Tag: 19-A1

I chose this meme both for the awareness and message that I hope to express to students and the personal experience that I’ve had in the past. I want students to understand how history is not only things that are ancient or which took place in the past. History is alive and present today in some sort of way, even if it happened a couple of hundred years ago. There are still effects from the civil war that we see in our country today across multiple formats. Even more so, I want to get to the part how certain aspects of history, whether events, actions, or others, can be understood through one’s own similar context and awareness. To elaborate on this, I explain why I chose the photo of football and war. While to some from afar these two elements might not be related and they question why they are put together, I see ways how they can be related and built off each other. I had a high school history teacher who did this practice very well and made history more relatable and understandable for her students. In particular, we had a class full of both Oregon State Beavers and Oregon Ducks football fans. When talking about certain battles or instances where two differing sides were going at it, she would make comparisons of certain aspects to football and the rivalry. This allowed us to see it in a more relatable and fun manner. So in conclusion, I hope students can see that history is alive today and it can be related to an individual and their experiences in different ways.

This meme is meant to make fun of the fact that as aspiring teachers we often think that we need to have all the answers since we are professionals. However, I know with myself, I also am prone to make human errors (like spacing out on the spelling of a word). This presents a dichotomy that I feel many teachers can relate to. It also is meant to remind us that we all make mistakes and not to put too much pressure on ourselves when we make little mistakes, which we are all bound to do at one point or another.

A lot of times when people talk about history classes they’ve taken, they complain about only memorizing dates and battles from different wars. As a future history teacher, it’s sad to hear about that experience, when you know there is so much more to learn. I think this meme is representative of misconceptions of history classes being smashed and people realizing that there is more to history than what they had thought before.

While dates and battles are important aspects of history, they aren’t always the main focus. There are so many stories that are left out of the main conversation that could draw in those people who may be checked out. The stories of minority groups are often dominated by stories of usually white males. I remember not learning that there were female spies in the Civil War until I found diaries, while doing other research in college. A lot of the time, certain stories are left out for sake of time and the amount of information that needs to be covered. By moving away from focusing solely on memorization of dates and moving more towards teaching stories of people that students can relate to, there will be a better reception of history class in general.