Why Do Students Hate History Classes?
“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
― Socrates
“We should not teach children the sciences; but give them the taste for them.
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“Were all instructors to realize that the quality of mental process, not the production of correct answers, is the measure of educative growth something hardly less than a revolution in teaching would be worked.”
― John Dewey
The secret to great teaching is not new. It has been out there for over 2000 years. We talk about engaging our students in the learning process, but how many teachers actually do it? Why are so many teachers and administrators still obsessed with producing correct answers instead of kindling a flame?
I began my teaching career in 1971. My elementary school was the latest and greatest new thing, a pod school with each pod containing 180+ students and six teachers. We were innovative and creative. Our students were working way above grade level and were enjoying school. They were engaged in the learning process. Every year the teaching and learning just got better and better.
The school board could not handle the lack of uniformity in the district’s elementary schools. Our school especially was not in the mainstream. The board decided all schools in the district would return to the state issued textbooks and teach identical curriculums. We replaced our collection of novels with Basal readers. We replaced our science equipment and experiments with science workbooks. Every subject went from exciting to boring. Student learning and engagement plummeted. I looked for another innovative and creative school. When I could not find one, I quit teaching and bought a business.
Fortune led me to a private high school some 20 years later. I installed a computer network and eventually a 1-to-1 laptop program. That’s when I was asked to go back to teaching. Once again I found a school that embraced innovation. Once again I reaffirmed that the same formula used by Socrates, Rousseau and Dewey still works. Computers and the internet make it so much more exciting. The knowledge available out there, the research possibilities; they make discovery learning so easy to accomplish.
One thing I do is ask my students is for feedback, lots of feedback. It keep them and me focused on our purpose and goals. I have included this end of the year feedback from one of my students to show what she believes she learned in my U.S. History class.
I was never a really big fan of history, but your classes changed that. I was always excited going into your class, even when it meant joining Zoom at 8 in the morning. You made the classes fun and entertaining and you always somehow connected it to the present and/or made us realize why it was important to know the information we were learning. One of the biggest reasons I liked your class is because it made us think. A lot of classes just attempt to jam information in our brain, but yours got us to think about questions like “why did this or that happen,” “how does this affect our society,” and “what was it like in their shoes?” It made us create our own opinions rather than rambling on about the facts and the facts alone. I’ll definitely take that way of looking at information with me wherever I go on my next journey. In addition, I’ll keep the jokes, lessons, and stories engraved in my head, too.
Dewey talks about the quality of the mental process. Learning from textbooks, memorizing and regurgitating information, is on the bottom rung of the mental process. Teachers must focus on teaching students how to learn. If students learn how to learn, they will be able to learn whatever they want to learn and will become truly engaged in the learning process.
