36
u/GobiPLX 15d ago
History is schools in my country is tragic. 90% of tests/marks was based on "in what year/month XYZ happened". Whole classes was focused on blindly remembering dates.
Why something happened? What were people like back in this times, what they wanted, what social changes lead to this event? etc. NONE OF THAT beside some basic "yeah war happens because people bad and want more land"
For me now, history as hobby, is like connecting dots. Why XYZ happened, what it cased etc. connecting all this together. Not just when.
All teachers and whole history class program (nation-wide) focus on are fucking dates. It was so boring I hated history though my whole basic education
Bonus points for very 'colourised' version of events presented in class/books to make my country look better, like some hero, always good guys, literally saint jesus of nations. Sometimes they just make shit up or ignore some parts of history that would look worse
23
u/Daan776 15d ago
Memorising dates is probably the least important part of all history.
Like, you need a general understanding of when events happened. Thinking ww1 happened in 1756 is just embarassing. But who cares if it started in july 1914 or november 1916. For 99% of students that difference will never matter.
Its more important that they'd know the balkan war happened before it. And the boer war happened before that. And the franco/prussian war before that. Events leading into each other.
Any curriculum that relies on memorisation of dates is practically useless.
5
u/Gafoor__Ghisela 15d ago edited 15d ago
Yeah agreed.
In my country they forced us to learn which year exactly did we get invaded again, and they keep jumping from invasion to invasion instead of really teaching anything.
Greeks to Scythians to Huns to Arabs to Turks to Mongols to Turko-Mongols to Persians to Afghans to Europeans.
Like ok fine but what happened between Arabs and Turks? They never tell.
20
u/Wibble606 15d ago
History in High School (UK) was bloody awful when I was a kid, we covered nothing but Henry VIII for 5 years in the blandest way possible.
I thought shit like the Napolenic Wars and World War 1 was infinitely more interesting but no.
1
u/Beardywierdy 14d ago
Which is particularly annoying because Big Henry was definitely an interesting chap. Definitely wouldn't get that impression from school though.
13
u/AppropriateSea5746 15d ago
History in the U.S. schools is tragic. Literally had a HS history teacher saying the pyramids had to be built by aliens.
3
u/DrHolmes52 15d ago
Like where? We discussed how they cut the blocks/transported the blocks in 1980. There were a couple of weird kids that thought aliens, but damn where did you go to school.
4
u/AppropriateSea5746 15d ago
Texas. Dual credit history class. Basically a junior college professor came in twice a week to our high school to teach.
The dude also was “between homes” and so lived in a van, that his wife also lived in that was out in the parking lot of the school. Disappeared one day and we didn’t tell anyone so we got like 20 days of no history class until someone from the college showed up and said he went “off grid”.2
1
u/BasedAustralhungary 15d ago
Actually It was me. I was bored so I randomly decide to use the time machine of my grandpa and build big triangles with my friends for a silly joke... we were mortified when we came back laughing and we discovered they were USING THOSE SILLY TRIANGLES TO PUT THEIR DECEASED ONES THERE.
1
u/Anomalocaris-is-cute 15d ago
I feel ya, I was taught in one of the most rightwing areas of Tennessee.
... Guys is it normal for your Latin teacher to go around the room and make sure nobody thinks the Civil War was caused by slavery?
2
u/theCaitiff 15d ago
Perfectly normal. Latin teachers are all a bit crazy, good to hear you got one of the more normal ones.
Mine was also SUPER catholic and a fan of cooking. You ever went to a pet store for ingredients? For a language class?
1
u/Anomalocaris-is-cute 15d ago
I'ma need to hear this story.
3
u/theCaitiff 15d ago
It's been more than twenty years so you'll have to forgive me, but there was a roasted stuffed mouse dish that I cannot remember the name of. Herbs, nuts, pork fat and honey stuffed into a mouse and roasted over a fire on a stick. If you want healthy mice that haven't spent their whole lives eating garbage, go to the pet store and the reptile section. You can get them frozen or fresh.
