I wrote the following for our Middle School Newsletter:
As a History teacher, I am always interested to hear about the different experiences people have with studying History. During parent-teacher interviews, some parents shared with me that History bored them to tears because they were forced to rote learn endless streams of dates and facts. Others told me how much they loved History all through High School and that they still read History books and watch many documentaries. It is hard to pinpoint exactly where a love of History is fostered, but one thing is clear to me; an interest in History does not come from dry facts and figures, it comes from the compelling stories, different perspectives, and the problems of interpretation. In the Middle School, we try to foster this love of History by picking evocative time periods like the Roman Empire, Ancient China, the Renaissance, the Spanish conquest of the Americas and World War 1. For each unit, we identify key conceptual and debateable questions which get to the heart of problems of perspective and interpretation. Some examples of these questions are: What caused the break-up of the Roman Empire? What different perspectives can we take when studying the end of an empire? Why did Ancient Chinese civilisations fail to advance with Europe despite earlier success? Does power always lead to success and progress? Did the best minds live in Renaissance Europe? Can a single person change the world? Does Australia have a tendency to overstate the significance of military battles? Middle School students are taught to produce well-considered and thoughtful responses to these big questions which have been formulated specifically to be as ‘ungoogleable’ as possible. By studying History in a critical and inquiring manner, we encourage habits of minds in our students which allow them to recognise different sides of the story, to understand the context of important events, and to be able to apply this historical thinking to other unfamiliar situations and new challenges. We believe that History becomes exciting and interesting when stories, perspectives and interpretations are ‘problematised’, rather than being presented as accepted facts. The past is not just a litany of mistakes and disasters, it is also full of solutions for the future which we can apply to our current society. Through the study of History, we hope that Middle School students develop into open-minded thinkers who recognise different perspectives and who are able to apply some of the lessons learnt from the past.
Part of my thinking on History was inspired by Alain de Botton’s video from “The School of Life”: “What’s the point of History”