History in School

[lord_byron_nz]

How did you find History in High School? Before I went to HS, I was a pretty good Mathematician and an average humanities student. However, with a combination of good teaching and interesting subjects, I soon became a bona fide arts student. What topics did you cover at HS, and how did you find them?

Mine were (History does not become and independent subject in NZ until 5th form, which is around 15yo)

15yo- Origins of WW2, Cold War NZ, South African Race Relations, NZ Race Relations, Chinese Revolution, Post-revolution Russia

16yo-18th Century Europe;Crimean War, Revolution, The Unification of Italy, The Creation of Germany, Origins of WW1

17yo-A year long study of Early-modern England covering a)Elizabeth, James and Charles b)Social Structure and everyday life and c)Civil war, Interegnum and Restoration. (the other option for this level is 18th Century NZ)

 

[test_specimen]

Wow, seems like you specialized from the start. I only remember history class very dimly. In Austria it is taught very general and chronologically from the start to modern times.

From 13 to 15 I had a history teacher who would hand out sheets on the main events and do a more or less freestyle lesson for the rest of the time. He told us a lot about UFOs and other odd stuff (which I can't really remember, because we used his lessons to prepare homework for other classes). I was always wondering, how he kept his job.

After that I got a teacher who was really fond of Viennese history, but not emperors and wars and the usual kind of stuff, but something like: know the name of each church in Vienna.

I guess I didn't learn a lot of history in school, most things I know about history are things I read somewhere or were taught in other classes.

 

[MadScot]

I found history teaching in high school to be a wishy-washy mix of empathising with people and avoiding any discussion that might involve war, politics or any form of easily testable knowledge.

Consequently I dropped it as quickly as possible; I learnt more history in primary school!

 

[philippe]

History is very boring around here..Most things i learn now i already knew.
Im 15 and were still buzy about feadalism! :angry:

 

[Kafka2]

History teaching in schools was a joke in my day.

 

[G-Man]

History is very boring... Our teacher is an idiot who sees things in black or white and insisits on trying to make foolish connections between the stuff it teaches us and what happens in the world. Things like "Hitler wanted to kill as many jews as possible. And you know who today is trying to kill jews, right? It's Arafat!". Or my personnal favorite: "The Frenchwouldn't go to war with the Germans. Even today they're not willing to go to war with Iraq, and Saddam is just like Hitler". He also doesn't know the stuff he teaches:
*talking about the nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia*
"Hitler sent his troops and took over Czechia"
"And what about Slovakia?"
"Oh... Well... It got independent... and... ehh"

You get the picture.

 

[Vrylakas]

The problem with school history is who is teaching it. No matter what country you're in, when the state is paying for and directing the history classes then they're designed to glorify the state. Granted, some classes have some latitude, but the school classroom is where nationalism is first learned and inculcated. We all have to learn the litany of famous generals, battles, kings, nobles, presidents, etc. who've made our countries what they are today. We learn about our enemies and allies, our great exploits - while some of our less glorious deeds are passed over or ignored altogether.

 

[amadeus]

I spent three years studying the fur trade and two weeks on World War II and ten minutes on Korea. American history classes have a lot to be desired.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

'History' in school is almost an oxymoron. It is more like 'professors fanciful theory of hour' in school.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

I did Medieval history for half a year. Pity it focused on peasantry life in Norman England, and failed to mention anything about the rest of the world, or even pre- or post-Norman England.

 

[wtiberon]

Yeah alot of History professors simply like to hear themselves talk...I'm a big history buff myself but in college I had this chick who was so scatter brained she and boring that nearly everyone fell asleep. Even me.

 

[Peri]

History teachers have a very tough job. In many countries there is a prescribed curriculum which must be taught. In order to keep students interested the best way to teach some topics is to make it relevant to events now or the students own experience. The length of time spent on a subject does not relect its importance but does reflect its relevance to the concepts the teacher is trying to teach and its relevance to the community the students are living in.
For example in an urban community the industrial revolution may get greater time than something else because the effects can be seen all around. Relevance really is the key determining factor in teaching history even if the students cant see it

 

[lord_byron_nz]

It's interesting to see that most people don't have a high opinion of their History schooling. I had an outstanding teacher the whole way through, who was preapred to give me individual help with essays and points of view. I guess that helps a lot.

I didn't find too much nationalism in the curriculum either although NZers aren't know for being a particularly patriotic breed.

 

[Unregister]

My freshman year i loved it because the teacher was great but this year it sucks because the teacher.....ummm.....sucks.

 

[Wolfe Tone]

Let's see first year we did Normans, 1066 etc. I don't remember too much about it. Second year, we did the American frontier/Native americans etc. Third year WW2/Irish Famine/Origins of Unionism. At GCSE level we did Russian Revolution/Germany 1918-45/WW2/Cold War. At A-level: Britain 1915-39 (It think), Daniel O'Connell and Catholic Emancipation/Chartism/The career of Robert Peel. I enjoyed History in school mainly due to the teacher I had, he was probably the best teacher I ever had.

 

[redtom]

In Britain we are taught a very sterilised politically correct history. Which consists of constantly being told the dangers of fascism, (well duh!) communism and revolution. This leads me to think that we are being brought up to be unquestioning of the centre-right thinking that infects the politics of this country. We also taught very unpatriotic history, that puts to much emphasis on minority groups. We are also taught a very one sided history, so that we are not confused by the various thoughts and ideologies of history. I've only realised this once I bought history for myself.

As someone who has Marxist sympathies, I would like to see more history on class struggle and not do four years on Nazi history thus only breeding contempt for such history. I'm pretty sure that the average 16 year old history student knows more about the Nazis then the Nazi's knew about Nazism.

 

[Silverflame]

My eighth grade history teacher was cool, he knew a bunch of pointless things in the subjects we were being taught in. For example, he told us how the only building left standing in Washington DC during the war of 1812 was the Patent Office because there was a lot of British patents in there too.

But now my history teacher kinda sucks. She likes civ, but I doubt shes heard of civ3. She loves the renaissance and just talks way too much about art. Also she gives these big long lectures of boring paintings during the Renaissance. Its bearable, I guess. I probably have it better than most of you guys.

 

[test_specimen]

Originally posted by Silverflame
My eighth grade history teacher was cool, he knew a bunch of pointless things in the subjects we were being taught in. For example, he told us how the only building left standing in Washington DC during the war of 1812 was the Patent Office because there was a lot of British patents in there too.

But now my history teacher kinda sucks. She likes civ, but I doubt shes heard of civ3. She loves the renaissance and just talks way too much about art. Also she gives these big long lectures of boring paintings during the Renaissance. Its bearable, I guess. I probably have it better than most of you guys.

Doesn't sound too bad to me. I had to choose between either Music or Painting at about 16 and decided for Painting (though I am really bad at it) and the teacher told us a lot about the different epochs and the most significant paintings. I liked this a lot, and if you know to some degree why they painted what they painted you will enjoy going to a museum.

 

[Pillager]

Our history master seemed to spend most of his time throwing chairs at us, and chastising us for being stupid. His classes were good though, and he knew what he was talking about.

The issues that I can remember most being taught were the Romans, Tudor England, the Victorians, WWI & WWII (again and again and again ). History in most schools today is crass, crap and poorly presented.

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

My History education has been pretty good, I think. Its probably due to my world history teacher I had freshman year of high school, he really got me hooked into history on a whole. I didn't have history again untill my junior year, which was US history. The only bad thing is that it was fairly dumbed down to the average student's level(not that I'm saying I'm anything spectacualar). But now I'm taking a college level course in the same subject, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit