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The Time Travellers Guide To History
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Message 1.Β
Posted by andrewjarvis (U14992193) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
My daughter has recently gone to University to study History. Her end goal appears to be moving towards teaching.
I have always had an interest in History within the whole time frame from pre Roman to post World War Two.
What has struck me is that when our children are taught History at school they are taught specific segments. eg Henry Tudor, English Civil War, World War 1 and World War 2.
Their understanding is factual based and they have little or no understanding of how these events fit into the timeline.
Could the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ produce a series that went from Pre Roman,Roman,Post Roman, Saxon, Norman Conquest, Medieval etc through to post World War 2.
Could the programmes feature actors or actresses from Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ programmes that have a historical context eg Downtown Abbey, King Arthur, Robin Hood, discuss when their characters were supposed to have lived.Or perhaps a respected presenter.
Could the programmes explain in each of the time zones some of the following:-
What were the living conditions for the workers, the middle tier and the upper tier.
What science was known, what were the religions, what caused events to happen.
What was happening elsewhere in the world.
What caused the wars.
What decisions changed History.
I know the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ has a good track record when it comes to this type of programme and I strongly believe that if done right this would plug the gaps in knowledge and entertain and enrich us.
If only for our childrens education it is worth considering. -
Message 2
Posted by bishenbertie (U13222350) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
Hello Andrew and welcome to the history board. It is very unlikely although not impossible that anyone from the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ who commissions programmes will see your message.
The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ hosts this facility and we are only people like yourself sitting at home and having an interest in history.
I hope your daughter has a good time at Uni and her dreams for her future come to fruition. -
Message 3
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
andrewjarvis
Unfortunately "joined up history" went out of fashion many decades ago.. Hence my "Towards a View of History for Our Own Times Project" a couple of years ago.
Some of us have always kept faith with the idea that History should be about exploring the Past behind the Present so that we can have some idea about "The tides in the affairs of man" and therefore just how we face the challenge of the Future.
Cass -
Message 4
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
Andrew- we must obey the establishment.
Things have changed little in this nation since 1066, "us" and "them".
Only history surrounding the promotion of, and preservation of, the Romans, Normans, Tudors and Victorians, is to be tolerated? Nothing existed before 1066 unless it had a Latin name. -
Message 5
Posted by Hugh Mosby-Joaquin (U14258131) on Monday, 3rd October 2011
andrewjarvis
Unfortunately "joined up history" went out of fashion many decades ago.. Hence my "Towards a View of History for Our Own Times Project" a couple of years ago.
Some of us have always kept faith with the idea that History should be about exploring the Past behind the Present so that we can have some idea about "The tides in the affairs of man" and therefore just how we face the challenge of the Future.
Cass Β
I'd be interested in your project....
I always wanted to teach history in reverse, and in linear form.
My theory goes something like this:
Take a subject, for example, social eating. Start with getting kids to appreciate the notion of social eating today; it should not be too long before 'Macdonalds' is mentioned. Then regressively, go back in time. What did your parents do to eat out with friends? Wimpy bars? What about your grandparents? Better go and ask them! What happened during the war? And ditto, The Great War? Who invented cafΓ©s? What's a coffee-house, a coaching-inn? What were these Canterbury Pilgrims doing in The George at Southwark? Better do some research!
And thus we take the subject back through a timeline; the entire national curriculum vould be covered! But more importantly, it starts with an understandable frame of reference, ie the kids' own experiences, Thus it has a context. Any subject-area of history could, in my opinion, be covered.
Just don't start with dinosaurs... -
Message 6
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 3rd October 2011
Hugh Mosby-Joaquim
(a) I always found that pupils experiences were invaluable- but I found that they could understand my saying "this was rather like..." and then getting them to think of some way in which their reality had continuities with the Past. It was often interesting to use items in the news and campare/contrast with the history that we were studying and speculate..
My greatest ever class of historians very early on had the experience of me going in to the classroom having just spent a lesson watching 9/11, and having to do the Battle of Hastings as per my lesson plan.. I think that they caught the gravity of my mood, as I warned them that things were happening that they would see that evening on the news.. And that almost certainly that date would resonate down through history like 1066. But for the moment we would focus on that earlier turning point- for we could not do anything else productive.
(b) I could give you a link to my project .. But it may not be what you are looking for.. It has three parts each of about 60-70 pages of A4. And it is more about establishing a view of the art of history rather than writing a actual history
The First Part tries to give a survey of historical writing from about 1800- relating the intentions of the historians to their contemporary world.
The Second Part tries to assess the actual impact of those approaches to history on the actual course of history.
The Third Part tries to see the Twentieth Century as an example of "Work in Progress".
As usually happens- if we are lucky- I think that you might be better advised to look at something that I have almost finished polishing up today.. That is less than 100 pages, and I have called it "Modern Lessons from Medieval History".. I will be putting a link on the MB soon- just in case anyone is interested..
Regards
Cass -
Message 7
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 4th October 2011
Further to the notion of tracing History back from the Present, I often come back to the image of a circle being defined by its tangents..
Great historians (and other writers) have been able to assess the "tide in the affairs of man" that is flowing during their own times- and project the features of the Present straight back into the Past creating an idea of the possibilities of the Future projected by that line, and thus helping to shape it.
But during the Age of Catastrope (1914-1945) with its two world wars and the world chaos [that all of a sudden people are remembering] the sense of History as Progress or even just a "Way" lost its credibility..
The Future became a place of fantasy because life in the Present was often reduced to mere survival. A couple of years ago I read the best selling "Our Own Times 1913-38" written by Commander Steven King-Hall in 1935 and 1938.
King-Hall wrote as someone educated by the Royal Navy who brought out the "tides" of that age, and thought that these were "interesting times" that called for the navigating skill of those "on the bridge".. But - like any good captain and team- those on the bridge had a responsibility to look after all of those on board- socialism with a small 's'.
In keeping with what Hereword has posted, National Curriculum History and projected school courses on "Citizenship", have all tended to reflect that kind of Victorian paternalistic approach in which the bulk of the people need to be convinced to entrust their lives to those in control with specialised training- turning the English tradition of democracy away from its true roots in "extra-paliamentary democracy" , in which the people ran their own lives most of the time, to one in which people have the chance to vote from time to time in elections that are almost like Henry T Ford's "You can have any colour you want, as long as it is black".
Cass -
Message 8
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 6th October 2011
Message 5 - brilliant idea!
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Message 9
Posted by NormanRHood (U14656514) on Friday, 14th October 2011
youtube has some good things about medieval times
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