28 replies to this topic

[SNK_1408]

Do you currently live in Australia? If so, where?

HappyHistorian and I meet occasionally. We met this afternoon. I would like to organise a CHF get together downunder.

Well, I currently at Melbourne right now.
Occasionally I've travel to Sydney to see my parent.

[Silverstone]

My experience in History classes were, are, and will be interesting.

I don't know about the teaching methods out in other countries, but in my school, teachers use a variety of methods to sparkle our interest in the subject. Watching historical movies and videos seemed to appeal to the students more, rather than listen to lectures and memorising notes. We can spend a whole lesson or two watching a historical movie and in the end, students still learn something out of it. We also have "role-playing" conducted in class, where the class will be divided into 6 groups and put up a short skit on a certain historical event. We had to conduct research on that historical event before presenting our item to the rest of the class, and this enriches our knowledge and makes learning fun. Different groups will get different historical events to put up a skit on, to ensure that the whole clas learns something out of watching all the 6 performances.

In school, our teacher focuses more of the skills needed to a historian rather than spending time memorising notes. Debates are conducted in history classes, like "Who is the founder of blah blah...?" and we had to support our stands with evidences. History classes also bring out the oratorical side of me, and equip me with a philosophical mind. People from other schools envy my experience, but of course, when exams are approaching, the notes have to be whipped out...

I would say that history has been successfully taught in my country.

[HappyHistorian]

My experience in History classes were, are, and will be interesting.

I don't know about the teaching methods out in other countries, but in my school, teachers use a variety of methods to sparkle our interest in the subject. Watching historical movies and videos seemed to appeal to the students more, rather than listen to lectures and memorising notes. We can spend a whole lesson or two watching a historical movie and in the end, students still learn something out of it. We also have "role-playing" conducted in class, where the class will be divided into 6 groups and put up a short skit on a certain historical event. We had to conduct research on that historical event before presenting our item to the rest of the class, and this enriches our knowledge and makes learning fun. Different groups will get different historical events to put up a skit on, to ensure that the whole clas learns something out of watching all the 6 performances.

In school, our teacher focuses more of the skills needed to a historian rather than spending time memorising notes. Debates are conducted in history classes, like "Who is the founder of blah blah...?" and we had to support our stands with evidences. History classes also bring out the oratorical side of me, and equip me with a philosophical mind. People from other schools envy my experience, but of course, when exams are approaching, the notes have to be whipped out...

I would say that history has been successfully taught in my country.

History is taught differently in primary, secondary and tertiary. In primary school students are taught what happened in the past in a simple narrative. In high school students are taught not only what happened, but to interpret what happened. In university students are taught to be argumentive and critical in interpreting a historical event, not simply describing. So the outcomes for history students becomes more critical and demanding at each stage of education.

Silverstone, if you don't mind answering, what country were you taught history?

[Silverstone]

History is taught differently in primary, secondary and tertiary. In primary school students are taught what happened in the past in a simple narrative. In high school students are taught not only what happened, but to interpret what happened. In university students are taught to be argumentive and critical in interpreting a historical event, not simply describing. So the outcomes for history students becomes more critical and demanding at each stage of education.

Silverstone, if you don't mind answering, what country were you taught history?

Was taught history in Singapore, where I reside currently, but I think history is taught differently in different countries. Unlike Australia, history was not taught in primary school. Children start to get exposed to history in secondary school (age: 13-16/17). The material and approach used to teach history also differs among teachers and schools in Singapore. My experience and answer is biased, that is to say, it's a one-sided view. I wouldn't conclude that history lessons and fun and interesting in SG.

[HappyHistorian]

Was taught history in Singapore, where I reside currently, but I think history is taught differently in different countries. Unlike Australia, history was not taught in primary school. Children start to get exposed to history in secondary school (age: 13-16/17). The material and approach used to teach history also differs among teachers and schools in Singapore. My experience and answer is biased, that is to say, it's a one-sided view. I wouldn't conclude that history lessons and fun and interesting in SG.

The way history is taught depends a lot on the teacher and the school. It also depends a lot on where you are being taught history. For instance, in New South Wales schools Australian history is taught with a focus on NSW. The case would probably be the same elsewhere.

[Preity]

In India, history is taught in a very boring manner. The lecture is given, students take down notes and are expected to remember all the dates and years.

