History is Not Boring discussion

For anyone interested in English history, I highly recommend the children's series Horrible Histories. It's skit comedy like Monty Python, but historically accurate. Besides English history, they also do Ancient Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and a little bit of American. There are plenty of sketches on Youtube if you haven't seen it yet. It's actually based on books, but I haven't had a chance to read any of them yet.

Anybody else heard of/like this lovely series?

Emily wrote: "For anyone interested in English history, I highly recommend the children's series Horrible Histories. It's skit comedy like Monty Python, but historically accurate. Besides English history, they..."

Yes, I have Emily and they are very highly regarded, although I have not read them myself. One of the problems has been that history teaching has become fragmented, without students having a clear overview of the whole picture.They study this or that period in detail without really knowing what came before or comes after. History is a chain reaction of consequences; Nothing happens without a reason from the past, nor without an effect on the future.

For what it's worth, I LOVE the Horrible Histories books (and the television series that followed) and are one of the major factors in my love of studying history which continued all the way through to University. They are interesting and funny without being too irreverent (although this would depend on your own mindset) and are a great tool to introduce children to many different periods of history.
On a side-note, there are almost always copies of some of this series in charity shops so definitely have a look if you haven't seen them before!

Malcolm wrote: "One of the problems has been that history teaching has become fragmented, without students having a clear overview of the whole picture.They study this or that period in detail without really knowing what came before or comes after."

I have wondered about that and that does sound strange. We started studying history (IIRC) from the Stone Age (and then Mesopotamia, Egypt etc.) and continued to the Cold War era. We may not know many details about a certain time in history but it's easy to read about them when you know the big picture. It might have changed a bit since I was at school but I think the history text books still cover the world history as a whole (and of course the Finnish history specifically.)

Is there a reason for the "fragmented teaching"?

Tytti wrote: "Malcolm wrote: "One of the problems has been that history teaching has become fragmented, without students having a clear overview of the whole picture.They study this or that period in detail with..."

Tytti, I was referring to history teaching in England. History used to be taught as you describe, but over the last forty years it has tended to be focused on the period 1815 - 1945, especially in State schools. However this is now changing slowly. When writing any historical fiction I find younger readers want some historical context included because they do not have it already in their minds.
The reasons for this style of teaching was largely ideological and driven by politicians rather than the teaching profession itself.

Yes, I thought you were talking about English schools (not sure if I have noticed similar teaching "styles" in other countries).

But that is a very short period to teach! And I didn't realize it has been going on for so long. I just can't understand what kind of ideology can be behind that... (Personally I think that history is the single most important subject in schools after pupil's mother tongue and Math.)

american history books are utterly horrific. I learned more hanging out at my local library and the community college checking out books that weren't on the list. the ghetto school I went to had books that ended in the regan era. (poor! blergh! Clinton was in office by then!) I don't know how the histroy books improved since I've been in school, but from what I hear from younger nieces and nephews and cousins, it's not any better. And don't get me started about charter schools...

K.P. wrote: "the ghetto school I went to had books that ended in the regan era."

The Reagan era? So did mine, more or less. But of course I remember him, so... But yeah, it's common that exchange students tell later how people were amazed that they knew the US history better than the locals.

It seems now that I'm MUCH older,...LOL, I have more interest in history than when I was a school girl. Teachers need to bring history more ALIVE in the classrooms to be able to compete with what many teens have in their heads?

Video games, TV, interest in the opposite sex, movies, etc, etc. Trying to teach teens is difficult, so holding their attention is to. We are not able to see, read and take in meaning of history until we begin to grow into adulthood. Updated documentaries are a great way to show teens our histories past.

It's unfortunate I actually lived and seen World War 2 from my own German neighborhood. I am a Holocaust Survivor, but from the German side of things. We to were threatened with camps and being shot if we did not open our homes to the German soldiers each night to bath, feed them with our own food and have a place for them to sleep.

