"Five Things Historians and Teachers Need to Do ..." Topic

…to Make History Fun.

"We all know people who claim they hate history. They won't set foot in a history museum. They shudder at school memories of forced memorization of dates and names. Their teachers somehow never conveyed the fun in the process. Maybe their teachers had never worked with primary sources. Those of us who practice history professionally got hooked on history for a reason. Somewhere along the way, we found the joy of primary source materials, the thrill of holding the past in our hands. As a public historian who has worked for over twenty years in some of America's most popular history museums, here are my suggestions for what we need to do to make history fun…"
Full article here
hnn.us/article/155541

Amicalement
Armand

I tell people that history is the best soap opera ever!

You can't tell them anything. They won't get it. The desire has to be inborn. Most people are too self-absorbed and narcisstic to bother wanting to hear about someone else unless it's a nice, juicy, messy tale of schadenfreude.

Ceolocanth is right. You can't make this stuff up. History will ALWAYS outdo anyting the novelist can come up with.

To resonate within the breast of the reader though, history must find in that breast a vivid imagination, a strong ability to empathize and sympathize, and a sense of humor.

These are qualities which touch only a minimum of people. Most of them would prefer to watch videos of radically enhanced interrogations and virgins raped by gorillas. Don't believe me? Check out reality television.

You can't tell them anything. They won't get it. The desire has to be inborn.

Exactly. You either get it or you do not.
It's as pointless as trying to make math or biochemistry fun.

Any kind of answer on what to do would veer too much toward politics so I will praise one of my history teachers instead. He was a Civil War history buff and he took our class through all of the battles/campaigns of the war. At this point I can't remember what he told me vs what I learned later.

On the negative side the teacher who thought that Star Wars was wasting our brains and we should watch old westerns – well he actually was a decent guy but he really needed a kick in the arse over that. (this is the original Star Wars mind, not that recent junk)

Dear Dynaman8789

When I entered college back in 1967 I wanted to major in geology. I had always had a hankering after history but as far as learning something useful inc ollege.

Well 8 am, day 1 my first semeter of World Civilization opened up. My professer sauntered into the room. A typical pudgy, middle-aged, coke bottle lens glasses caricature of an academic that could not be improved on. Thinning grey hair pulled over on one side to cover a thinning pate, flushed florid face, wearing dickies pants and a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches carrying a HUGE canvass channel 13 book bag full of books which he dumped on the floor by the desk, the very poster boy for "rumpled."

Well he then proceeded to tell us all the filthy stories that Procopius wrote about the Empress Theodora, and then began, from these scandalous stories to diagramattically show the organization of the links of the parties and politics of Ancient Byzantium, and tell us "when Procopious says this.. he isn't really say9ing this but he's alluding to the debasement of morals because of the advancement of the Green party under Theodoras patronagge-- and so for and so on bringing in every current of the late ancient world. He then proceeded to lay on the desk, propped up on one arm and continue the lecture, telling us that if we wanted to know more about this, to read XXXXX's work YYYYYYYY on this that or the other thing.

I was entranced and stupified! He had made one of the most boring periods of history (Mid Byzantium onward) come alive and have a currency and power that could not be matched in the most far out movies of the day.

I was entranced. I never wanted to look at a rock again. All I wanted to do was study the remarkable HUMAN history of these people.

When he got to the 18th century two years later, it made the Byzantine History seem dull and staid by comparison and he not only covered the period and got the entire class (admittedly only of a dozen people) to read avidly, and he was able in a moment to switch from the grand politics of the Diplomatic Revolution to the intellectual currents swirling at the time in the Scottish Englightenment to who was diddling who in the French Court, and he showed how they were all related, and influenced each other.

He also introducd us to the philosophy of history and how latter ages saw the age that passed and how it's interpretation had changed over time.

I also received from him some of the wisest words of wisdom ever. I remember once when after the first day of college all of the students came back the next day and one of them said to him. "Professor Rose!!!! we checked your reading list, we checked your syllabus, you have fifteen books scheduled for these class, the reserved reading conissts of another 30, and you reccommend almost 60 more!"

"Yes" he answered, "that is about what I remember I specified."

"But we don't have time for this! Most of us are majoring in other fields and have five and six other courses! We don't have time for this.

He then smiled, and waggled his head a little in bemusement and said in a soft, kind gentle, somewhat effeminate voice-- he probably was bisexual-- "Children, Children, Children, you are in college now and you have left the cradle of High School far behind. Here you must work, work, work, which means you must read, read, read your eyes out! Your instructors don't care about your difficulties, here you must survive the winnowing ground and prove you have the ability ingest vast amounts of information quickly and accurately, or you simply will not survive. I can assure you that my syllabus is small compared to those unfortunates among you who have chosen the sciences, and you will find that in your field, knowledge is exponentiating each and every day. Here you deal only in history which does not change more or less, but if you perservere in the sciences and medicine, not only will you have exponentially more work to do, but you will have to, in your professional life after college read dozens of scholarly medical and scientific journals to keep up with the latest advances, or you will simply be put out of business by the malpractice lawyers in short order.

One last point. On the teacher Dynaman8789 who thought Star Wars was wasting your brains and you should watch old Westerns, Star Wars IS old Westerns! It's the same thing only tarted up in sci-fi clothing.

They don't teach you that people had laptop computers back in 110 BC:

;-)

There is a big difference in what teachers should do and what they are actually allowed to do. School administrators expect teachers to teach to the state test and, by and large, don't care about making history (or anything else)fun or hands-on learning.

> Star Wars IS old Westerns!

True! But nobody gets the delusion they are learning history by watching Star Wars, well OK, by far MOST people do not get that delusion…

I've always liked history but it wasn't until High School that I ended up loving history…I had a teacher, Mr. Mulaur who made class fun, whether it was him doing his impersonation of Mussolini, wearing one of his many period hats, watching Zulu or playing Risk. He would suggest books to read, never forcing us to read something we didn't enjoy or had little interest in. He would cater his tests to what we liked. Sure we had to cover the basics for whatever the school board wanted but everything else was his domain…