This article was originally published in the winter issue of LightLines, a publication of Christian Light in Harrisonburg, VA. For a free subscription, email subscribe.lightLines@christianlight.org.
Getting Students Involved and Interested in History
A main reason that we need to teach history is to get our students to think and to make good moral decisions. As they learn to evaluate decisions of the past and learn from them, they should learn to think, “What does this teach me? How does this look when lived out in my daily life?”
How can teachers get students to think this way and to engage in history classes? Three ways come to mind. For many students, history has nothing to do with their present lives--unless we do these three things.
Put your students into the specific situations you are studying.
Tell true stories and show pictures.
Have students make hands-on projects that directly relate to whatever they are studying in history.
Let's think first about placing students into the situations being studied. Begin by using the pronouns you and we instead of he, she, it, and them. This can help students begin to envision themselves in history, not some people long ago to whom they cannot relate.
The first step in getting students involved in history is to put them directly into the situations being studied. Begin with using the pronouns you and we instead of he, she, it, and them. If we do this, we are one step ahead in getting them to envision themselves in history and not some other people long ago whom they cannot relate to. Here is an example.
For example, instead of reading or saying this: “The three hundred Nez Perce Indians were surrounded by about two thousand United States Army troops just forty miles from the Canadian border. They were then forced to move to barren lands in designated Indian Territory,” try this: “Imagine that you were one of just thirty Nez Perce Indians left trying to reach the Canadian border and freedom. After three months of traveling, you were just forty miles away. Then, over two thousand United States Army troops surrounded you and what remained of your family and tribe, and forced you to move to desolate Indian Territory.”
Then ask them questions. How would you feel if you were in the Nez Perce’s shoes? What do you think you would be able to carry for two months while fleeing? Which items would you choose to put in a knapsack to carry that far?
You can also use statistics to get students involved in historical accounts. During the Black Death or Bubonic Plagues in Medieval Europe, it is estimated that thirty to fifty percent of the population died from the plague. Apply that to your class. If there are sixteen students in your class, you could say something like, “If we had lived back then, between five and eight of us would have died from the plague. Only eight to eleven of us would have survived."
Or this. “Over 7,000 soldiers from the Union and Confederate armies died during the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, and over 33,000 were wounded.” Too often we read through statistics like this and don’t really let the facts sink in. Help students visualize scenes like this by placing themselves into the picture and ask leading questions.
What if we said something like this: “Imagine if we went out to the playground and there was just one dead soldier out there. Wouldn’t that be sad? Now imagine if there were ten. (Pause for effect.) Now imagine one hundred bodies all lined up. That’s a lot, isn’t it? Now, imagine if there were 1,000 (pause), and then 7,000 dead soldiers out on our ballfield. How much space would that take up? Probably the whole field.” (Note: Be sensitive. This scenario is for junior high or older students, but this concept can be adapted to other situations. Also be sensitive if a relative of one of the students has passed away recently.)
You can also use such accounts to reinforce Scriptural teaching. You could say something like, “It was sad that even one man died, but every single one of those 7,000 men was somebody’s son, father, uncle, or brother. Was it worth it?" Discuss the worth of their souls, the cost to their families, and New Testament teachings on such issues. Ask, "Was there another way they could have settled the argument?” Of course there is! But let the students come up with that answer.
Then ask some more questions. What was better, that all those men died when they didn’t have to, or that the problem would have been solved in another way? What does Scripture say people should do in a situation like that? How could they have solved it? Then praise them for thinking and praise them for their great answers.
This technique can be applied to just about every true story we read in history. Here are some more examples and situations teachers could present and questions they could ask.
Stock Market Crash - Only two people got their money out of the bank. The rest of the class just lost everything. Now we cannot make our payment for our farm. What will we do?
Monopolies simplified- Each row opens their own donut shop. Row one’s donut shop is giving away free coffee. They made more money and then bought out all the other donut shops. Now they are charging us $5 a donut with no free coffee, and there is no competition. Is that fair?
Women working in factories in WWI and WWII - Prior to WWI, less than 2% of women in Great Britain worked outside the home. That would be probably one or two women in our entire church. Twenty-five years later, during WWII, it is estimated that more than 25% of women worked outside the home. That would be how many of the women in our church? What happened to the young children still at home? Is that okay? What does the Bible say about that?
Patents - Alex in the front row invents a super duper pencil sharpener and tried to sell it, but Kristen copies his design and sells it cheaper. Now everyone buys from Kristen, and Alex gets nothing. Is that fair?
The Cold War - Make a warning siren noise and tell all the students to get under their desks or against a brick wall. Ask, "What emotions would you feel? What if we were all locked in the school for a month? What would we do? What would we eat?
A second technique we teachers can use to make history come alive for our students is to tell true stories about the time period that we are studying. I also like to find real pictures of real people from that time period as well. Here is a good example of this. After the Battle of Wounded Knee, the United States Army hired civilians to bury the dead Lakota tribe members which were all frozen after a three-day blizzard. This included 84 men, 44 women, and 18 children which were reportedly killed during the battle. They were buried in a mass grave. We’ve had great classroom discussions about doctrine when discussing this kind of topic.
Citizens loading Lakota bodies on a wagon for burial in a mass grave (right).
Oftentimes the sidebars in the textbooks have these interesting stories right there in the book, if we take the time to read them. There are also usually intriguing stories mentioned in the text. Take a few minutes to research one of them and give students more details the next day.
When we are studying the 1960s and 1970s I love to tell my students about the Cold War bomb drills we had at school, being ordered off the playground to go inside and watch the first man walking on the moon, and being able to just walk on a plane with no security screening. Think of it! When I tell them that John F. Kennedy was the president when I was born, it makes history seem not so far away because I am a "bridge" to historical figures or eras. Tell them stories from your own lifetime, or your parents’ or your grandparents’ lifetimes. It makes history seem much more recent and interesting.
The final way to make history come alive for our students is to create hands-on projects that directly relate to whatever time period being studied. Easy ways to do this and several classroom projects for students will be presented in the upcoming two articles.
Summary: Getting Students Involved and Interested
* Put your students into the specific situations you are studying.
* Use the pronouns you and we.
* Use the introductory word imagine and put your students directly into whatever situation you are studying.
* Make it practical. Ask questions about how it would feel.
* Tell interesting stories from history or your own lifetime.
* Create hands-on projects that directly relate to whatever they are studying in history.
Note on Text Books:
It can be overwhelming to begin the year with a big, thick history book, especially if you as a teacher feel like you don’t know that much about history. That’s okay! You can learn. I’ve learned along with my students many times. While ideally you would have prepared by reading the entire text before the school year starts, if that is not possible, just jump in, and learn along with your students. If we learn about an interesting topic in class, I have often researched that topic on my off period that same day and then added in some extra details about it in class the next day. Every year we teach we become more acquainted with history, and every year we can dig in and learn a little more.
Students will also often ask questions about past history and expect teachers to have the answers. If you don’t know, that’s okay. Model learning for them. I’ve often said to my students, “I’m not sure about that one, but I will find out.” Then I make myself a sticky note right away. And then I will find out, and I will tell them what I found out. My goal is to do this the next school day. Students respect teachers who do what they say they will.