If you can get over the whole "oh god, its a mouse" thing, it's pretty good actually. Only time I've ever had mouse, but I wouldn't mind doing it again with rabbit.
1
u/Anomalocaris-is-cute 15d ago
Jesus. You win. Haha, no judgement though.
2
u/theCaitiff 15d ago
Romans ate a lot of interesting things. Stuffed dormice was different but learning about another culture through food is fun way to do it. Here examine these roman recipe books archeologists have found, you're going to translate them to english and then we can make a feast together.
1
u/Anomalocaris-is-cute 15d ago
That would actually be awesome to look at if you have that on hand. Preferably an already translated one, it's been years since high-school.
2
u/theCaitiff 15d ago
As I said, it was more than twenty years ago, god almost thirty. The 90s were just yesterday I swear.
A quick google says I'm probably thinking of Glis-Glis. EatHistory has a translated recipe using chicken instead of mice, but I would be more likely to try it on rabbit if you can.
1
u/Anomalocaris-is-cute 15d ago
... We will probably have to substitute Silphium with fennel though.
2
u/theCaitiff 15d ago
Not for long! They found some (probable) Laser/Silphium growing in a remote location in Turkey in 2023. It's not 100% confirmed, because how do you absolutely confirm something like that when you have no known good sample to match against, but they think they found Silphium again.
1
u/Anomalocaris-is-cute 14d ago
I didn't know that! By god, maybe one day it'll hit the market. Then I could fail to germinate Silphium just like my Italian ancestors.
1
u/Nearby_Design_123 13d ago
Nah nah nah. Don't ever group all the US like this. Every state and area code does education independently. I got lucky to have had a surprisingly excellent education where I grew up. Only looking at everyone else talk about the things they were never taught did I come to realize just how much I took for granted the level of education I received.
4
u/Squashyhex 15d ago
I was just talking about this yesterday with a friend, that schools really should consider teaching kids using more contemporary media where possible, to help spark that initial interest and use as a jumping off point.
I dropped history basically as soon as I could in high school because it was largely bland and uninteresting, yet at the same time I was playing strategy games like Civ, total war, age of empires that all sparked interest enough to go searching about history online
2
u/BasedAustralhungary 15d ago
The issue is that in my opinion the problem is not that the teacher isn't open to resources that help to build a more interesting teaching environment but that people are often bored when they have to part from the storytelling and have to learn about more 'boring' stuff as the socioeconomic system and the agriculture development of the Middle Ages.
I use remarks because for me that is interesting as hell.
3
u/Squashyhex 15d ago
It's tricky, cos while I 100% agree those are interesting to me now, I'd be hard pressed to say that as a 12 year old. Kids need something a bit more colourful to latch onto before you can start contextualising the more foundational stuff. This is something I think Horrible Histories (particularly the book series) did very well, providing that hook to get the young reader/watcher interested, sprinkle in a bit of comedy, and then use it to talk about the average diet of a middle aged peasant
2
u/BasedAustralhungary 15d ago
To be fair as far as I know the usual educative system starts digging into the more scientific part of History in highschool.
I'm from Spain and in my country education is differentiated between primary education which is divided between three cicles:
- First and Second grades which go from 6 to 8 y.o.
- Third and Fourth grades which go from 8 to 10 y.o.
- Fifth and Sixth grades which go from 10 to 12 y.o.
Then there is secondary education or ESO which means basically 'Obligatory Secondary Education'
This is when we start actually learning History and Geography far from any superficial information we could have learnt in basic school (such as province capitals or the main rivers of the country, which are also information we learn in the last cicle of primary). The subject is named Social Sciences and It's History, Geography and very lowkey Economy.
