Let's say you've completely exhausted your opportunities to make teaching fun. Let's say you've tried the tips, tricks, and life hacks that fill up most of the Internet these days (even Historical Friction itself) and it simply is not working. Your kids don't do well in the projects you come up with, they can't name a Founding Father to save their grades, and notes are quite simply out of the question. This is usually the moment when many teachers just give up. Resign themselves to the unbearable fact that the education system has failed, and nowhere is it more apparent in their history class. They withdraw from classes, grade sporadically just so the kids'll pass and leave them alone, call in sick just to lie in bed wondering where they went wrong in the job lottery, excuse themselves from the faculty events and meetings, become a social outcast to both the students and their colleagues, and then realize it's been 40 years and retire, only to grow old and still wonder what it was that made them such a "bad teacher".
Depressing, I know.
Now, I cannot and most likely will not ever be able to speak from experience on this subject. I have never claimed I myself am a teacher, and I know not what goes on behind the scenes at schools in the history department. I only offer these tips and suggestions because I am a student who has seen too many of these clinically depressed teachers trying and failing to teach the foundations of the human experience to unpredictable children; the ideas in this blog are from a student's viewpoint of how to make history more "fun". But I can understand that kids can be hard to work with. Teachers act as both an educator and babysitter most of the time, and it can be challenging just to come to work every day knowing what they'll be up against. What I don't understand is the failure attitude. Teachers haven't failed when they don't reach some students, that's a given; it seems nowadays that most are upset when they don't get a "Stand and Deliver" class and give up. You will not get everyone to understand history, and many cannot no matter how hard they try. It's called being a human being; some are cut out better for being a historian while another may be the next big movie star. But still teachers turn in their badges after too many rough years. This is where I believe teachers start blaming themselves rather than looking for a fix to their problem. Well, here it is:
Teach.
How many of you just scoffed right now? It seems stupid, I know; what else have you been trying to do for the past 16 years? But I don't just mean going in and doing the daily grind, I mean teaching with EMOTION. You know, that thing that defines all human beings as human and a lack of it usually means psychopath. All jokes aside, your subject is important. The common history teacher is tasked with educating the newer generation of people how they got here through several mistakes, wars, and catastrophes, and they usually have to do most of it in 8 months. It can get boring, yes; kids hate repetitiveness as much as going to school. But a teacher with EMOTION is the key term. If you love your subject, history, absolutely worship the figures and places and events that helped shape the current world your living with, you won't have to worry about a bleak future and shallow regrets.
Students love fun teachers. I still remember the last names of all of mine: Koltoff, Smith, Martensen, Dierks, Pauly, Heim, Osborn, Neilly, Hynek, Benedict. They made the class electric, at least for me, and it was fun to learn whatever they were teaching on a certain day. The thing they all had in common? They loved what they did. Of course, they had bad students, even in the class I was in. But that didn't stop them from slowing down in educating the masses the very best they could. In fact, it was Mr. Neilly's teaching who inspired me to create Historical Friction in the first place, because I learned so much from him and how history is a defining subject to learn in school. Putting your whole self into the subject, immersing yourself in it: this is the best way to get a positive response from students on what it is you teach; they may even learn something too.
So if all else fails, if those Lesson Ideas and Quick Tips aren't/haven't been working, just teach. Teach your heart out. History is important, and you should treat it as if without it we would all be doomed. Teach it with EMOTION or teach it the same way for the rest of your career. In the end, you'll know whether you made the right choice.
-Pharaoh Noh-Tyep
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