Teaching history

[boswellbaxter]

The thread about US-set historical fiction, and some discussions I've seen on other forums, makes me curious, how is history taught to schoolchildren where you live? When I was growing up, we pretty much focused on the colonization of America, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War, with maybe a brief excursion into World War II. I can't even remember what was taught in my World History class in high school. (Granted, it was a while back.)

The classes tended to focus on dates and events, with very little emphasis on the personalities of the people involved. It was a thoroughly boring experience.

It wasn't until I began reading Shakespeare's history plays that I truly realized that history could be fascinating and that there were flesh-and-blood people behind all of these events.

[Misfit]

I have the same memories as you. I also seem to recall (those 70's were a looooong time ago:o) that we always seemed to start with sqaure one at the beginning of each school year and never finished all of it and then back to square one the following year. I don't think we ever got much into WWII at all, let alone the Korean War or Vietnam (but then we were living that weren't we?)

[Ash]

Ditto here, but I was fortunate in a couple of teachers. My Social Studies teacher in jr hi was fantastic, integrating history with geography and current events. Her class is probably responsible for my love of world history. Another teacher in HS made history come alive for us, and made it relevant to us. Unfortunately I know that these two were exceptions rather than rules, and now that we test our kids 24/7 in the basics, I suspect that history is taught even less than when I was a kid.

And yeah, we were living Vietnam. Which means that kids today should be learning about it, but if they stop at WWII they are sunk.

[Rowan]

The first response that came to my fingertips to type was that teachers don't want to make school interesting. In any subject, let alone history, but then I realise it's not just them. They have to teach within certain guidelines and making things interesting is not the top priority of any school board or other governing body of schools around the country. Hell, after reading an article this morning on Yahoo about how educationally unprepared students are when they get to college, it seems no one really wants our kids to learn. Yet we consider ourselves to be the greatest nation in the world.

I think I came along long enough after both the Korean War and the Vietnam War for it to be taught at the very least in college (early 90s) but neither were. I have no clue about anything involving the Korean War and only a smidgen about what happened in Vietnam. One of the bits I know about Vietnam is that those guys were tiny because I saw an episode of History Underground (or whatever the name of the programme is on the History Channel) and the guy went to Vietnam and went down into the places the Vietcong (sp?) were running their operations from. The host is not a huge guy. He's average size and it was a tight squeeze for him to get through the holes that the Vietnamese did.

[Misfit]

I can only recall one teacher who really inspired me to work at my homework and that was a lit teacher. Come to speak of the Korean War, I'm thinking that all I really know about it is from watching episodes of M.A.S.H. A sad thought, isn't it?

[Rowan]

Few times I've watched M.A.S.H. I didn't learn anything, so you're one step ahead of me. :p

[Misfit]

Nah, I didn't learn much either except that there was a war in Korea :p:eek:

[chuck]

I was lucky enough to have a history teacher that made us read a NF or HF book and then do a book report on a character that we were interested in....Hence I learned a bit more of the real Miles Standish, John Smith, Robert Rogers, Benedict Arnold, Molly Pritchard. Sara Barton, and on and on....Then College History really opened the door into new interests in the Middle Ages, the Crusades, etc.....and today, most times my HF adventures...Makes history come alive......

[boswellbaxter]

I'm curious to know whether members from the UK and elsewhere have had similar experiences as to the teaching of their own country's history.

[donroc]

I taught U.S. and Advanced Placement European History for 23 years plus some english and Creative Writing, and an independent history research course in high school. I also was Dept, Chair for 15 years and had to deal with the incompetents and lazys I mentioned on the other thread.

I would say, and it is the same in any profession or skills (physician and auto mechanic), that about 20% of the teachers were great and inspirational, about 30% were harmful, and the rest did no damage without inspiring.

We could not fire the worst in Los Angles City Schools. With 50 high schols at best it was a game of musical chairs.

One veteran teacher, also a coach, told his class that Queen Victoria was the perfect example of an absolute monarch and was surprised when a student told him the French helped us win at Yorktown.

By way of contrast, the principal at my first school hired those who had success and experience in their fields outside the classroom. The head of Social Studies had been in the FBI, the head of Girl's PE had danced with Martha Graham, the German teacher was German and a von from an anti-Nazi family, the French teacher was French, and Spanish was the first language of the Spanish Teacher. I was hired for English and Creative Writing because I had won literary prizes.

