Teacher Develops Game To Make History Interesting

[immortalfrieza]

That's probably only true because we teach kids that way and always have. I would never agree that kids are less capable or need a longer length of time than an adult to learn something.
A child's brain is no less capable at learning something than an adult's, they just have less information in their brains to begin with, in short, they lack context.

I can't argue that my teachers were boring, I like history when it's presented to me in an interesting format, thus it's no surprise I like the History channel. Really though, that's because the History channel producers are paid to make history interesting, teachers, not so much. Teachers get paid to ramble off facts all day, over and over again, and they get paid regardless of whether kids learn them. Is it any wonder why they would not be motivated to make things interesting?

As a teacher I find that kind of insulting. I'm passionate about history, and I put that passion into my class. I'm paid to make sure that my students learn the material, and the best way to do that is to make it interesting to them. There needs to be some scaffolding using facts for the students to learn and thats what every single class in compulsory education is trying to do.
Advanced math is going to be next to useless to you later on, hell I can't name a single subject that I can guarantee will be relevant to the lives of students. But thats not the point of education, deep down. the goal isn't to make things relevant to the students daily lives in a direct way but to help them create links in their head so they can think critically about the world and not be mindless sheep.

YOU may care enough about the actual education of your students to make sure that they learn what they are being taught, but in my experience you're a rarity, and I doubt you'll stay that way forever or even very long anyway. I went to some perfectly good schools and I've had more teachers than I can count that have told the entire class, usually at the beginning of the year, something to the effect of "I don't care if you don't pay attention, fall asleep in class, whatever. I get paid regardless of if you students learn anything or not."

I can't say I blame them either, considering most of the students that I shared the classroom with screw around regardless. That, and having to teach the same things over and over and over... it's all but impossible for anyone to maintain their enthusiasm for any real length of time under those circumstances. I was probably one of the few kids that DIDN'T screw around and actually listened, even though it bored the hell out of me.

 

[Commissar Sae]

That's probably only true because we teach kids that way and always have. I would never agree that kids are less capable or need a longer length of time than an adult to learn something.
A child's brain is no less capable at learning something than an adult's, they just have less information in their brains to begin with, in short, they lack context.

I can't argue that my teachers were boring, I like history when it's presented to me in an interesting format, thus it's no surprise I like the History channel. Really though, that's because the History channel producers are paid to make history interesting, teachers, not so much. Teachers get paid to ramble off facts all day, over and over again, and they get paid regardless of whether kids learn them. Is it any wonder why they would not be motivated to make things interesting?

As a teacher I find that kind of insulting. I'm passionate about history, and I put that passion into my class. I'm paid to make sure that my students learn the material, and the best way to do that is to make it interesting to them. There needs to be some scaffolding using facts for the students to learn and thats what every single class in compulsory education is trying to do.
Advanced math is going to be next to useless to you later on, hell I can't name a single subject that I can guarantee will be relevant to the lives of students. But thats not the point of education, deep down. the goal isn't to make things relevant to the students daily lives in a direct way but to help them create links in their head so they can think critically about the world and not be mindless sheep.

YOU may care enough about the actual education of your students to make sure that they learn what they are being taught, but in my experience you're a rarity, and I doubt you'll stay that way forever or even very long anyway. I went to some perfectly good schools and I've had more teachers than I can count that have told the entire class, usually at the beginning of the year, something to the effect of "I don't care if you don't pay attention, fall asleep in class, whatever. I get paid regardless of if you students learn anything or not."

I can't say I blame them either, considering most of the students that I shared the classroom with screw around regardless. That, and having to teach the same things over and over and over... it's all but impossible for anyone to maintain their enthusiasm for any real length of time under those circumstances. I was probably one of the few kids that DIDN'T screw around and actually listened, even though it bored the hell out of me.

Then I'm sorry to say you had some pretty crappy teachers. As for maintaining enthusiasm I'm working with a teacher right now who is maybe 65, but is probably more enthusiastic than I am. According to him the trick is not to let yourself get bogged down teaching the same class every year in the same way. Something I plan to do in the future.

Also a teachers pay is pretty low compared to a lot of other jobs I could be doing. Someone going in to teaching for easy money is pretty much guaranteed to suck at their job.