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If it was as simple as that, I would have no problem doing it. Unfortunately, the education department here and state/national standards severely limit the content you can teach. I'm not interested in fighting to teach something while risking my job when I could just go to school longer, learn more, and land a better job with more freedom to teach and research what I want.

Ugh, another part of our screwed up education system. :(

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On the topic of teaching:

 

Here in the UK (not so sure about America as I'm not sure what is taught at secondary level) I much prefer secondary history to academic history. Academic history focuses on a minuscule and very specific part of history, so for example you may study the crusades, but you will miss out the vast majority of things which actually had an impact on the outcome, battles and the like, instead focusing on something as small as gender roles among crusaders (something I'm having to do right now). When it gets to this stage, I personally find it so tedious and pointless that it actually infuriates me when writing many of my essays. History at an academic level has become such a trumped up pile of crap. Outside of academic history, the people of the world don't care about the vast majority of things scholars write about as they are so dull, dry and seemingly pointless that they are totally uninteresting. I'm doing a history degree, but I thoroughly hate what academic history is and represents. history should be about bringing history to the people, which is why I am doing a dissertation on public history and heritage. Don't get me wrong, if a historian enjoys being mind-numbingly nit-picky about "Women activists, southern conservatives, and the prohibition of sex discrimination in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act" (yes that's an actual article I had to read) then by all means do it, but history will die out if it continues to solely be that due to people being uninterested in it. It also has a tendency at higher levels to totally miss parts of history out due to being too specific.

 

Secondary history on the other hand has the opportunity to be incredibly influential in a young persons life, it can teach them about anything from the Romans to US civil rights, not going in depth enough to be dry but still being correct, while staying general enough that you don't have to spend a whole year looking at a topic. It can help children learn their cultural identity as well as knowing the important world events which happened way before they were born. Hell, History lessons ideally would be like an episode of QI, learn something cool, move on, learn something else cool, move on. It's going over the same crap just in more detail that makes history boring.

 

History is important for people to learn, so it's vital that history is entertaining and interesting while staying correct. When I become a teacher, I want to get kids interested in history and love it as much as I do. When I went to a local school recently, I spend a good while just reading a textbook, and actually learnt a lot of things simply due to academic history being too specific and not giving broader pictures.

 

A man who makes tyres doesn't necessarily know much about cars, whereas a mechanic may not know much about tyres, but he sure knows about cars as a whole. The same applies to historians. They may be able to tell you about a specific thing, but they won't have a clue about it in context.

 

Rant over.

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Currently working as a courier, I'm paid as a casual even though I start at the same time every day, it's just when I knock off that varies. I still dunno what I want to do with my life, I really enjoy driving and would happily work as some kind of driver if I could be paid enough for a decent living, yet the only real way to do so out here in Aus is in the mines. I'd either have to drive trains or those massive dump trucks, the latter of which is what my uncle has been trying to get a job doing for over 20 years now.

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On the topic of teaching:

 

Here in the UK (not so sure about America as I'm not sure what is taught at secondary level) I much prefer secondary history to academic history. Academic history focuses on a minuscule and very specific part of history, so for example you may study the crusades, but you will miss out the vast majority of things which actually had an impact on the outcome, battles and the like, instead focusing on something as small as gender roles among crusaders (something I'm having to do right now). When it gets to this stage, I personally find it so tedious and pointless that it actually infuriates me when writing many of my essays. History at an academic level has become such a trumped up pile of crap. Outside of academic history, the people of the world don't care about the vast majority of things scholars write about as they are so dull, dry and seemingly pointless that they are totally uninteresting. I'm doing a history degree, but I thoroughly hate what academic history is and represents. history should be about bringing history to the people, which is why I am doing a dissertation on public history and heritage. Don't get me wrong, if a historian enjoys being mind-numbingly nit-picky about "Women activists, southern conservatives, and the prohibition of sex discrimination in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act" (yes that's an actual article I had to read) then by all means do it, but history will die out if it continues to solely be that due to people being uninterested in it. It also has a tendency at higher levels to totally miss parts of history out due to being too specific.

 

Secondary history on the other hand has the opportunity to be incredibly influential in a young persons life, it can teach them about anything from the Romans to US civil rights, not going in depth enough to be dry but still being correct, while staying general enough that you don't have to spend a whole year looking at a topic. It can help children learn their cultural identity as well as knowing the important world events which happened way before they were born. Hell, History lessons ideally would be like an episode of QI, learn something cool, move on, learn something else cool, move on. It's going over the same crap just in more detail that makes history boring.

 

History is important for people to learn, so it's vital that history is entertaining and interesting while staying correct. When I become a teacher, I want to get kids interested in history and love it as much as I do. When I went to a local school recently, I spend a good while just reading a textbook, and actually learnt a lot of things simply due to academic history being too specific and not giving broader pictures.

 

A man who makes tyres doesn't necessarily know much about cars, whereas a mechanic may not know much about tyres, but he sure knows about cars as a whole. The same applies to historians. They may be able to tell you about a specific thing, but they won't have a clue about it in context.

 

Rant over.

