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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
great minds...
Sounds like an instruction from that "Serve Man" cookbook.
Last edited by sjmaxq; 04/02/06 09:33 PM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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But my point was that history is boring because what is essential to it is extracted and kipped before the pulp is served up in schoolrooms for the delectation of closing minds.
A few years ago, I was asked to teach a class in "The Anglican Reformation" at our diocesan school of theology. I am not a historian. I normally teach ethics and moral theology. But the historian left the faculty and there was an urgent need so I agreed. I wrote to several well known church historians, mostly on seminary faculties, and asked them how I ought to proceed. Some were very kind in sharing ideas and even syllabi. After considering an interesting variety of ways to approach the class, I struck upon my own -- the blame is all mine and not to be shared with my consultants.
I set forth as my premise that Queen Elizabeth I left purposefully unresolved all of the most vexing and contentious issues which now plague the Church of England, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. I teach the course by looking at the situation she inherited. That is sort of the backstory. Then I look at how she managed to hold England together, in light of what was going on in the Continental Reformation and in Rome. Finally I look at the church which resulted and the people who shaped it into its more enduring form. All of this is arranged around themes of tensions and issues which are hot today in the church.
And nobody dozes off.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
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All of this is arranged around themes of tensions and issues which are hot today . Clearly this is a successful approach, especially at a (higher) level, where students have already selected their field of interest. But at a more elementary level, the problem here is to keep a "balanced" view of the picture, so that the teacher avoids reproach of partiality - from the parents. Will everybody agree that it is a primordial goal to hold England together ? (cf. Russia today..) I suppose this is why we dwelled with Ancient Greece for such a long time  .
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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FS: Great approach.
WS: Yes, the dumbing down of history isn't conspiratorial, it is unfortunately the result of pluralism.
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Carpal Tunnel
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bel, what you said: present history as a list rather than a story is perfect--that is exactly what was wrong with the history textbooks I had. Ho hum, another battle, yeah yeah...
Helen, I was quite interested in reading about your learning style! Once you saw the whole, all the parts fell into place for you. I never had much trouble seeing the whole, but--it was full of gaps, because I could remember so little about the parts.
Instead of "In 1350, King X's troops defeated Y", why can't someone write a textbook that reads more like, "King X, who came to the throne at the tender age of 14, was married to a woman who he never came to love: it had been a marriage arranged long ago, and it was a marriage for politics, not love. Though he was quite wealthy by the standards of the day, he often found himself thirsty: the summer of 1350 had been one long draught. The draught had made the peasants who worked for the king very uncomfortable--and worried. They worried about how they would pay their taxes, and it wasn't long until some of them were saying that the taxes were unfair anyway. The king's chief adviser was a troublemaker named Y--he knew that if something happened to the boy king, his cousin would become king, and then Y would have real control, because his cousin was a trusting simpleton. So he insisted to the king that the peasants would calm down after they saw that the tax hadn't bankrupted them..." Here you have: something personal to make this particular king more memorable; a painless way of establishing (and remembering!) what year it was, as well as a hint about what caused the Peasant Rebellion of 1350. Plus a way to continue into the future. (FTR, this was not meant to be an example of good writing, and certainly not for all grade levels; it was just to try and make a point.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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for me, it was easy to learn the parts--(i had borderline photographic memory (its no were near so good now))
i can't see the words (so i can't spell them) but i could see the text, the ideas behind the words, and once they went in my head, they lodged there..
recently, a friend was reading a knitting history book and i commented about it. (No Idle Hands, a history of knitting in America, anne McDonald) i pointed out a minor deficientcy with the book, on page 66 she refers to the american traditional leaf design counterpane --with out giving a pattern--at the time she wrote the book (the 1960's) many would have immediately know the pattern, but today, there are major fracture lines in the knitting tradition, and many are unaware of what pattern she is talking about..
the woman looked at me like i had 2 head.. but she opened the book, and glances at it, and yes, oh, yeah as i was reading this, i was wondering about the pattern..
the passage stuck in my head (i read the book in the 1980's (late 1980's but definately before i was divorced, so i can date it) it was one of the few faults i found in with the book, and lodge there, it remain, waiting for ...what ever.
(same thing happened with binary and octal numbering systems. i learned them.. umm early/mid 1960's--(post JKF assination, but before 1965) knowledge of them remained lodge in my head, until in 1982 i got a computer.. and suddenly, working in hex, (with cross references to the binary code) binary re-appeared--and learnign hex was a snap! (i still know octal pretty well too..)
i was quite good in subjects the simple required read and remember the facts.. but often bored. Arther made history wonderful he help me understand the facts had meaning.
lots of fact still lodged in my head --many haven't found the connections that make them wonderful, but i have a store house of facts, one day i might use them all!
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addict
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addict
Joined: Oct 2005
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Quote:
... Though he was quite wealthy by the standards of the day, he often found himself thirsty: the summer of 1350 had been one long draught ... The draught had made the peasants who worked for the king very uncomfortable--and worried. ...
What's all this I hear about draughts? If the king drank all summer, why was he still thirsty? Or was it a breezy summer that dried him out? Forced induction into the army? Was there a war on?
Oh, drought (^_^) Nevermind. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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AUGH--I thought there was something wrong with that!  I shouldn't have been so lazy.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
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--
YES! I have been itching to mention "connections". A great concept, well executed on the page and on the screen.
--
I was thinking the exact thing while reading The Discoverers. It's like "Connections" taken to the extreme.
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