From the Editor

Twice a month, Jamie Keddie sends out the LessonStream Post – a story or storytelling idea for the classroom. It's free to sign up and you can do so here: https://lessonstream.com

Here is an example of what you might get.

 

Mr H

I used to have a history teacher called Mr H (not real name). He was an older gentleman and unfortunately for us, he wasn’t the most charismatic teacher we ever had.

Mr H wasn’t a bad man. He just lacked a passion for teaching. And if he had ever had a passion for his subject, he did a good job of concealing it from us.

On Friday afternoons, the only thing that stood between us and the weekend was a back-to-back session with Mr H. This could be a painful experience for all of us – not least for our teacher.

Mr H was fond of a certain audio-visual resource that was created for history teachers in British schools the 1980s. This was long before computers and the internet. So allow me to explain how it worked.
 

Is this visual vital?

Mr H would set up a hand-controlled slide projector at the back of the class. It would beam black and white images onto a pull-down screen at the front. These would be accompanied by the voices of the narrator, historians and eyewitnesses – all talking about whichever war or revolution we were studying at the time.

Voices were always male. And every now and again, there would be a short gap between them followed by a “beep”. This was the signal for our teacher to change the slide.

Sometimes, we would hear the beep but there would be no change of slide. Then another beep. And another. And still the slide would not change.

Slowly, you would turn around and see the reason for the stuck slide: Mr H, would be asleep at his post – his head leaning against the wall at the back of the class and his mouth gaping open.

We would amuse ourselves by counting how many beeps he would miss. I think we once got to twelve. When he eventually woke up, he would frantically move through the slides, desperate to find the correct place. But his attempts were always futile – he would never know if he had gone too far into the slideshow or not far enough.

The result was yet more comedy. Imagine looking at a picture of an old farmer with his pig while listening to someone talk about the horrors of the Battle of the Somme.

Poor Mr H. He seemed like an amicable man. But he just didn't instil any enthusiasm for the subject in us. And this is a shame because history is such a fantastic subject.

To study history is to study people, societies, politics, cultures, religions, ideologies, geography and technology. To understand history is to appreciate that we are all products of the stories that we have been subjected to. And to use history is to make connections between past and present and recognise patterns in human behaviour. Indeed, George Santayana’s famous aphorism is as relevant now as it has ever been:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Last week, I went live on YouTube to explore how the teaching of history has changed since I was at school. On Tuesday, I will be repeating the event. This time I will be joined by Anthony Hocking – a LessonStream member and a passionate teacher of history.


History anyone?

During this session, we will explore techniques and approaches that good history teachers use to generate interest and get their students involved in the subject.

We will also consider what English teachers can learn from this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oWut6z8kag