Why Most People Think Memorizing Historical Facts is Useless (and Why It Isn’t)

21–22 of 22 posts

Re: Why Most People Think Memorizing Historical Facts is Useless (and Why It Isn’t)

#21

Post by Groxx » Wed, Feb 10, 2010, 2:08 AM UTC

johnswamps wrote: post #2

The article's argument seems to be semantical in nature. I don't think many people would argue that learning about history is useless. The author and I hold the exact same beliefs -- knowing that the Pilgrims landed in American in 1690 is useless, but knowing why they left, the rough state of colonization in America at the time, etc. is useful. But when people refer to "historical facts", they think of the former. It…

There's a good reason for the former definition of "fact".

It's what you're tested on in school.

My personal favorite history book of all time is "Japanese Culture", because it's not a typical "school history textbook" that has just name, date, and event. It's not about who conquered whom, and on what day and time it happened. It's about why X was a successful conquerer, and what happened to the place afterwards, things that actually bear significance through history and have left their mark on the society.

isbn: 0824821521 if anyone is interested.

Re: Why Most People Think Memorizing Historical Facts is Useless (and Why It Isn’t)

#22

Post by rfghjhbg » Wed, Feb 10, 2010, 5:16 AM UTC

flogic wrote: post #20

Confusion wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two problems with this approach: 1) A practical one: suppose you would be lenient on a test and allowed the students to be 5 years off. How much would that change? How many students are actually only a few years off? Is 5 years reasonable or should they be allowed to be 7 years off? What about the situation where a set of events are closer in time than your deviation? 2) One from generalization: if you have t…

That's what happens if you teach the facts devoid of the relations. The history classes where they taught relations I got something out of. The others are just useless footnotes in my education.

There's a great parody of this kind of teaching by Mark Steele (UK Broadcaster).

Teacher> What did the Vikings come in?

Student>Ships miss?

Teacher>Wrong

Student>Long boats?

Teacher>No they came in hoards, that's what it says in the book

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