One day, I hope to be a history teacher, high school, upper high school to be specific (I don’t handle tweens well… and I don’t know how to talk to kids, I know it’s shocking). But high school history doesn’t really tend to emphasize your opinions, your history, your anything. My AP history classes were dark classrooms with seats in perfect rows. I walked in everyday, sat in my assigned seat, took out my notebook, and wrote as my teachers lectured for 45 minutes everyday. Now I love history, I really do, and AP World history was potentially one of my all time favorite classes, but I wasn’t your average high school student, and your average high school student isn’t necessarily a fan of school, let alone ancient civilizations and dates, but …show more content…
I want to show my students not only that they matter, but that who they are matters to me, and through this I want to show them that we’re closer to each other than we think we are, this world is interconnected, and not just by trade routes and globalization. Just think about how crazy interconnected the world is—the Chinese knew it! When you write for history, yes the facts are important, dates and specific moments in time, but to think at a higher level it is important to look at how the world grew together, what brief interactions were important and changed the course of time. For example, what if the Treaty of Versailles went a little easier on the Germans? Their inflation wouldn’t have become so bad and it’s entirely possible that Hitler never would have risen to power.
Within this project I would ask my students to think about their lives like they’re monumental historical stories, what moments and people and brief interactions are important in their lives, what moments had a lasting effect on who they are and why they’re at where they are today, etc. No matter what subject, kids are important, as are their thoughts and opinions
Why is there racial tension and political dissension in America? Why did Russia feel its Crimean invasion was justifiable? How did China become an economic power? These questions are answered by a proper understanding of history, helping us to better comprehend the world of 2015. Education’s role needs to be thus: to prepare students as learned individuals and to exist in such an international community. This is why I think history is still incredibly relevant despite focusing on the
Some people look at history as a boring subject, but that’s because they haven’t thought of it like a marvelous tale of action, drama, tragedy, and whole lot of chaos. By thinking of it that way, it will make the subject much more interesting.
I play sports, football, basketball, baseball, track, and soccer at one point. On my very first day of preschool, I did not know what was going on. All I knew was I was not going to be home for long, and I was going to be around people I didn’t now. Besides school, ever since I was younger I always loved sports, and have been good at it. Besides my sports obsessions, academically, I’ve always disliked reading because I felt it was a waste of time , writing is the one thing I usually like to do, and I’m slightly scared of presenting in front of an audience.
Throughout secondary school, instead of accepting the facts stated in my textbooks, I continued to ask questions. Disillusioned by how complex historical events were taught like equations with a simple cause and effect, senior year of high school I determined that I would become a teacher. As a teacher, I aspire to not be hindered by standardized requirements and teach history in a way that resonates with students and evokes passion.
The history that is discussed in classrooms today is not what it once was. History is no longer held with the same value as it was once before. History repeats itself. We can learn the story of history and unpack it to understand. Through history we can learn the effects of change. Through history we learn so much.
"History never seems like history when you are living through it." This quote by John W. Gardner accurately depicts the inability of most young people to understand the importance of history. Every decision that is made creates an outcome. Once that outcome occurs, it becomes history. To many, history is seen as simply cluster of sequential events of the past. Rather, it is a record of the emotional and physical hardships generations have gone through to bring us to the present and also affect our future. In order for history to be taught well, it must be understood that the people of the past were more similar to us than we know,
Looking at the future, just before the end: everything else that happened, and everything that could have happened doesn’t seem to matter as they did when they were happening. Final thoughts race as the heart ebbs to its last thumps, milestones are remembered, successes are displayed like badges and regrets materialize to haunt the spirit; or perhaps it’s slow, like molasses, the mind attempts to feel the raw emotions when they occurred, arduously forgetting the worse of times just to get to the more lively minutes of your life. Death, the inevitable fate, is something completely foreign and unknown, therefore terrifying. However, as Mark Twain once said, “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to
Over time the social studies classes have become ridiculed as the boring subjects in the classroom. All too often are students overhead stating, “history is so boring! It is my least favorite class. Or, all we do is learn stuff that does not matter anymore.” Yet, to me, I do not fault these students for their perspective. I myself was once one of these students. I have always liked history and geography, but as a high school student myself I found them dull and focusing only on memorization. While I was in these classes all I can remember was thinking, “this is not even important to me”, and I can guess that that is the same thing students might think
When it comes to paring down what to teach students, World War II exists as an almost extreme example. Not only would the large quantity of events be an overwhelming undertaking to teach in their entirety, but the experiences of countries around the globe varied so vastly that students from different countries seeking to understand the roots of their respective country’s experiences are seeking very different knowledge. For example, the leadership of each involved country’s government and military could be applicable to students anywhere in the world. Yet, only British students spend a unit learning about the rise of Winston Churchill’s leadership (The National). Even though students globally could benefit from the
History is an important part of everyone’s education, as everyone needs to know the origins in every single topic in school; for example, for math, you might need to know why the Pythagorean theorem is called that, for English, people need to know about the background and history of Edgar Allen Poe before they understand why everything he writes is so
In my kindergarten yearbook, I said that I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. At the time, my idea of a rock star included wearing big sunglasses, putting the rock hand sign up and playing air guitar. I later went through stages of wanting to be an architect and then a movie director; my mind was all over the place. But somewhere in my five-year-old self, I knew.
The course of history serves as an influential bridge that connects the past with our education, future, and perspectives on crucial issues. In public education, history is a school subject that is taken by a large population of students, and although authors and historians are working to create content with less bias, the course is bound to present subjectivities. Such examples include the neglect towards the Soviet era war crimes in Eastern European countries or the lack of attention given to the Nanking Massacre in Japanese textbooks. These misleading alterations of historical content can often cause the minds of youths to lack important facts and instead be distorted with false information. Thus, in order for society to achieve incremental equality and to preserve true and meaningful historical context, we must take initiatives to
My goal as an instructor is to use any topic of history, whether broad or narrow, to teach students how to make historical connections between cause and effect, understand the concepts of context and bias, and ultimately think critically. History, as I teach it, helps students learn how to filter through facts and the supposed truths around them in order to understand how bias effects these, but most importantly, how they can contend with this reality.
Throughout academia, the questions of “why does history matter?”, and “what is the importance of studying history” arise very often by teachers, parents, and peers. The questions may seem exceedingly short and simple but they cannot be answered with simple answers. The complexity and variability of each answer has numerous factors such as background, environment, personal preferences, political alignment, and social status, that must be looked at before being able to fully understand the question and then answer it. There are thousands of quotes that can be used to answer, support and elaborate on the questions, but I find these resonant with me: “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child” (Wineburg 28), “Those who
Differentiate instruction can be a difficult task. I feel with having the content of History makes it a little bit harder the other contents. History is one of those subjects that you know or you do not. That statement may be a little harsh, but I have observed this through my journey as a student and educator. I have had to keep in mind my friends and students who just do not love History or get it. As a teacher, I have tried to relate my content to their everyday life. Students respond when you make the subject about them. Teenagers are self-absorbed and their mind cannot stay focus unless it interesting to them. I really try to relate my lessons on social media, sports, arts, relationships, and music. These few things seem to really be things that keep my students attention. Two examples from my unit would be the break-up letter and the trading card test. The break-up letter was my introduction to the Declaration of Independence. I made my students believe I found a note leaving for lunch. Since they left this note in my class, I will read the note aloud. The students are already stunned. As I read this letter, the students are shocked that I am reading and hanging on every word I am saying. The funny part is when they realize it from the American colonies. This gives me my students focus, and it 's something I can relate to while explaining the document. The trading card test relates to my sports and artsy kids. The trading card is like a baseball card trading