How I Teach History

When I first started teaching 20 years ago my goal was to get students to memorize as many facts as possible about history.  

I remember I would take the test that came with the Textbook and print them out.  

I don't want to brag but I was a master at Scantrons (most young teachers probably don't even know what  Scantron is).  

Somewhere along my teaching career I realized that was a horrible goal.  Who really cares what year the French Revolution started.  

And once Google Search really took of there really was no point in memorizing dates and names because you could just find the answer in seconds.  

So I had a short moment of Existential Crisis as I tried to figure out what my purpose was as a teacher. 

I eventually landed on a new goal which was to use History to get students to think.  I wanted students to think about patterns, trends, causes and effects.  But ultimately I want students to ponder the question.  

"Do you really believe what you say you believe".  

That is a deep question and we have some good conversation in my class but it takes a little preparation to get there.  

In my latest video I explain what I do to get students more involved in learning history in my class.  

To watch my latest video click on the image above.