Originally Posted by Organs

I'm in 10th grade and I hate this years history class. My teacher this year is a completely biased feminist, knows nothing about how to teach probably and doesn't know how to use her inside voice or how to deal with students. She just tells us to work on a google doc from some half-assed questions she got from the internet.

Last year I loved history. Our teacher read out segments from mein kampf to us, he would tell us why things happened and what effect they had (such as Germany invading poland). He would just generally be really involved in the lesson.

So basically, the level of interest I have is based on how involved the teacher is with the lesson. It could be the same with you, so your teacher may or may not be very good.

Originally Posted by DrHax

I fully agree with Oracle. The complete over-emphasis on dates was a huge turn off for me ever giving a damn about it. It was my least favorite subject in school, and as I grew distaste for it, so did my level of apathy towards how well I performed or prepared in the class.

The merit of history should be what can be learned from the successes and mistakes of nations and leaders of the past. I've spent nearly 10 minutes trying to write this post and tell you about all the boring useless things I had to study during my Sophomore and Junior year of high school and I can't simply because of just how bland it all was. If they just had said "Hey, here's ____ civilization, they were around in ___ time period, they were successful because they tried this stuff with their social rules, policies, laws, etc and they ultimately failed ___ many years later because they didn't have _____. This is why we, ____, decided to place special emphasis on ____ to not repeat what they fucked up." If I had just gotten a lot of that, I'd know a lot more about what political party I should be affiliated with, what's wrong with certain policies my government tries to push forward (and or what's right and should be appreciated), and I'd be an informed citizen with a decent understanding of social science.

I couldn't care less about what year a bill was signed, and if I have a child I sincerely hope his time isn't wasted studying these types of things when he or she could be learning more valuable lessons.

Originally Posted by Oracle

Ommision of content does not necessarily make the way something is taught wrong. History is already taught with heavy omissions. In Western cultures, Western history is predominately taught, and Eastern history is rarely taught, and in Eastern cultures, the opposite is true. Furthermore, Western history is not taught as an index from the conception of civilization to modern days. Several centuries and decades are passed over, and several major events are glossed over. History is already taught with large swathes of it cut out for the sake of time.

And besides, it's not that the argument is to cut dates out, but to make dates less important to the teaching process. Important dates can still be taught but, as an example, the reasons the attack on Pearl Harbor was signficant is more important, and more interesting, than when it occurred. Dates are easy to find when you need them, but the critical thinking necessary to determine cause and effect is an important skill that has to be taught. Why would you emphasise the less interesting, fact memorization when you can emphasise the more interesting, critical thinking? It's useless to memorize facts that you can easily look up, and critical thinking is a skill that is valued across all fields. It makes no sense as to why history is still taught with an emphasis on dates in an era where facts are available at the push of a button.

Originally Posted by Arglax

I agree with this, I just wanted to point out that you can't make the history itself more interesting. You can put the emphasis on certain parts to make it easier and more fun (and to, as you pointed out, filter out unnecessary parts), but the same can be said about any other course, not just history class.

Originally Posted by DrHax

No of course not, we can't literally change the content of the subject, just the content of the material we focus on. The OP's thread is "How to make history class interesting", and I think the answer is have engaging debate and conversation about policies and ideologies both socially and legally which made nations in the past fail or thrive. We also highlighted how it'd be preferential to omit info on date specific questions.