For me, I found that the most effective means of learning history was to not directly learn about history. This may seem counter-intuitive, however, that’s where the magic of it lies. Students do not need to bury their nose in a history book, nor do they need to rigorously take notes during a lecture in order to learn history. Many educators seem to get caught up in the idea that dates, names, and locations are the most important thing about history. The best educators, I’d argue, actually focus more on themes, concepts, and patterns. These aspects of history are really easy to be creative with, as it allows for an effectively infinite amount of possibilities for assignments.
In the same way The Lion King is a derivative of Hamlet, many other films are inspired by aspects of history. Perhaps the most obvious example may be how the “Empire” in Star Wars shares many similarities to that of Nazi Germany. Star Wars in many ways is reflective of World War 2. Watching Star Wars, for me, is certainly more fun than taking notes out of a history book, and I would imagine most students would agree with this sentiment. Students can watch Star Wars, then they can brainstorm different ideas and try to look for symbolism for what they know about WW2 and how it pertains to Star Wars. After that, the teacher can go through and validate student ideas with lessons that can draw similarities between the two mediums (history and Star Wars).
Another means of this could be something similar to what we did in class today. When I was in high school, we were shown the painting American Progress and asked how to analyze this painting using our current knowledge of American history. We were asked questions such as “What is going on in this picture?” and “Where are these people going?” And even “What’s the deal with the angel?” None of us could piece all of this together, but many of the students were able to deduce that the angel represented the United States, or a figure of liberty, and that everyone was heading West. These pieces of information were crucial for understanding the photo as a representation of manifest destiny. By discussing all of this, we were able to discuss a major theme in American history without even building context specifically around it. Sure, the knowledge necessary to completely understand the concept was filled in later, but the important thing was that all of us students could put on our detective or art historian caps for a class period and just enjoy the learning process.
The moral of this post is that students can learn in a million different ways. History is so open ended in its potential assignments, which leaves a lot of wiggle room for how educators can approach lessons. This potential is only escalated by looking at history through the lens of patterns, concepts, and themes rather than dates, names, and places.
Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash
The Backdoor of Learning History
