I wish I were back in school, I really do. I love school. I never appreciated it while I was there. Last night Lori and I were talking about why we couldn't wait to get out when we were younger; I think it's because we hadn't yet learned the difference between doing homework and learning. (Incidentally, I've always said that I wouldn't go back to high school for a million dollars, but it occurs to me now that I might actually really like to do that, if only so I could learn all the things I was supposed to have learned back then, but didn't.) I love learning, and now that I have to do it on my own, I wish like crazy that I could take classes again. Someday I will, hopefully soon. Ish.
And along those lines, something I was reminded of today by this blog post by a girl I had a couple classes at BYU with: In most pre-college history classes, the curriculum includes almost no primary resources. This befuddles me. It's like if you took English classes and never read actual books, just learned grammar and sentence structure and little biographies about authors; can you imagine such a ridiculous situation?
So why do we learn history without reading the things that were being written at the time? I'm sure I remember reading little excerpts here and there from someone's diary, but shouldn't that be a significant part of our study rather than just a supplemental note? How do we study Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler without ever--once, in all of our years of school--being required to read Das Kapital or Mein Kampf? What about Malcolm X?
(Obviously I'm not referring to people who make this their course of study in college, because I'm sure those people do have to read a lot of these things. I'm only referring to the average person who doesn't get a degree in history.)
For that matter, why don't we read novels in our history classes? Even accounting for the fact that they're fiction, I've learned more from A Thousand Splendid Suns, Dreams of Joy, The Lacuna, and Madame Tussaud than I ever did about those topics in school (Afghanistan/the Taliban, Red China, Frida Kahlo/McCarthyism, and the French Revolution, respectively). How about Say You're One of Them? March? Empire? I can practically guarantee that students would learn--and enjoy--more from reading than they do from those endless fill-in-the-blank worksheets.
It just seems like an incredible waste. History is absolutely fascinating to me now, but in high school I couldn't have cared less. I still got good grades, because how hard is it to fill in a worksheet, but I am not kidding--I learned nothing. It's just such a shame.
I completely agree with you. I always disliked history in junior high/high school, and I realize now it's because the teachers I had didn't try to spark interest in the subject. It wasn't until I had a really awesome modern US history teacher at CCCC that I started to appreciate and actually like the subject. We watched old (excerpts) of films, listened to music of the time, and read parts of books from the time period we were studying. He was passionate about what he was teaching, and I loved that!
ReplyDeleteSo like we were talking about at B&N, I wish they had a section devoted to historical fiction. I tend to gravitate toward it more than reading just a biography or a history book, probably because I can relate with the characters and therefore the subject matter more easily. Maybe we should petition B&N to do so. I'm going to google historical fiction books now. :-)
I think you'd make a great history teacher. :) And it's true, we need more primary resources in high school history classes.
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny is our facebook discussion today got me thinking about homeschooling (or doing k12) with my own kid for some of the same reasons. But I would need a totally different set up than my current one.
You learned nothing, and yet everyone at Community High School learned even less (mostly because very few of the teachers actually held a teaching license). It really is a shame. Miri, you SHOULD be a history teacher! You would be really good at it.
ReplyDeleteThat's awful, Katie. History classes especially get ruined, because doesn't it seem like most history teachers are coaches? Starting in eighth grade, actually, and even including AP classes, I can't remember having a single history teacher who wasn't. That is just unfair.
ReplyDelete(This is not to say that all coaches are useless, because one of my favorites was Coach Black, who really knew everything--I learned more from his class (in spite of the worksheets, which we did in spades) than from any of my other history classes.)
But my question is, why are coaches required to teach an academic subject in addition to the thing they actually are qualified to teach? I know a girl who became cheerleading coach and now also teaches English. That's just a terrible arrangement. Academic subjects should not be shunted off like that.
I would totally send my kids to your history class!
ReplyDeleteAnd I also vote for historically based novels. Much of the problem with learning history 'the old fashioned way' is that there's not enough narrative/voice. So many need those personalities to guide us through the facts - or, frankly, to care about them.
I think one reason that the novel thing might not fly is that people like to pretend history is completely fact based so they can use it to support the stories unfolding in the present. If we admit that, like fiction, history is all about perspective and effective story telling, then history is harder to use as a weapon. This is the cynic in me speaking.
Linds, you are probably right! The cynics in us often are... At least when it comes to politics. ;)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, that is an excellent point about perspective! Maybe that's why history classes are so fond of those worksheets; as long as you're doing nothing but memorizing dates, you're solidly within the realm of fact, and perspective isn't an issue. However, then you're also solidly within the realm of who even cares, and that's why no one remembers anything from those classes.
This conversation is really making me wish I could be the person who writes the curriculum for these classes. There is so much amazing literature out there that would make history crazy fun, even for teenagers!
The best professor I had at BYU was Dr. Murdock and all his history classes used books (both non-fiction and novels) and no textbook. Why can't all teachers do that?
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