[WuXiaHer0]

History taught in Malaysia is simple and dull. Teachers will either blab away according to the textbooks or toss over a pile question papers for you to tackle. Discussions are rare because there aren't many students paying attention to the teacher. At the end of every chapter, there are some "moral values" to learn from. Historical figures are praised lavishly, especially local and Islamic figures.

And yeah, some teachers in my school are specialised in many subjects. My geography teacher teaches the Malay language, my sports teachers teach geography and many science teachers in my school teaches either biology, physics, chemistry, basic science or everything at once.

Edited by WuXiaHer0, 11 June 2010 - 03:25 AM.

[HappyHistorian]

History taught in Malaysia is simple and dull. Teachers will either blab away according to the textbooks or toss over a pile question papers for you to tackle. Discussions are rare because there aren't many students paying attention to the teacher. At the end of every chapter, there are some "moral values" to learn from. Historical figures are praised lavishly, especially local and Islamic figures.

And yeah, some teachers in my school are specialised in many subjects. My geography teacher teaches the Malay language, my sports teachers teaches geography and many science teachers in my school teaches either biology, physics, chemistry, basic science or everything at once.

That seems quite odd that teaches don't teach what they specialise in. Moral instruction in schools is always a polemic topic. Generally, religious leaders should teach morality. If a state attempts to institute ethics or moral classes, it tends to be akin to state propaganda. In New South Wales, the state government is trying to establish secular ethic classes at the same time when Special Religious Education (SRE, also known as scripture) classes are on. It is currently a hot topic in the news.

Edited by HappyHistorian, 11 June 2010 - 12:18 AM.

[WuXiaHer0]

That seems quite odd that teaches don't teach what they specialise in.

They do.
But that's not a problem for the teachers because all they need to do is follow the textbooks. Anything happens, the blame will be on the textbooks. But this method only applies to not-so-important subjects such as civic and moral studies...
My Maths teacher teaches Physics but she knows nuts about it. She's skilled in all those formulae but not the concepts, e.g. conservation of energy, kinematics...

Moral instruction in schools is always a polemic topic. Generally, religious leaders should teach morality. If a state attempts to institute ethics or moral classes, it tends to be akin to state propaganda. In New South Wales, the state government is trying to establish secular ethic classes at the same time when Special Religious Education (SRE, also known as scripture) classes are on. It is currently a hot topic in the news.

In Malaysia, Muslim religious teachers teach Islamic studies of course. However, the non-Muslims are required to do moral studies at the same time so as to not let them idle around the school with nothing to do. Islamic studies also appear in history taught in Malaysia.

What I don't understand is, if the Muslim students have learnt the history of Islam in the Korans, why bother study them again with the non-Muslims? Isn't this unfair to the non-Muslim students? The Muslims have the upper-hand because they have been studying the Koran ever since they are young.

Edited by WuXiaHer0, 11 June 2010 - 03:30 AM.

[Yizheng]

Moral instruction in schools is always a polemic topic. Generally, religious leaders should teach morality. If a state attempts to institute ethics or moral classes, it tends to be akin to state propaganda. In New South Wales, the state government is trying to establish secular ethic classes at the same time when Special Religious Education (SRE, also known as scripture) classes are on. It is currently a hot topic in the news.

This moral education debate is a hot topic in Russia too, because the government recently decided to introduce religious instruction and secular ethics classes to schools. It was a move partly under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church. Religious instruction in this case means Russian Orthodox instruction, but this is controversial, because Russia officially recognises 4 religions as being the country's 'traditional' religions - Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. Many people say that in a country like Russia of so many different ethnic groups and religions it is better not to get into things like religious instruction in schools.

As for history teaching, I just read an article by a Russian historian about how different history textbooks presenting different points of view have been squeezed out of Russian schools, so that practically everywhere kids will all learn a single state-approved version of history from the state-approved textbook. The aim of history teaching as it has become now is not to teach kids to learn to compare and analyse different points of view, find and work with different sources, learn to question, find supporting arguments, think critically and so on, analyse why past events were possible and how they impact our lives still today. The aim of history teaching is produce 'patriotic' citizens who hold the 'right' point of view on historical events.

[FredHakka]

In Hong Kong, history is taught in secondary school, and actually there are two subjects, Chinese history and World history.

For Chinese history, the syllabus covers from the "Legendary Era" to the founding of the People's Republic of China. In the subject of World history, it covers the pre-historical time like Java Man and Neanderthal Man; the ancient civilizations like Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Greek, etc; the main religions in the world like Buddhism, Christianity, Islam; Roman Empire, Middle Ages (Dark Ages), Renaissance, Reformation, Age of Navigation; Absolute Monarchy in Europe, American Independence, French Revolution, Napoleon, Meiji Modernisation, etc. up to the end of the 19th century.