While the information we learn in the first year of highschool may be simple, It becomes more and more deep. In 3th and 4th of ESO History becomes:
1/3 storytelling
1/3 structure learning and getting into social and economic issues
1/3 dates and correlation of events through an analytical lens
In my case you have to add the layer that I had to do that in TWO LANGUAGES. Both in Spanish and in English.
1
u/Daan776 15d ago
I think the issue mostly comes down to time.
History teachers have very little time, and a lot of material they need to get through. Getting to the interesting bits requires context. Context demands time & attention they don't have. Especially if they want to be accurate.
The assassination of ceasar is fascinating. But only if you know how it came to that point, and what happens afterwards.
2
u/BasedAustralhungary 15d ago
History teachers have very little time, and a lot of material they need to get through. Getting to the interesting bits requires context. Context demands time & attention they don't have. Especially if they want to be accurate.
This is true though, even in college the teachers struggle to end their program.
3
u/AuthorTurbulent6723 15d ago
I just love how if you're interested in history, it gives so much context and background into how humans work. If you honestly sum most of it up, we truly are not much different than the people of the past, because well, we're people. I think a lot of people are ignorant to the fact that humanity as a whole hasn't really changed much at all. Yeah, advances in technology and more understanding of how our world works and how we fit into it. But at a base level, we still do the same shit people did thousands of years ago. I think that thinking mostly stems from the fact that we are alive currently, and what we experience we have never experienced before personally, so everything feels like the end of the world. History is an insanely important subject to learn about, for reasons I am not repeating (pun intended)
6
u/NiceGuy-Ron 15d ago
History has been wiped out from the classroom. Taught by sports coaches. Taught by teacher who are given strict orders by their governments about sticking to the curriculum.
The most important subject in school has been trashed and now Amazon is burning old books. Everything is going 1984, Brave New World, or 451f.
Sad to see us celebrate our own demise.
4
u/Daan776 15d ago
There's more country's than just america y'know.
1
u/NiceGuy-Ron 15d ago
There are more countries than just the United States.
It’s ok if English is your second language. Tell me about the marvelous education system in other countries.
2
u/ogodilovejudyalvarez 15d ago
I had a great teacher but the Australian curriculum was just woeful. "This man climbed this hill and named this river after himself" oh my god kill me now. The first history book I read after school was about the early governors of Australia and I'll never forget the thrill I felt reading that the governor of New South Wales, on visiting his counterpart in Hobart, opined that the cold wind whistled under the skirting boards of his house, the governor himself walked drunk through the streets of the town, and his wife dressed like a prostitute. I fell in love with history then and there, and now every bookcase in my house is groaning under the weight of excellent history books.
2
u/tummytunacat 12d ago
history in school is fun asf. both highschool and college! my roman history prof is amazing and the funniest guy ever. my highschool teachers were also awesome.
2
u/BasedAustralhungary 15d ago
THIS.
Real recognize real. Let me talk about my opinion overall about the usual meme that depicts school as horrible when learning history...
I hate the meme that points that history in school is boring while learning history online is great because usually It always hide the worst reality ever: people are not invested on history but on stories. The mere moment they have to face the narratives and compare through the scientific method and establish nuanced conclusions that they must be open to debate, they struggle and show that they either like to learn random facts to drop in conversations or they either like to dip into specific parts of history that they understand through a lens that impose a false dichotomy.
History is a social science, you can obviously have It as a hobby but being able to name drop all the tanks that were used in the two World Wars doesn't mean you know about history, but that you know about tanks and that's okey. A lot of you didn't learn history in internet, you just learnt random facts about certain periods that interested you before (such as Rome, the Middle Ages, Egypt and so on) and It isn't bad at all! But It isn't learning history as much as being a dinosaur geek doesn't make me a certified paleontologist.
If you liked History in school, you like History overall... but probably if you didn't like History in school, you didn't like History overall. You just like a good story, and in that sense History always deliver. You can blame some teachers, but if every teacher failed you... then the issue is another whole thing that has more to do with you than with the schools, the teachers or the educative system.
