My Love For History As A Pre Service Teacher

In The Death of History is Bunk, Patrick Watson argues that the decrease of historical content in the curriculum does not indicate that history, as a subject, is declining. While many complain about the decreasing prominence of history classes in Canadian schools, the content of those classes is excessively dull as it consists of memorizing lists of facts. Despite this, there are still protests that knowledge of “defining events” is required to contribute to “the National Conversation”. However, history is not so simple as a list of events—it is the sum of the small happenings in society around the events. A whole variety of factors influence history, which is created by the common people. Unlike Americans, who turn to their constitution for

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.

History engages me like no other subject. History is unrivaled in complexity and depth compared to other areas of study, but many do not realize this because we choose to gloss over the vast majority, reducing entire sagas into little more than a footnote on a single page. The American revolution, while celebrated in the US, is little more than a paragraph in European history, overlooked because of the more relevant Napoleonic era. My passion for learning encourages me to read into these footnotes and discover the lessons and ideas that are ignored by the common curriculum.

The book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, begins with an introduction in which author James W. Loewen empathizes with the students. He discusses how History, specifically American History, is taught incorrectly. Loewen is able to share his understanding of why high school students think history is boring. He begins his argument with facts and numbers by saying that out of all the subjects in school, history is almost every student's least favorite subject. He goes on to say that teachers also misrepresent history to students by teaching history as a ¨set of facts¨ rather than ¨showing how we got to this point.¨ Loewen’s writing style is much more relaxed than a typical non-fiction

Many Americans today are extremely uneducated and misinformed when it comes to the history of their nation purely because they find the learning of it boring. Because of the nature of American history courses and the distribution of knowledge in America, James W. Loewen wrote the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, to make history more relevant to people who’ve been “bored to tears by their high school American history courses” (xii) because to be effective citizens today we must be able to understand our past.

1a. According to Loewen’s introduction, high school students hate history because nobody expects much from it. Many people are bored of history because we already know the ending of all the textbook’s “stories.” The textbooks have a monotone voice, and are technically clones of each other. Apparently history professions do not even review the textbooks in order to check if they have any historical mistakes in them. Also the authors of the textbooks wrote in them like there are still no debates about any of the topics, so students are not meant to question history. The textbooks are written through “white eyes” so they are biased and full of nationalism. Textbooks do not include

History is a remarkable subject that offers and eagles eye view into the past. With textbooks such as, Hist3, a great deal of interesting information can be acquired. However, a common misconception runs rampant through students minds; the idealism that history is useless and that the subject is that of a drag. Who can blame them? Our text books can only do so much in terms of providing the means in educating ourselves when we’re not in a class room and when given the opportunity to appear in class we have the luxury of (hopefully) having and interesting professor to enlighten us on all the side conflicts, affairs, and bloodshed that has happened. Even so, when we as students have exhausted the book and our instructors, we have the privilege

Never was I taught my ancestor’s side of the story until high school. Never have I heard of the Joseon Dynasty, Kublai Khan, or Qin Shi Huang, the history that was my forefather’s life. I always knew Columbus’s achievements as the discoverer of America, but I was not taught his abhorrent treatment to the Native Americans. I was told about the British royal family founded by Alfred the Great, but they never mentioned about the Japanese emperor. I was forced to memorize the facts from a Western-based history textbook, but never have they told me to remember even one date of the Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, or Japanese history.

There are so many in this world that simply does not adhere to the ideals we believe in, maybe that is why they feel what’s in the textbooks today are useful information. The author’s of the textbooks should think back to when they were growing up, what they remembered and be sure to include it in the textbooks. There are so many significant events that have happened within the past ten years. History is important for our children to understand, to give them a better sense of how to understand what we do and a sense of what it means to be an American; a sense of importance and serving something greater than yourself in life.

Some would say society around the world as a whole has evolved into a self-serving society. Through teaching the historical events of the ancestors this may help curtail the negative attitude that is running rampant today. It is vitality important that we have scholars who will continue researching and documenting history.

After all, American Revolution, civil war, the establishment of the republican, and the election of American presidents were so dramatic for me, I learned these from my “American history to 1877” class. I was interested in learning American history, though I was only a foreign student. Professor Loewen found that, the problem of American history was taught dull and empty with lies to students, not interesting at all. He thought that simplified textbooks made high school students ignore the importance of American history. I completely agreed his opinion. In high school, I was taught that Columbus was an explorer and navigator. I read about he was greed, slavery, genocide. What he did to the American Indians is unacceptable. In my opinion, if my history teacher taught me these stories in my high school, I would put more attention in my history

An example of us needing to appreciate getting to read and know the history is that people are so curious to read the books they risk their homes being burned to read one single book. If these people in the future are willing to risk it all for a single book then we should really appreciate that we get millions of books we can read whenever we please. We should be grateful that books have millions of copies and we aren't struggling to find a single copy within the whole

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.

Students come to the classroom with their own ideas and pre-conceived notions. As a future educator it is important for me to understand what students know and where there are misunderstandings. These incorrect ideas about our world and history translate into misconceptions, gaps in knowledge, and stereotypes that will be taken as fact until otherwise taught. To better understand the missing pieces in social studies education and to find ways to address these gaps, I delved into the minds of two third-graders, one male, Sawyer, and one female, Brooke. After conducting my interview I have a better understanding of topics that students are not clear on and would benefit from more instruction. One topic students have missing information about is knowledge of famous women in history. A second topic students seem to be confusing is basic geography understanding.

It all began with the stories of “The Awesome Egyptians” and “The Rotten Romans”, but my fascination for history has long surpassed the days of my “Horrible History” books. To me history has become much more than just an academic subject that has to be studied; it both challenges and inspires me beyond the boundaries of the classroom. Historical studies achieve this by supplying me with knowledge and discovery, both elements which I find to be extremely thrilling.