appreciated, but it's coming from a very genuine spot. And that's all we have for this episode of Success Shorts. Hopefully you found today's topic useful, and remember, have fun, stay curious and keep it short.