Wow — an excellent post on the state of history education today. As a professional historian and a history-museum-educator, we see this when visitors talk about how they hated history in high school, but love learning about history in our museums and historic sites. Why? Because we tell stories. We make it relevant, real and human. History isn’t about filling in bubbles on a test.
Thanks, History Tech, and Thanks, Indiana Jen for reblogging it so I saw it.
About 15 years ago, I had the chance to drive James Loewen around for a couple of days. He was in town for a two day workshop and afterwards had to get to Kansas City for a flight. As his chauffeur, I got the chance to pepper him with all sorts of questions. And much of what I wanted to know revolved around his most recent book at the time, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.
I was especially curious about the first few sentences in the book:
High school students hate history. When they list their favorite subjects, history always comes in last. They consider it “the most irrelevant” of 21 school subjects, not applicable to life today. “Boring” is the adjective they apply to it. When they can, they avoid it . . .
Once I got him started, Loewen went…
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My Wired Life 