All the above topics are covered in the first three years of the secondary school.

Apart from the formal lesson, students are also requested to participate in some group projects, take for example, making a scrap book about the Buddhist culture in Hong Kong.

For me, history is the most interesting subject in my school years.

[Liubei]

World History in the U.S. focuses on Roman/Greek antiquity, the age of exploration, and then usually segues way into the settling of the U.S. and the founding. Some time is usually devoted to the Native American genocide period with a few sparse mentions about wounded knee and the trail of tears. Most of it is heavily weighted towards the civil war and American revolution though.

WW2 focuses heavily on U.S., British, and Canadian involvement and the beach landings at Normandy, holocaust, pearl harbor, atomic bomb and little else. After high school I had to learn all about how large and influential the eastern front was or the massive scale of the Sino-Japanese conflict. I think the WW2 reduction of other country's major participation in WW2 is one of the biggest incidences of "revisionism" I can think of in U.S. school texts.

Modern history talks about the cold war, Vietnam (Tet, My lai), oil embargo, iran revolution, etc.. but there's not a lot of detail there. To be fair the history books I was taught from weren't extremely biased but did play with selective memory a lot. For instance there's very little school textbook info about all the shady things that went on in South America during the Reagan administration (besides Iran-contra) but plenty written about it if you look.

[kiwimeetskiwi]

In my country (the U.S.), history is taught quite differently. History starts in middle school with ancient cizilizations and then modern history. History in seventh grade is so much better though. We have games with objectives, arguments, trading, travel, and challenges. We watch movies about morals and discuss them. I miss Mr. D. already...

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How to Irritate People

THERE IS NO CAUSE FOR ALARM

I REPEAT,THERE IS NO CAUSE FOR ALARM, THE WING IS NOT ON FIRE.

Edited by kiwimeetskiwi, 28 June 2010 - 07:29 AM.

[Lu Su]

In retrospect, the way history is taught the US can be pretty biased as well.

My memory of learning history in the US:
1. Elementary School:
-US history: USA #1!
-World history: OK... So there's like, Greece and Rome and Egypt. Egyptians and their pyramids and slaves. Greeks and Romans invented western civilization.
1. Middle School:
-US history: USA #1!
-World history: Wow! There's like all these other civilizations - China, Japan, India, Aztecs. Chinese think they're the center of the world, they invented a bunch of stuff like paper and gunpowder...and they build pretty big walls. Japanese have samurai. Lots of samurai. Did I mention samurai? India has elephants, Akbar who is actually Turkic, and the Taj Mahal which was actually built by a love-crazed king of Turkic descent. Aztecs love cutting out hearts (and not paper ones).

3. High School:
-US history: We've done some really really nasty things. But we're the "last great hope on Earth"! USA #1! [Nelson Muntz mode]Ha, ha![/Nelson Muntz mode]
-World history: WWI, WWII, Cold War. We won. 'nuff said.

Ideological spoon-feeding? Possibly.

I have to say that history courses in college were / are extremely liberating.

Unfortunately, too true.
XD Thankfully, one of my teachers in middle school opened up our eyes about WWI and WWII, which is where my spark in history first arose deeply. But, we learned nothing of other countries participation, except for England, which was horribly glorified (They didn't even mention Canada!! And we like Canada!! a lot! lol) - and, if I recall correctly from my own studies, England's participation amounted to a lot of problems on Allied fronts *cough, Montgomery* as well as problems with unacceptable loss of allied (American and British)troops in poor politically fueled campaigns *cough Churchill, *cough Operation Husky* As well as contributing next to nothing for lease-lend to Russia, but yet still wanting to take equal credit for it, while lease-lending from us, (USA), (no disrespect to the brave British men who also roamed the seas with Americans dodging U-boats in treacherous expeditions to deliver supplies to Russia, these jaunts are ment only at leaders) and who constantly spurred distrust between America and Russia over what would be proven and speculative heresay, *cough, MI6* Who would push the highest scoring RAF squadrons in the Battle of Britain aside from publicity, because they were mostly all Polish, etc etc etc. I give all the credit in the world to British troops, as did ours, and we look upon them as brothers - but we are not fond much of their leaders in the US. This is a common misconception by many non-natives to America.