Education Matters

Children love history, but only if it is taught well.

If it becomes a process of regurgitating meaningless facts then it is useless, but if those facts are applied and turned into practical activities, history can come alive at which point it is much more likely to be understood. 

For me, those light-bulb moment come when children suddenly understand why a person in history acted the way they did are wonderful. This is one of the reasons teachers need to make as many lessons as possible practical.

Experience brings about understanding, and lively activities that explain history can lead to a love of the subject. Squeezing children into cardboard chimneys (to show what life was like for a Victorian chimney sweep), segregating them by the number of letters in their name (to bring home the horrors of discrimination) or playing ‘life and death’ hide and seek (with Bloody Mary’s Tudor reformers hunting Protestants to burn at the stake) gives pupils a practical understanding of history at a deeper level.

Children get practical history because the experience is real. Let’s take the Romans, for example. They invaded, conquered and settled in the UK, but how did that feel for the native Britons?

I remember seeing a Year 6 teacher figuring that the best way for her class to understand this was to experience it. And, so they did. In collusion with her likeminded Year 3 colleague, at the end of lunch time she kept her class out in the playground on the pretense of looking for a missing glove.

Meanwhile, her colleague, with whom she had furtively swapped teaching books and possessions, got on with her lesson in the other class’s room. When her pupils came in they were horrified to discover that their classroom had been ‘conquered’.

The outrage increased when the conquerors explained that they had taken the room because theirs was too small and ours had more windows. “That’s not fair!” was heard many times as they trudged into her colleague’s classroom with its smaller chairs and ‘easy’ reading books.

The grumbles soon turned to a heartfelt discussion about how it felt to be invaded. They then discussed their options. They could fight for it (discouraged by the teacher - although it was explained that Boudicca amongst others had done this), negotiate to get it back, or share it.

As the discussion went on, the teacher steered the children towards the real conquered Britons, what they had done and how they had coped. It was clear that deep-seated learning was taking place. This lesson provided a fantastic starting point for further studies.

The rest of the topic concentrated on how much life changed from the Britons’ point of view and the class was more inclined, indeed eager, to focus on it. Teaching is a creative job, when it is done well.

Sadly, it is more often than not focused on levels and grades attained at the end of the year since this is the benchmark of success.  In my opinion however, instilling an ongoing love of learning will lead on to good grades naturally and the best way to do this is to be innovative in the classroom.