David McCullough on the "history gap" • Hacker News Board

Re: David McCullough on the "history gap"

#21

Post by mgkimsal » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 9:25 PM UTC

I remember discussing this with a friend over 20 years ago when we were just starting college. Our thought then was that "social studies" and "history" classes we'd had were, for the most part, garbage. Didn't matter what year/class it was, you'd inevitably end up at the end of the semester with about 3 days left and everything from the US Civil War to modern times to skip over.

Every year a different teacher would ask us about something from early 20th century, and we'd say we never learned that. Cause we hadn't. I had three different classes between middle and high school that kept covering the same historical periods (poorly) and the teachers mostly weren't really interested in it anyway.

I certainly can't imagine that institutionally things have gotten better. What I do envy now is kids who have the whole world at their fingertips, but I suspect the majority of them aren't being exposed to the learning and information potential available. They're just playing xbox and posting on myspace/facebook, like everyone else.

Re: David McCullough on the "history gap"

#22

Post by Andrew_Quentin » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 11:19 PM UTC

enemieslist wrote: post #16

I'm a history teacher, with Master's degrees in both History and Education, and what McCullough says here deeply resonates with me. History, though, is only part of what you are concerned with, as a high school teacher, and increasingly it is not the most important. Take, for example, my student teaching experience. When I asked a supervisor whether I should focus on Industrialization or Urbanization, or whether I wo…

Well, I guess you were taught to bullshit well too. If the kids at the time don't know why they are learning something, they find out when they grow up.

If you are teaching them English writing, then perhaps that is a fault with you, your school, or something else.

Regardless, you still do teach them about what you said so your rant really makes little sense to me.

Re: David McCullough on the "history gap"

#23

Post by Andrew_Quentin » Sun, Jun 19, 2011, 11:23 PM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #21

I remember discussing this with a friend over 20 years ago when we were just starting college. Our thought then was that "social studies" and "history" classes we'd had were, for the most part, garbage. Didn't matter what year/class it was, you'd inevitably end up at the end of the semester with about 3 days left and everything from the US Civil War to modern times to skip over. Every year a different teacher would a…

I guess you know most of the history now though. I wonder how that happened?

See, memories are bad too :P

Re: David McCullough on the "history gap"

#24

Post by whatusername » Mon, Jun 20, 2011, 1:16 AM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #9

amcintyre wrote: post #7

> Mr. McCullough's eyebrows leap at his final point: "And they're so badly written. They're boring! Historians are never required to write for people other than historians." In my opinion, this is probably the biggest problem. History was almost always presented to me as a desiccated list of facts, dates, and sanitized "causes of events" that needed to be memorized so you could pass the test and move on. Few teachers…

The way I was taught history (in Australia), it could have used a whole lot more lists of facts and dates. Case in point: World War One. We spent weeks on that war. But we didn't learn how it started, or how it ended, or exactly who were the belligerents on both sides, or the key battles, or how it was eventually won. Instead we mostly sat around and read about how awful life was in the trenches for the soldiers -- s…

But we learned how WW1 started. It was when those arrogant/bumbling British generals sent in the brave ANZAC forces and despite the poor leadership - through the power of mateship and a donkey - they won the great military victory at Gallipoli.

Re: David McCullough on the "history gap"

#25

Post by mgkimsal » Mon, Jun 20, 2011, 2:47 AM UTC

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #23

mgkimsal wrote: post #21

I remember discussing this with a friend over 20 years ago when we were just starting college. Our thought then was that "social studies" and "history" classes we'd had were, for the most part, garbage. Didn't matter what year/class it was, you'd inevitably end up at the end of the semester with about 3 days left and everything from the US Civil War to modern times to skip over. Every year a different teacher would a…

I guess you know most of the history now though. I wonder how that happened? See, memories are bad too :P

I know a lot more than I was taught, because I went and read up on it myself. I didn't do it all in school - mostly later and as an adult. However, I think I largely got a love of learning outside the classroom - very few teachers actually sparked any interest in learning, regardless of the subject.