Interesting...
And I agree, history O-Level was more boring than watching grass grow. All bloody high precision dates and times with no overview.
Personally, if I taught history, I'd start with a "big-bang" to now time line, with the human bit expanded to another line, then the 3000BC to now expanded, then the middle ages to now further expanded, then the last century expanded again.
Start with the overview, then "zoom" into specific ages and explore in more detail...
How good to hear that it wasn't only me that found History as a school subject boring. Then to realise that if I was interested in the specific events, I had no problem. Thank you for the support! Maybe we need to form an "Orphans of History" group, and get some huge government funding.
on 12/03/2015, Davey supposed :
That was pretty much the way I too found history at school, dry, boring and pointless. One of those pointless things which had to be digested, in readiness for the exams, with no other apparent purpose to it all.
Now, I am absolutely fascinated with it, especially industrial history and to a lesser extent, social history.
Ditto, and yet many decades later I often, but not always find it a fascinating subject.
And another. How is it that such a fascinating subject is taught so badly?
I'm very
Don't always be suspicious as there are plenty of us who have found that th ere have been recorders through the years in each generation or two who hav e kept the family records up to date. The records in my paternal mother's s ide go back to the 13th century (relatively easy in Scotland as once you ge t into a clan line it's not that difficult to get to the top of it and then it's just a straight line), and similarly my mother's family can do Robins ons a way back into the early 1600's.
in my case the History teacher was one of those whose life had gone ,studied well enough at Prep School ,studied history at Public School ,gone on to get a degree or two at one of the Oxford colleges , got a job for life in a minor public school with free accommodation and food and a lifestyle to which he was institionlised as much as someone at the other end of the scale goes Young Offenders, Borstal ,Prison. or whatever names were in use at the time. Provided he dragged the same old subjects when required year after year he survived. Our paths crossed as to save a 20 mile bus journey to a Grammar school it made more sence to cycle 3 miles to the school which was part of the Direct Grant Scheme. When that scheme finished the place almost went bust and Teachers like that found thier world turned upside down as new managment came in.
G.Harman
I think it's a lot better nowadays.
Less emphasis on just on facts, dates, what happened etc. more on interpretation of event's, looking at different sources, the causes, how people lived etc.
Which I think makes it rather more interesting.
It would surely be inconvenient for those in power if everyone knew all the details, sometimes very nasty, of their predecessors' behaviour.
That might suggest that such behaviour goes with the territory.
Even minor details - like Hemingway, an American, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, or Byron, a Brit, fighting in the Greek war - could resonate with current events in ways which might be deemed undesirable.
Windmill wrote
That's not the reason in all but places like North Korea.
It's just very difficult to do, particularly with school kids who don?t have the mental maturity to be able to enjoy something that complex.
That is certainly true to some extent, but I'm not aware of any territory that does a very good job of teaching history to school kids in a way that sees many of the kids find it very enjoyable indeed in the way that you do get with other subjects.
That isn't the reason few school kids find it enjoyable, leaving out stuff like that and that stuff is a pimple on the bum of real history anyway. What matters much more is stuff like why WW1 happened, why the western europeans got into the situation where they got keen on invading almost all the entire world at one time, why the Chinese never did, why something like the Vikings happened, why something like Easter Island happened, why and how a tiny group of pacific islanders managed to spread out so effectively, why monarchies were so successful for so long and now aren't etc etc etc.
I have wondered why these facts have not made it into the media recently.
>
I don't suppose that many in power actively try to discourage a knowledge of history, but my suspicion is that there's a convenient neglect which mitigates against the kind of teaching capable of keeping kids interested. They might prefer it if hoi polloi can be made less able to challenge their policies.
Is the teaching better where our future leaders are educated? Meaning of course Eton etc. etc.
So you are saying there is a continuous line of verifiable documentation from the 13th century? That every generation has written down all / a significant proportion of births marriages and deaths and that has been passed down for something like thirty generations?
You'd certainly not have anything even slightly resembling that in England or Wales unless you were a member of a very restricted number of families, often those with ancient titles.
The England and Wales parish registers don't even start till the middle of the
16th century and pre 1841 the confidence levels take a huge dive with no census to verify members of families. The family details that exist on other bits of paper/parchment/writing on bits of rock are few and far between. P.S. It's hell even reading 100 year old gravestones.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.