In 1492....somebody sailed the ocean blue

I'm willing to bet that a large majority of Americans can identify that it was Christopher Columbus who sailed the ocean blue in 1492, but can they identify other historical facts? That is the question.

Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) convened a hearing to determine why U.S. History is our worst subject. Author and historian David McCullough was the key witness at the hearing and expressed two major concerns: history text books, and teacher training. As a middle school history teacher I can tell you that these are indeed two of the biggest problems when teaching history. Take a look at several different history books and you'll see that they're all the same, very basic and very boring descriptions of various events throughout the course of American history. Descriptions that barely scratch the surface and don't tell the whole story. McCullough has evaluated school history books and found another problem and trend, "typeface in those books is growing larger, the illustrations are more lavish, and the content is shrinking." It seems as though the textbook companies are assuming students don't like to read, or aren't good readers. But while they're cutting content and increasing text size the actual language of the text remains too challenging, making what little information they've included difficult for students to comprehend.

One way to side step this huge textbook issue is to improve teacher training. McCullough claims, "Too many (teachers) have degrees in education and don't really now the subject they are teaching." This statement is partially true. At the elementary level most teachers take several classes in a variety of subject areas, middle school teachers also take classes in a variety of subject areas but a majority of those classes focus on the subject they're teaching, making them endorsed to teach that subject (hopefully giving them some expertise in that area). Because elementary and middle school teachers typically have the same certificate (k-9) most elementary teachers also have an endorsement in a certain area. High school teachers typically major in a specific subject, theoretically making them experts in that subject. We all know it doesn't always work out that way. We've all had teachers who have very little expertise of anything. This puts the state of education in a tricky position. If teachers aren't trained properly how can they teach properly? Colleges need to ensure they are providing their students with enough opportunities in their area of study. I took nearly 30 hours of history classes in college but only half of those classes have proved to be beneficial to me in my teaching.

These two main issues collide when teachers with insufficient training depend on their textbooks to do the teaching for them. Unfortunately there are still teachers out there who teach by the book and only by the book. I've worked with a few of these teachers, it isn't pretty. History is a great subject to teach outside of the book. There are so many other things you can do with your students; use a variety of resources to see different perspectives, perform reenactments, have discussions and debates, even watch a movie. The possibilities are endless. If we make history more exciting and meaningful it won't be our worst subject for much longer.