Does anyone remember that Laura Engall Wilder had to memorize the last half of our nations history for her semester project? Do you think that there are many people this day and age who can remember even the names of all of the presidents?
My husband, who was home schooled is appalled at what I learned in history classes during my public school education. "What do you mean you don't know much about the assasination at Serajevo? How can you not be able to give me a general outline of the Versaille Treaty?"
And heaven forbid I ask him to explain something from a historical war.
Holy (pause for emphasis) cow.
Now I'm not saying that our public education system is a bad thing, but, then again, I am. Can they take a little fo the blame for our lack of desire to seek more knowledge about history? I love history, and while I may not be able to give you dates, names and figures, I have enough knowledge to not flounder by saying silly things like the pilgrims were the first travelers who arrived at North America and that Native American tribes stayed in nice little tracts of land called reservations.
Our kids these days instead fill their heads with the names of every character known to man on TV, they know the cheater codes for all their games and what buttons to push to make their interactive puppy chase its own tail. Is this bad? I would love to say that we should start making cartoons about historical events, but they've tried that and given us such wonderful movies as Pocahontas and . . . . well maybe that was it.
What can we do to get our kids more involved with history? I hope I can instill in my daughter the thought that history is cool and she should learn as much about it as she can.
And when she wins Jeopardy, I hope she shares her winnings.
4 comments:
I think some of it comes down to personality type and whether or not you can retain and recall facts and details. I cannot about history. I've learned plenty of historical facts, but am not able to speak intelligently about much of it. My dad, on the other hand, could totally win Jeopardy!
Priority. Priority. Priority. If a person is only learning history it isn't hard to cram lots of facts in one's brain. If one is learning- vb, ballet, piano, sibling relations, girlfriend relations, teacher relations, how not to get "slugged" on the bus and other real situations, one may not have all of history's facts. But if one knows the outline of history one can find out and put together any new info.
- a public school teacher
I, like OM, have a hard time retaining dates, etc. It wasn't that it didn't interest me, I just am not able to retain it, like my father and brother and Uncle M can. I love history. I love the hi$tory channel. But once the show is over and we discuss it, it's almost like it just floats out of my brain. It's odd. Oh well.
I agree that interest does have some to do with it. I will also say that I agree that I didn't have the best history teacher in the world. When it came to Amer. Govt, my teacher was AWESOME. Can I list all of the presidents? No. However.... I did learn HOW our govt is run and can have an intelligent conversation about such things. It's all a matter of teachers being able to reach the kids and the kids being willing to learn it. It's give and take, much like everything in our lives.
I agree, I'm lousy at retaining dates... which is what all my teachers wanted me to do. Bah.
As an adult, I'm very drawn to antiques - and I have discovered very interesting facts as a result.
Often when my parents come to visit me ... we end up shopping which is very dull for my 75 year old dad. So we usually duck into an antique store which is great for all of us - Dad can tell me stories upon stories based on what we find in a dusty old bin.
I've always wondered why they didn't teach history with the aid of interesting antiques!
I once read a novel based in England during WWII - and the characters described sewing blackout shades for their homes. Later I asked mom about that and she remembered the same thing... having to keep lights off at night so that the enemy wouldn't know they were flying over a populated area.
She was just a little kid during WWII - and remembers that she didn't understand why anyone wanted to bomb their farm.
I shared this exchange with my teenage niece and she was FASCINATED!
That's how to learn history - personal stories - not timelines.
I am so ashamed - for example - that I didn't know anything about amphibious vehicles used during WWII invasion at Omaha Beach until I was interviewing a Vet and did a double take - Amphibious?
With a college education --- years of history classes and this was NEVER mentioned?! Why, because it's actually interesting?!?!?
I think though that there are some wonderful histories out there now - like Band of Brothers - and The War (PBS) that really drive home the sacrifices of our past.
Band of Brothers may be too intense to share with your kids... but look into The War series... it's incredible.
Sorry for the huge comment - I got a little carried away!
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