Comment by existencebox | Hacker News Reader

Comment by existencebox | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I normally try not to make low effort comments but this resonated so strongly with me I had to chime in with a "ME TOO."

I _LOVE_ history now. I collect antique history books, just to see how perceptions changed over time. Ken Burns tops hollywood in terms of "# of films watched" by many times over. However, this only started MUCH later in my life when I started to see history as a tool, a way of thinking, of reasoning about the world.

History as it was taught in my early schooling was not only useless, it was utterly counterproductive; As you say: memorizing slabs of rote dates and events not only removed any utility or holistic understanding from the facts (and related time periods), but convinced me that I "hated history" and should avoid the subject like the plague. Arrogantly, I was one of the better students in my high-school, so I can only imagine what the less advantaged crowd felt about those courses, and it doesn't leave me surprised with the "lack of historical context and appreciation" I feel to be pervasive in the American population.

To truncate this rant: History is _so fucking amazing_ when you start to consider it as an interplay of human pathologies, and as a tool for understanding our present. It's such a frustration that our education system doesn't do it justice.

Well... as a tenth-grader, say, I wasn't actually in a position to understand history the way I do now. Teaching me a bare-bones framework was perhaps the best they could do, which gave me a place to hang the detail that I learned later.

That's the sad part for me, there was 0 "Framework" learning. It was 100% rote memorization, usually for a standardized test. (As I've said in other threads, it wasn't until college that I really "Learned how to learn.")

A bare-bones framework, to my older eyes, would teach you to ask about incentives, to look at the zeitgeist of the times, to ask "what's the precedent," and might establish a motivation for this in showing the predictive power of history, or its utility in comprehending current situations. Unfortunately, all of those were long-post-primary-schooling revelations. While I may not have had the context or appreciation I do now, my schooling did almost nothing to move me in that direction.

That would be a framework for thinking about history, which isn't what I meant. I'm not sure I was ready for that in tenth grade. (I suppose it might have opened the door to some new thoughts, but I don't think I would really have gotten it.)

By "framework" I meant just the bare outlines of history: Egypt, the Fertile Crescent, then Greece, then Rome, then the Middle Ages, then the Renaissance, then the Industrial Revolution... Having that "outline" put me in a position, later, as I learned more, of seeing how the details fit into the (very coarse) outline, and thereby learning more outline.

What you're asking for is also totally necessary if one wants to understand history as more than just a collection of facts. And I suppose that even in grade school, history would make more sense if you told them that things happened for reasons, they didn't just happen. You'd have to really simplify the reasons, though...

I agree you need a bare-facts framework. But you also need to make it interesting, in part so the students will keep studying on their own.

Now that should be interesting, since history is full of so many things that human beings find fascinating. Unfortunately, the educators generally manage to make it boring.

> History as it was taught in my early schooling was not only useless, it was utterly counterproductive

It's not just history. Physicists complain "why would they be interested in physics, when they aren't shown any interesting physics?" Chemistry education research describes precollege chemistry education content as "incoherent", leaving both students and teachers deeply steeped in misconceptions. And so on.

Consider a scale of dysfunction, from rote memorization and regurgitation, through mindless plug-and-chug, towards transferable expertise. The disruption of VR/AR is coming. What if we aimed high?

What might transformatively improved history education look like? Imagine teaching crosscutting concepts that pervade history. "History without X? That's just silly." Migration, for example. What if students, shown any slice of history, could be "ok, this looks familiar, here are some key things to look for"? A veterinary systems understanding, instead of a med student's memorized details.

When one sees a bit of history, it can be fun to reflect, how might this have been described better, with greater insight, simplicity, clarity, and accessibility? ELI5. But beyond the fun, with the tech potential for change building, there's a need for visualizing: what would success look like? Real success. Awesome success. Because we need something that matters to aim for.

Of course, history is amazing, and I too have devoted much of my time to studying various periods the older I have got. Studying is perhaps too strong a word, it's more of a form of entertainment and as a way of understanding how we got to where we are now.

I think it started with an obsession with the news, and to understand the news, you need background, history.

I think though, it's difficult to covey all this to a child, or even perhaps a teen, and I doubt there is much interest, outside of the gory details. Looking back I found parts of history interesting, but I never felt like a had a holistic view of the past. As time has gone on, you piece it all together, bit by bit, place by place and see how it's relevant to today's world. There is a lot to take in, it takes time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com