The principal was unique as well. He had been an all-American end in college and had a masters in English from a respected Jesuit university.

My own high school, Lowell in San Francisco, has been one of the best in the country, the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi, and with an all academic program--no shops or home ec courses. We had a choice of Latin or Greek in the 9th grade as well as contemporary languages. Today, Manardin and eight other AP course languages are taught there.

Great schools exist in the USA and hire the best instructors. You have to look carefully for them.

[Rowan]

Great schools exist in the USA and hire the best instructors. You have to look carefully for them.

I don't doubt that one bit, but they should be the rule, not the exception. You shouldn't have to "look carefully for them" as a parent.

I think the most interesting class I took in college - and when I say interesting, I mean as far as teachers go - was the history class on the Holocaust. It's not an interesting subject by any means, but half of the semester was taught by a rabbi. It was interesting to hear a Jew's perspective.

[Vanessa]

In my primary school we were taught all about the kings and queens, which I found fascinating as a child. When I moved on to senior school, the history lessons were more about politics, prime ministers, the industrial revolution, the 'peelers' or 'bobbies' (Robert Peel's police force) which I didn't find so interesting! I can remember having to copy loads of notes from the blackboard which the teacher painstakingly wrote!! It used to take up most of the lesson! LOL.

A lot of history is about dates and I always found it quite a nightmare to remember them all. I can only remember 1066 as an exact date now!!!! I should know the date of the Battle of Towton (Richard III era), as I live so very near there (there is a monument where poppies and flowers are still laid) - apparently the fields were just a sea of blood all the way from Towton to York (about 10 miles). Bones of soldiers were found recently buried in gardens. It sends a shiver up my spine!

Interestingly, we weren't taught very much about WWI/II at my school, but my husband was taught quite a bit about it at his.

We were given a choice of History or Geography in a certain year and I chose History without hesitation - I just didn't, and still don't, like Geography!!! All those plateaus and rocks...boring!

[Perdita]

The first thing I remember being taught in History classes was 1066. We had to sing a little song about it and act it out - the boys got to play the Normans of course!
We learnt a lot of Tudor history (in other words, Henry VIII and his 6 wives) and also loads about the Victorians. I vaguely remember school projects about Charles II and the Gunpowder Plot. Later on like Vanessa said, it was all WWII, the Corn Laws, Industrial Revolution etc.
We didn't study the history of any other countries, which is weird.

[Ariadne]

We started over again each year, too, and because there was so much to cover, we never got past the middle of World War II. I enjoyed my literature classes much more than my history ones, and for one of my research papers in 11th grade English, I read Anya Seton's Katherine. It's only thanks to historical fiction that I'm interested in history at all now.

My favorite history (or rather Social Studies) class was in 7th grade, when I was about 12. We learned all about the history of Connecticut, from pre-colonial times through the present, and took field trips to local museums, like Noah Webster's house - which was a few miles away. The class was much more focused in scope, and concentrated primarily on social history, but the teacher also covered a lot of the local movers and shakers of the time.

[Ash]

>The first response that came to my fingertips to type was that teachers don't want to make school interesting. In any subject, let alone history, but then I realise it's not just them. They have to teach within certain guidelines and making things interesting is not the top priority of any school board or other governing body of schools around the country.

I am sooo glad you clarified that! Most teachers want to teach, to inspire, to challenge kids. Again because of our governments 'test 24/7' there is little time for anything else. Heck in some places they have done away with recess. So its very very frustrating for us, and probably a big reason why we lose so many new teachers in five years

[Leyland]

I attended a very small school until the end of the eighth grade and went on some field trips to a Civil War battlefield and some old rice and indigo plantations where tools were preserved and original structures still stand. The dates and other rote memory items take on life away from a chalkboard.

Field trips are good ways to help students envision history. My niece went to Washington DC with her seventh grade class last May, but they were on a bus tour plan and only had five minutes scheduled at Arlington Cemetery. I didn't believe her until I looked at the schedule. Five whole minutes. :confused:

I think the whole trip was a drive-by blink-and-you-miss-it kinda thing. But hopefully some of them will be interested someday!

