History is Fun

I remember when I first told people that I was going to teach history I usually got the same reaction:

OH my, I HATED history.

Most of the time people complain about the dates and the facts and the boring lectures and readings. SOMEtimes you would hear about that ONE history teacher. I would always desperately ask them for some memory explaining why they thought it was so "fun".

I've taught history for three years now and I have never stopped considering that question . In a manner of speaking they're referring to teacher's that make the history connect with their students (teaching with relevance) , which is by definition, a good teacher.

However, what it also can mean is that the class will be dominated by "fun" topics like... Who really killed JFK, or what kind of gun did Aaron Burr use to kill Alexander Hamilton. The story of individuals, doing interesting and unusual things, with little discussion of how it relates to the "big picture".

When I first started teaching AP US History I realized that the program has little concern for these novelties. By Christmas I was up to my neck in facts about farmers, tariffs, labor unions, and diplomatic policy. Even the final seriously "fun" topic: battles of war is all but absent from the curriculum.

There are a lot of students that get disappointed that my class isn't more like the history channel. It's a shame too because if they were willing to stick around for something that wasn't immediately entertaining they might get a chance to see the world differently. History will take us a little work to get to.

Do you remember magic eyes? You know, the picture you have to stare at for 6 minutes before you can see the hidden picture. This, I believe is the true nature of good history. It's not the flashy picture that catches your eye in the movie trailer. Nor is it in the heartrenching death scene at the end of a Band of Brothers episode.

Usually history can be found in the middle of some "boring" text book that has a graph or two. Like a magic eye, it takes some discipline, but when you see it, I believe it really can be fun, relevant, and most importantly helpful for our futures. When you see some of the complexity and the determinates of change, you get to observe some of the powerful forces at play. It helps us understand the world better and finally, ourselves.

In this way, history has to be at first boring, to become fun.