Recently, a friend of mine passed along a book called Lies My Teacher Told Me. I haven't had a chance to read the whole book yet, but it was on a topic that is very applicable to us AP history students: how history is taught at schools.
Here is an excerpt from the book:
Between the glossy covers, American history textbooks are full of information—overly full. These books are huge. The specimens in my original collection of a dozen of the most popular textbooks averaged four and a half pounds in weight and 888 pages in length. To my astonishment, during the last twelve years they grew even larger. In 2006 I surveyed six new books. (Owing to publisher consolidation, there no longer are twelve.) Three are new editions of “legacy textbooks,” descended from books originally published half a century ago; three are “new new” books. These six new books average 1,150 pages and almost six pounds!
The book is especially critical of history textbooks, and you'll never guess what book was explicitly mentioned! Oh American Pageant, as much as I love your 1043 pages of information, I can see why there are those who are critical of your text. There are so many facts, dates, people, events, that I can hardly keep it all straight. When I read the textbook, I take notes because honestly I don't think that I would hold on to any information otherwise. The amount of material is so dense, and it can be really difficult to wrap your head around it all to understand general themes.
This in itself creates a problem. History is about learning from the past and applying it to our problems today and our problems in the future. When there is so much information and it is presented in such a monotone and uninteresting way, it can be hard to retain it. In our class this year, its been very helpful that we have class lectures and watch documentaries which we discuss in class. However, I think it is reasonable to say that most of us have been part of history classes that make us feel completely disconnected from the past so we are only memorizing instead of learning.
I'm curious to see what other people think. How would you compare your history classes (in general) to that of your math or science? How could learning history become more engaging?
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ReplyDeleteI like your assessment of the problems behind learning and teaching history classes.
ReplyDeleteI think that this year, we've been blessed with a much more straightforward textbook than last year's MEHAP textbook. This in itself is a huge advantage.
On top of this, I think that it's also good that the USHAP classes this year aren't structured around lectures. Though we do have some, I think that watching documentaries is a more enjoyable and effective way of learning, especially since we both do and review the worksheets that go along with the documentaries. Though students often zone out during videos in class, I feel like Mr. Stewarts frequent interjections both add to the documentaries' information and keep us from zoning out. So yeah, overall, I'd say that the USHAP classrooms are environments that are pretty conducive to learning.
On another note, I think that Mr. Freeman's sudden loud outbursts and eccentric behaviors in MEHAP last year kept us all engaged... It's not for everyone, but I know that it kept me focused.
I definitely agree that textbooks are often way too dense. However, our textbook this year does has some sections that I enjoy. The "Varying Viewpoints" sections at the end of many of the chapters provide a more interesting and enjoyable to read debate between different ways to think about events described in the chapter. I also think that activities like blogging are successful in making history more engaging. With blog assignments like this, it is really up to the students to decide on what they want to discuss. Whether it be an overview of a historical event, a connection to the present day, or a post on the way history is taught (like this), I feel that blogging is definitely a tool that more history classes should implement.
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