When I was in middle school and high school, the boys’ PE teacher, the football coach, taught history.

Every history teacher I had would rather have been out on the field smackin’ some kid on the behind, “way to go” or “get after them.”  My husband’s salty old coach said, “it’s testicle cutting time.” Great. That’s the mentality we need teaching history.

They seemed to carry that spirit into the history classroom. It was apparent they hated to teach history. I hated to go to history. Basically, I hated history.

Mr. Bart, my eighth-grade history teacher, must have arrived an hour early to class. When we walked into his classroom, all three giant chalkboards were covered with his tiny handwriting. All his notes, line after line, covered the chalkboard.  He lectured, and we copied every line onto our paper. One time, I yawned in class, and Mr. Bart snapped at me, “Broberg, that’s the fourth time you’ve yawned!” 

I was afraid of him, so I sat up, trying to be interested. (Wouldn’t it be fun to go back in time, and I could say, “well if it wasn’t so boring…”) (Or, “don’t you know that yawning is a sign that my brain needs cooling down?”)

In ninth grade, Mr. Cooper used an overhead projector. He would slide a textbook under it, flash it up on one of those pull-down movie screens that attached to the chalkboard, and read to us while, once again, we took notes to memorize for a test. I guess you could say he was smarter than Mr. Bart; he didn’t have to arrive early and copy everything onto the chalkboard.

Shortly after the exams, I couldn’t remember anything but the cute boy that sat behind me and seemed to get good grades because he was the quarterback. High School history is not memorable. Except for that one teacher who did not coach football, but she wore military pumps with her grey military skirt, a large ring of keys attached to her matriarchal hip. She had served time in the military, yes, and she was still barking out orders. I learned nothing. I can’t even remember any of the other years of history.

Today, I love history. I got to read and learn about it as I homeschooled.

My favorite book for higher grades begins with “The Ancient History of the World” by Susan Wise Bauer. She has an entire curriculum for grades 1- 12.  “The Story of the World”  books are in four volumes. One volume for each year, and a workbook with activities. Over the course of four years, we covered the history of the world. Then we started over again so that in fifth grade and ninth grade, we were back to ancient history.

We also made a timeline. We used a software program — called TimeLiner XE , which allows you to search the internet for pictures to cut and paste into your timeline. When my kids were in the elementary grades, we made a giant wall timeline. And added pictures and hand-wrote the dates and events.

Memorization is necessary too. We memorized significant dates. It’s nice to know what comes first — and wars are often good things to memorize. Later on, as you come across some historical event, you place it on that timeline. In this way, you are establishing a time frame for everything you study. Who came first? Which war, what time? Kids are amazing at memorizing.

Finally,  I like history. And now, Audible is my favorite way to read.  Just drove 12 hours, listening to Blitzed — Drugs in the Third Reich. 

Â