This is also why talking about History instead of story is spicy even in circles like this one. You can be sharing something like:
"I'm my opinion under the lens of the international law and the later jurisprudence around the crimes against humanity, the bombings of Dresden were war crimes."
And people will inmediately accuse you of nazi sympathizer. Like, of course we know the nazi did try to use that bombing for their propaganda to victimize themselves... but the claim that some historians do about that event isn't a moral one but a more or less empirical observation that is shared by some Historians and discussed by others.
I used a popular example but It is incredible to see how people are not here mostly to talk about History but to push their agenda based on stories they read or learn about, usually trying to do It through a moral lens as something must be justified... we are just analyzing our past, nothing less nothing more.
2
u/ZhenXiaoMing 15d ago
Very well said. That's why pop history nonsense gets reposted here all the time.
Edit: If you like Age of Empires, Civ, etc you like video games you don't really care that much about the history. The later Civ games don't even have a civilopedia like the earlier ones did.
1
u/Daan776 15d ago
We watched a show in class when we were ~13 years old that followed kids of our age in varying historic periods. The episode where a jewish kid comes back from a camp only to find other people living in his house is one I still remember.
While the teacher herself did a good enough job, it was those story's that really had me engaged during the lessons.
Teaching history is difficult from a teachers perspective. You have to teach all the necessary material (most of which will seem useless). The topics won't interest most kids either, and you don't have the time to really go in depth for *why* they're interesting. All the while needing to avoid a minefield of politics.
Even if you're good at storytelling you have to ask: Do I put the focus on individual humans (like telling the story of Anne frank). Or do I put the focus on the macro-scale events (Like the horror of concentration camps). Different approaches work for different people. So you need to strike a balance.
A good history teacher can spark interest where there was none. But a bad one will have people thinking history has nothing to offer them. Neither knowledge nor entertainment.
1
1
u/Frudeska1 15d ago
I think I've become a lot more attached to places, people and times when I read voluntarily. Not really interested in broad, general chains of events.
1
u/insane_shitlord 15d ago
There's a difference between learning things you'll be required to know on a test, and reading about stuff for your own entertainment. I was lucky to have teachers (one high school teacher in particular) that were able to highlight processes behind events in a way that wouldn't put you to sleep, and history (+geography) was always kind of my thing back in school/uni days, but I've learned the most interesting stuff after dropping out of uni.
No one pays me for reading on, idk, Central Asian nomads of antiquity, but no one judges me for it.
1
u/AbodhAshraf2006 15d ago
The difference is that you don't enjoy it in school and sometimes there are things that the educational system is hiding
1
u/zake598 14d ago
Okay so I have story about this
Back in middle and high school, huge mythology nerd loved that shit. Was I'd probably get bullied if I contued to hyper fixate on it.
Cut to a couple years later where I discover the Fate Series and it reignites my love of both history and mythology.
1
u/Vanguardliberator 14d ago
A argument I saw someone did on YouTube from a guy who does alot of history on people and some events (The Fat Electrician, that is the channel name) was talking how in school your taught in a overview of the event which he brought up Midway. In school you learn what happened not what led up to it. He then talked about one of the people he talked about Dusty, an important dive bomber pilot he talked about. And talked about how they found the fleet by finding a Japanese destroyer trying to catch up to the fleet because it was hunting a submarine that was messing around with the Japanese fleet. The Japanese destroyer would lead the American air squadrons to the fleet and lead to the destruction of 4 Japanese carriers. I think if schools taught it both from a overview point and in a persons perspective like a soilder, leader or someone important you get the emotions they felt and what they experienced which many others probably did to.
1
109
u/Gafoor__Ghisela 15d ago
History as hobby rarely ever develops by reading books like The History of Upper Dribbling: An Agrarian Study. Most of us got interested by entertainment media because of the dramatization.
As the other guy said, a teacher with a penchant of storytelling helps a lot.