BuddyPress.org

If you are a teacher, it can be hard to make the subject material interesting for your students. It can be even harder to make your subject material interesting if you are a history teacher. Most students tend to tune out when they hear history, and even I have been bored by a few history teachers in my day. That might not be a shock, but I love history, and even I was bored by some of the ways it was presented. So how do you make history fun?

You have to make history come alive in a sense. You have to be able to show kids that the history lessons they are getting actually mean something to the present. Most kids assume that what was in the past is in the past. However, that is certainly not true at all, and to make history fun you have to make history relevant for your students. Like the saying goes, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

A good teacher will show how the history of something effects the present day. For example, there are many reasons why Barack Obama becoming president was a historical event. Obama was our first black president, and to some that might not matter. However, why was Obama the first black president? Why did it take so long for that to happen? Did we have something against black men leading the country?

Well, if you knew the history behind it you would realize that for significant periods of time there were groups who had something against blacks. Whether it be whites using them as slaves, or then keeping them down after the time of slavery, there are many reasons why it was so long before a black man became president of the United States. Knowing the history of the country puts the events of the day in perspective.

If you don’t teach kids the history of the nation, what good does it do us to celebrate the strides that we have made? If we forget our history, we are ignorant of the future, and how we can possibly change it. Learning history means we learn what we have done right, and what we have done wrong. History is more than a series of events that happened before today, and a good teacher is quick to point that out.

History is a fascinating thing in that no matter what happened in the past, it can always be revised in the future. History is a subjective things, and is constantly being revised to suit the times, and the information that we gather in the present. History is a lot of fun, and a good teacher will bring those good qualities out.