[boswellbaxter]

Add me to the list of those whose teachers started over again on American history each year. Most years we never quite finished the Civil War. I don't blame the teachers--probably if they had tried to teach any other way, someone would have tried to get them fired.

It's sad, because I know in my own case that I could have got very interested in the history that I was taught had it been presented in such a way as to catch my imagination. When I was a teenager, I read a novel that dealt with the Holocaust, and I became fascinated with the subject--at age sixteen I probably had more books on the subject than most of the public libraries in my area did. But this wasn't a subject that was covered at all in any of the schools I attended--at best it merited a sentence in my World History textbook.

[Rowan]

I am sooo glad you clarified that! Most teachers want to teach, to inspire, to challenge kids. Again because of our governments 'test 24/7' there is little time for anything else. Heck in some places they have done away with recess. So its very very frustrating for us, and probably a big reason why we lose so many new teachers in five years

I know how easy it is just to blame teachers and be done with it, but that's not right. ;)

[Susan]

The classes tended to focus on dates and events, with very little emphasis on the personalities of the people involved. It was a thoroughly boring experience.

As a teacher, I can say that history now tends to be concept and theme oriented and not focused on dates and events.

[JaneConsumer]

My grade school experience was very similar to yours. It's not only sad, it's an injustice. I didn't experience history until I attended college. And then I didn't know what hit me.

But it was wonderful!

[Divia]

As a former history teacher I"ll tell you that I tried to make my lessons as interesting as possible. HOWEVER, there is only so many days to get so much crammed into their heads so they can pass those tests.

Lecture is what mos tof us can do because it covers the most information in the quickest time. I dont like it. I never did, but it is what it is. If the state and goverment would give us some more leadway and stop breathing down our necks "No child left behind " and all that crap I think we could make hisotry more itneresting.

[princess garnet]

I remember learning South Carolina history in grades 3 and 8 along with US and world history while in my parochial K-8 grade school. In high school, it was the same. It's hard to get everything in one semester. (We had block scheduling) For AP US History, we made it up to Vietnam.

[Amanda]

My perspective comes from Australia (New South Wales - the different states do their education differently).

I remember doing some historical topics in primary school (ages 8-12). I remember doing projects on Ancient Egypt, dinosaurs, Explorers, the colonisation of Australia, bushrangers, the Gold Rush.

In high school, history was a core subject in years 7 and 8. I clearly remember the first history class in year 7, as it was our first high school class, and we started with Neanderthal man, which the teacher demonstrated by jumping up on the tables walking up and down gorilla style! He was a good teacher! I think after that we progressed in a linear fashion doing a bit of (and some just a little bit), Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and China (I think this was very brief though I do remember doing some kind of small project on it), a bit of English Monarchy (I remember haveing a debate about Richard III and the Princes in the Tower). I think we did a bit of the explorers again, in the lead up to the "discovery" of Australia and then the First Fleet.

In years 9 and 10, history was an elective (you had to choose between history or geography). I can't remember all that much about what we covered though, but I think it was mainly Australian history in year 9, with more about the First Fleet, explorers (I know we did this - I remember an excursion to Sydney and the Blue Mountains), Gold Rush, the Eureka Stockade and possibly up to Federation (1901).

I think in year 10 we did WWI and WWII, mostly about the causes and when the different countries joined or left the war rather than specific battles. I know we did a bit of Cold War stuff too. I remember doing projects on the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban Missile Crisis/Bay of Pigs (don't remember any of it now!).

In the senior years (11 and 12) you could do Ancient or Modern History, but I didn't do theses as they didn't fit in my timetable (I was a bit upset about it!).

[Divia]

I can never recall ever teaching or any other teacher making it to the Vietnam War. Which isvery very sad because it is so interesting, and tragic.

[donroc]

I can never recall ever teaching or any other teacher making it to the Vietnam War. Which isvery very sad because it is so interesting, and tragic.

Which is why U.S. History should be taught in the 10th and 11th grades in high school.

[Divia]

We have NY state tests so our set up is different than others.

7th and 8th is US history

9th & 10th is World

11th & 12th American & Gov. Though 12th is mostly gov if I remember correctly.

