Education
From field trips and films, to making events relatable, learning history deserves to be stimulating
Here are a few tips that educators worldwide have developed to make learning history an enjoyable and fruitful exercise.
There is a history exam in school tomorrow. Some students have made charts and cue cards to remember the chronology of events. Some of them are trying to do that on the day before the exam. A few are focussed on studying enough content that will assure them pass marks in the exam, while yet others are cursing our forefathers for having done so much to fill up their textbooks!
Learning history is not a piece of cake for most students, who themselves try and devise innovative methods to remember dates and names. Often many are interested in the topics taught in school, yet when it comes to exams, there is too much to memorise and it kills their love for the subject almost instantly. What needs to be rethought is the method in which we deliver history lessons to our children.
For most students, history is an unending catalogue of dates, names, people and events passed down through school textbooks. “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon,” said Napoleon Bonaparte, yet it is seldom questioned. As a subject, it needs an extra effort from the teacher’s side to kindle interest in students.
Here are a few tips that educators worldwide have developed to make learning history an enjoyable and fruitful exercise.
Acting out is a good way to remember events and people
Children can be asked to prepare and summarise a historical event and act it out in class. This helps improve their understanding of the event. Seeing it enacted live in class will aid them to retain it in their memory in a way better than if it were merely read out of a textbook and explained. Additionally, the use of props can help liven up the class and engage the students in a better way. The end of the class should promote questions and discussion on the event. This could make history classes one which children look forward to.
Encourage well-rounded discussions on topics
Get children to prepare on a topic in advance. One set of students can speak for the topic and one set can speak against the topic, thereby having a well-rounded debate. More often than not, our textbooks fail to provide that as they cover just one side of the story. Open discussions help gain a better perspective on the subject taught.
Employ secondary books
Relying on a single textbook and syllabus will not help the deeper cause of learning and understanding history. Most often, prescribed textbooks are syllabus-oriented and leave out some background facts about certain events and people which can be of value to students of history. In fact, employing other reference books, autobiographies and biographies and even using fiction books that are time-lined in a certain era of history can help learn history better. Teachers can give the students a list of reference books that are available in the library or online before starting a lesson. Or she/he can divide the class into study groups and get each group to gather information from a certain source and share it with the class.
Make history relatable
History is a subject that presents itself as difficult because students cannot relate to most of the content taught. The first thing that a teacher can do is make it relatable by narrating a similar story that is happening in the present or something that occurred in the near past.
Use music, recordings, documentaries and films to stimulate senses
Frequently using various media to give students a glimpse of what may have happened in the past is always a good idea. Often, reading a textbook may be a mundane task that can be assigned to them to do at home. Teachers can adopt other methods to teach history in class. Screening documentaries and films can make students more sensitive to the topics taught. This will also help them retain the information longer. While some historical films have excellent content, they could be emotionally heavy for some children, so teachers should exercise discretion while showing such content on screen.
Field trip to the museum
Take your students on a field trip to the museum. Even if it is not related to the topic to be taught, the experience of being in a museum and listening to an expert speaking on the subject can help induce curiosity among students about the past.
Explain the reason why we need to know history
Knowing history helps us understand the world we live in, the way of living in different countries and why certain rules and laws prevail in society. Students often don’t understand why they have to learn history or what good it will do them in future. For example, as Indians, we should know about India’s struggle for Independence as it will render a sense of patriotism and love for our nation. We need to know the people who fought and laid down their lives for the cause. As the world is becoming smaller, knowing history will help in our interactions with people from different cultures. Knowing history in imperative to judge wisely. An understanding of past behaviours can help us make decisions on the present without bias. History can help understand change. Knowing history can help a person embrace change, and the need for change and development, far better than someone who is unaware of it.
History is full of drama, action, love, betrayal and emotions. If taught the right way, it can be a subject that students will love. When you make history interesting, children will be motivated to learn and have a deeper understanding of their past. Children should understand that history is open to interpretation and that they can challenge and question what they learn. A good teacher should facilitate that. Teachers should strive to connect history to today and stress on the importance of how people can learn from their past mistakes for, inevitably, History repeats itself!
The wide and wonderful subject of history deserves to be taught interestingly and with fresh methods that are not an age-old repetition of yesteryears.
This story features in our October 2017 issue.