 

 

I completely disagree, I think the academic historians and the intellectual writers are the ones pushing the field forward. I know a lot of people see it as playing with your self intellectually. Most of those people (in my experiences) just don't understand it. The "coolness" of history is okay for middle schoolers, but history is also about gaining critical reasoning skills, analytical skills, and problem solving skills. Academic history provides this. Studying the nuts and bolts of history--the battles, the dates, the figures--is fine and dandy, but there are some of us who want to draw larger conclusions from these events. Also, if you know your historiography well enough, you'd know that public history is itself a born from a very long tradition of academic history.

 

My point here is that some historians (myself included) enjoy pondering, thinking, and hypothesizing about the abstract. This is how we perceive the world. This is how we view history as well. As I said before, the nuts and bolts of history is fine for those whose appetite is satiated by that sort of thing, but there are many of us who desire to move beyond that :)

 

Also, a historian that does not know the context of the subject he/she is writing about is simply a bad historian, not an academic one. An academic historian should provide an in depth analysis and also be able to weave in the context in which the specific occurs.

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"He could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder."

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On the topic of teaching:

 

Here in the UK (not so sure about America as I'm not sure what is taught at secondary level) I much prefer secondary history to academic history. Academic history focuses on a minuscule and very specific part of history, so for example you may study the crusades, but you will miss out the vast majority of things which actually had an impact on the outcome, battles and the like, instead focusing on something as small as gender roles among crusaders (something I'm having to do right now). When it gets to this stage, I personally find it so tedious and pointless that it actually infuriates me when writing many of my essays. History at an academic level has become such a trumped up pile of crap. Outside of academic history, the people of the world don't care about the vast majority of things scholars write about as they are so dull, dry and seemingly pointless that they are totally uninteresting. I'm doing a history degree, but I thoroughly hate what academic history is and represents. history should be about bringing history to the people, which is why I am doing a dissertation on public history and heritage. Don't get me wrong, if a historian enjoys being mind-numbingly nit-picky about "Women activists, southern conservatives, and the prohibition of sex discrimination in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act" (yes that's an actual article I had to read) then by all means do it, but history will die out if it continues to solely be that due to people being uninterested in it. It also has a tendency at higher levels to totally miss parts of history out due to being too specific.

 

Secondary history on the other hand has the opportunity to be incredibly influential in a young persons life, it can teach them about anything from the Romans to US civil rights, not going in depth enough to be dry but still being correct, while staying general enough that you don't have to spend a whole year looking at a topic. It can help children learn their cultural identity as well as knowing the important world events which happened way before they were born. Hell, History lessons ideally would be like an episode of QI, learn something cool, move on, learn something else cool, move on. It's going over the same crap just in more detail that makes history boring.

 

History is important for people to learn, so it's vital that history is entertaining and interesting while staying correct. When I become a teacher, I want to get kids interested in history and love it as much as I do. When I went to a local school recently, I spend a good while just reading a textbook, and actually learnt a lot of things simply due to academic history being too specific and not giving broader pictures.

 

A man who makes tyres doesn't necessarily know much about cars, whereas a mechanic may not know much about tyres, but he sure knows about cars as a whole. The same applies to historians. They may be able to tell you about a specific thing, but they won't have a clue about it in context.

 

Rant over.

 

 

I completely disagree, I think the academic historians and the intellectual writers are the ones pushing the field forward. I know a lot of people see it as playing with your self intellectually. Most of those people (in my experiences) just don't understand it. The "coolness" of history is okay for middle schoolers, but history is also about gaining critical reasoning skills, analytical skills, and problem solving skills. Academic history provides this. Studying the nuts and bolts of history--the battles, the dates, the figures--is fine and dandy, but there are some of us who want to draw larger conclusions from these events. Also, if you know your historiography well enough, you'd know that public history is itself a born from a very long tradition of academic history.

 

My point here is that some historians (myself included) enjoy pondering, thinking, and hypothesizing about the abstract. This is how we perceive the world. This is how we view history as well. As I said before, the nuts and bolts of history is fine for those whose appetite is satiated by that sort of thing, but there are many of us who desire to move beyond that :)

 

Also, a historian that does not know the context of the subject he/she is writing about is simply a bad historian, not an academic one. An academic historian should provide an in depth analysis and also be able to weave in the context in which the specific occurs.

 

But most importantly, an historian should know to use an, and not a.

 

Considering history: The subject itself interests me to no end, and is one I am thinking of looking into at a tertiary level. Focusing on the events of history, and analysing the context in which they were created, and the consequences that they had is something that interests me to no end. To me, the nuts and bolts are not where the most interesting bits lie. Sure, dates and figures work well, but its the abstract thinking that too has caught my attention.

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I think we are just on different paths. My views on academic history are ones born out of reading multitudes of articles and books which have totally numbed my interest in specific areas of history, which is something I want to avoid at all costs. I find history on a broader scale much more interesting, which is why one of my current modules on World history and the great divergence between Europe and China is one of the most interesting I have done.

 

I guess my main feeling is just how isolated academic history is in the modern world with most of the modern work I have experienced being of importance to a very limited field outside of history itself due to how specific it is. I'm much more interested in effecting how history is brought to the masses and future generations, but I commend those who may one day possibly make academic history more interesting.

Want to be my friend? Look under my name to the left<<< and click the 'Add as friend' button!

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Big thanks to Stevepole for the signature!^

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And that is why I love the field of history so much, there is something for every type of personality in it :thumbsup:

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"He could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder."

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