[MLE]

I was very fortunate in that my mom had a teaching degree in ancient history. She had a set of books by Olive Miller called 'A Picturesque Tale of Progress' which had pictures of artifacts from various civilizations on every page. Mom read them aloud to us; I started on those (Sumer and Egypt were the first ones) before I hit kindergarten, and had finished the set of 9 books by fourth grade. We all re-read them often -- they were as good as a novel. I do hope she got most of the facts right!

School history, especially US history, was a crashing bore, with two exceptions: in 4th grade, California schools teach the History of California, and in the LA school district (otherwise dismal, I agree with you Donroc, I went to Eagle Rock High in the '60's) it was centered around field trips and activities. We ground wheat and baked bread in a brick oven on the playground, made Spanish mantillas and sombreros, visited a mission and a Mi-wok village mockup and the Casa de Adobe and Olivera street (an kind of open-air museum-cum-market), panned for gold, made a bear flag, and generally had a blast. In this case, it really was the curriculum, because the teacher is completely forgotten.
The second great experience with history in education was my first year in college. We had a professor -- Dr. Ewing-- whose US history lectures were standing-room-only. He taught history as a sequence of cause and effect, and he was fascinating.

[Telynor]

I remember a real emphasis on the so-boring dates and events throughout most of high school, and a burning desire to get out of there as quickly as possible -- history I had always been interested in, but I tended to be one of those troublesome students who always asked questions, and finally, they just started shoving books at me. As I was a voracious reader, it wasn't hard to study on my own.

[Carine]

In primary school we were taught Belgian history from the tribes and the times of Ambiorix and Clovis to WW2. In secondary school we practically repeated all that (!!) + some Euopean history, the kings and queens of Britain, Napoleon, you know the most important people in European history. The rest of the world was only shortly mentioned, I discovered for instance American history by my own interest, not because I was taught in school.
Whether I thought it was interesting at the time or not depended a lot on the teachers and there were a variety of them through the years ofcourse.
In general I remember my history lessons as mostly quite interesting. So can't complain.

[donroc]

I neglected to mention how I organized the short one year of U.S. History I taught.

Each semester the student had to do 4 approved book reports (cultural, bios, even certain fiction) to qualify for a final grade of A, 3 for a B, two for a C, 1 for a D, 0=F

Also, each had to do one oral presentation/semester available from a list designed for the academic to the uninterested -- biolgraphical cultural, etc to supplement the text and fill in the blanks for minority and women's history.

In the A.P classes, I added research papers.

In all classes I gave essay exams with a choice of topics; plus questions that required paragraph answers also were included.

Critical thinking was essential in all endeavors.

I also designed an independent study course with critical thinking as the goal based on the games in Strategy and Tactics Magazine that became so popular, I filled two classes each semester under the aegis of Georaphy I&II.

The students would play, before the era of computers, a war game of choice --tactical such as Battle of Waterloo or strategic, Napoleon's Campaign in Russia (logistics required) or WWII (having to decide what to produce in 1942 to be effective for 1943-45).

The outline of their research papers was this:

1. Describe origins of the conflict.
2. Could diplomacy better applied have prevented the conflict?
3. Compare and contrast the course of your game with the real conflict including # of lives lost.
4. Compare and contrast your military "stupidity" with that of the generals andleaders.
5. Was the peace that came afterwards better than the peace that existed before? Was the war worth it?
6. What you learned most.

It was not designed to be a pro war course but as another opportunity for students to research deeply into areas not taught or their favorite areas.

I even allowed game design. A Russian immigrant student designed the Battle of the Alamo; another student designed Caesar's invasion of Britain.

A pacifist girl of the Ba'hai faith said her anti-war beliefs were strenghthened afte playing Napoleon in Russia.

I would catch them saying, "Mr. Platt, the first time I played I lost 75,000 men, but the second time I lost only 15,000. I would then show them they had just acquired the mentality of generals.

One year, my best gamer was a girl, also a chess wizard, who never lost, even when she played the historical loser.

I can say in all truth several students faked residence in L.A. so they could attend where I taught and take the class.

For music fans, two of the Red Hot Chili Peppers took the year course. Tony Kiedis was a solid A student, Balzary/ Flea was rather lazy and did the minimum.