Going to school was like a ticking time bomb each day. I actually wrote my full story & memoir of it all in my book, "The Chocolate Bar" on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. And a book description here on GoodRead & reviews. Happy to connect with anyone here.

Author, Agathe von Kampen :-)

Tytti wrote: "Yes, I thought you were talking about English schools (not sure if I have noticed similar teaching "styles" in other countries).

But that is a very short period to teach! And I didn't realize it h..."

I agree with you Tytti that history is so important. We have the problem now that even our politicians have little history, hence the failures of UK/US foreign policy in recent years.

Author Agathe wrote: "It seems now that I'm MUCH older,...LOL, I have more interest in history than when I was a school girl. Teachers need to bring history more ALIVE in the classrooms to be able to compete with what m..."
Agatha, your early life is an extraordinary window into one of the most terrible times of history. I shall get your book "The Chocolate Bar". Thank you for sharing difficult memories.

Author Agathe wrote: "Teachers need to bring history more ALIVE in the classrooms to be able to compete with what many teens have in their heads?"

In our schools teachers teach/taught the facts and we took notes. There was homework and the older you got the longer essay answers you had to write in tests to get good grades. It was the same in every subject. I didn't like biology and there was nothing anyone could do to make it interesting to me, all the "gimmicks" (group work etc) were mainly annoying. I have never really understood how teachers are supposed to make learning fun while actually teaching students stuff. Studying is rarely always fun because it requires working if you actually want to learn something.

I agree with Tytti. learning is learning and fun is fun. However some teachers can introduce a dynamic into learning which makes it absorbing, whilst others lack that ability. I remember when my youngest daughter was being taught history when she was about eleven, it was all about the Romans. She knew all about their clothes, their food and their family life.She had never heard of the Roman Empire, nor did she know when these people had lived. The following term her class were studying life in a country town in the nineteen-thirties. This is a typical story of the muddle history teaching in England found itself in not long ago. It was driven by the learn through play idea. In fact the reverse is the case. Children like to play with the knowledge they have acquired. I have brought up six! Things are now getting better in education, but there is still a way to go.

So much to respond to!

In the US, we tend to teach history chronologically. I remember in 8th grade we actually started in the middle of a textbook so we could pick up where our 7th grade textbook had left off. Then again, we have a much shorter history, so we only have about 500 years to cover, only for about 300 of which we were a country. It's a lot easier to teach that chronologically than the 1000+ years of Europe.

Also, in high school, we would have different histories specifically: World History, US History I and US History II - in that order. So that also was pretty chronological.

I wish, though, that I had been taught about family life like Malcolm described. That was always of more interest to me than what we were stuck with: politics. The politics of Washington, the policies of FDR, the upswings and downswings of the economy, and here and there a riot or war. That's the downside, I guess, to chronological teaching: the people no longer matter. You just whip through the politics and its jargon, without knowing if any of this actually affected everyday people.

Finally, I think one of my best history teachers taught me the most because she was dynamic. She would bounce about the class as we read the book aloud and offer comments/explanations. King George III became "Georgie-Porgie Puddin'-Pie the Third." Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle became "Spa." Notes about King William and Queen Mary had a heart around their names. Little things like that stick in my memory and make the study of history a little more entertaining for young minds.

Emily wrote: "Then again, we have a much shorter history, so we only have about 500 years to cover, only for about 300 of which we were a country."

But I think the difference to our system is that we are first taught about the world and how the civilization started (starting from the 5th grade in my time) and only after we know the "big picture" we concentrate on our own country's history (and government). We study the world history maybe 3-4 times as much as we do our own (which started about 1000 years ago, of course there is something known about times before that).

Emily wrote: "For anyone interested in English history, I highly recommend the children's series Horrible Histories. It's skit comedy like Monty Python, but historically accurate. Besides English history, they a..."

Love the books here are some of my favourites.

The Gorgeous Georgians
Vile Victorians
Villainous Victorians
The Terrible Tudors