The riddle of teaching History

What works, what doesn’t and what can help

Photo by Justine Camacho on Unsplash

Although I am an archaeologist, I have come more than many times into the position to teach history. Maybe not at the typical kind of learning but I believe that doesn’t really matter.

I always believe that History is one of those tricky lessons at school. Tricky at the point of making students’ real interest in it. All of my years at school, I was maybe the only person that I knew liked history as a lesson. It was always the subject that was less interesting than anything else. Even Maths or Physics.

Sounds odd? Not, it’s doesn’t.

One of the most challenging times was when I taking my Cud Scout group to museums. As an archaeologist I knew of course what to say and how to feel about those things that I saw. But what about my cuds? Suddenly, I realise that kids at these age — between 6 and 12 — are not so close to past and definitely History isn’t their favourite school lesson.

And that’s where my journey to interactive learning and experiential learning approaches of History begins. It was a journey with many mistakes and failures but at this point I know that I am wiser on this subject than I was when I started.

I started with pictures. I am adding them in any kind of lecture in a school or my Cuds group. The result was pretty good and it seems that most of the kids remember the facts much easier than those accompanying with a picture. The results were even better when I tried to talk to children about the age of Renaissance and the early modern History era. But those were not pictures but paintings. I was really surprised when kids started to talk to each other about the paintings and compare them. So we can say that the experiment was sussed.

But my experimentation didn’t stop there. When the picture approach was successful, I decided to go a step further using art materials and the hands of my children. Our first small attempt was to rebuild the Parthenon and create it as our own image. We learn about the history of Holy Hill of Athens and the other buildings of Parthenon, such as Erehthion and Propylaia Gate. We learn about the ancient Greek architecture and we design the Ionian and Doric architectural styles. At the end we design a new style of Parthenon and we understood how ancient Greeks made such strong and majestic buildings.

After those so successful attempts and experiments many teachers that I knew approached me and asked for my help. I didn’t know back then if it was a good idea or if I could even know how to give something so useful for someone who wasteaching children in a real classroom.

But thinks take a really positive way. My tips were so helpful that those teachers who asked for my help saw such a positive impact on their children and their classrooms as a whole.

After all those years I finally have come to the point that kids learn through pictures, art and emotions. And even practical experience. It’s not too much to say the very now:

“Learning by doing”

That’s the ultimate purpose of Education.

And after those tips that I gave, I thought of something else. To turn my passion and my experience accessible to anyone who is interested. So I took my notebooks and my knowledge as an archaeologist and educator, and I started to write and design.

Sounds cool? Yes, it was and steel is.

My first project was about the interactive approach of teaching WW II through books and movies. A project that I was always trying to create and gave a great opportunity to teachers of high schools to teach such an important and terrifying time in human history.

And I keep going. Keep going though new projects, history worksheets and even interactive prompts and video games.

Coming to a conclusion, I would say that the best part of teaching history at this age is watching students light up when they realize they’re part of a much bigger story. With a few interactive prompts, hands-on worksheets, and a little imagination, you can bring the ancient world to life in ways your learners will remember.

If you are a teacher, educator, or even a history/archaeology enthusiast you can take a look at my Gumroad page here👉 http://chrysalight1.gumroad.com/