From the look of the syllabus, we are absolutely covering everything. First class covers colonial America, last one covers the early 21st century. (Same thing happened in my Global History paper and my European History paper last year -- these classes jump decades at alarming rates). We're likely to touch on everything but not end up going highly in depth.
But the depth is what makes history both important and interesting! If you don't know the people and the times, and thus why people made the decisions that shaped history, then all you have is a bland recounting of events. This happened, then that happened, and oh, later on something else happened too.
The way history is taught in school is all wrong. There should be more detail, including required reading of biographies of people involved in that history...for example, biographies of at least some of the founding fathers if the topic is US History. Maybe if we taught the full context of history, people would actually get something out of it.
(Empasis mine)
Oi. I'm not American, don't lump my school system in with yours.
Rant Spoilered for Space
When we covered our country's history, it was very in depth and done splendidly, in a manner that encouraged making our own opinions, educating us on the reasons behind the current political system and issues in our country, and developing research skills! Then again, our history is relatively small. =P
Going off of my previous papers, we are likely to have four+ specific themes and trends brought up and discussed -- and that is what everything will be framed around. (For instance in European History: Gender Relations, "Revolutions" (industrial, political, etc), Conflicts, and Ordinary People were our main ones). In addition, we have assigned reading and optional readings to help further our studies. When I said "highly" in depth, I meant we're likely not to hyper focus on specific names and dates and rather on the flow and shifts and changes.
Additionally, biographical information isn't altogether too helpful, as historians' opinions on the whys and hows and whos of history constantly change, and they constantly disagree! For instance, in our history classes (students at 16-17 years old, with frequent debating criss crossing the classroom) we were taught about how Captain Cook (New Zealand's equivalent of Christopher Columbus) used to be seen as this amazing and brilliant figure, but as time went on the manner of his death was highlighted as an example of how he was not a great person (stoned to death while kidnapping a Hawaiian chief), and then still further it changed to how there is hardly any evidence surrounding his death so we can't really know who he was using that. Or to pick a more globally applicable topic -- "What caused the French Revolution?" is a very good way to get historians to argue. There is zero consensus on that, and even if there was one at one point, it certainly will keep on shifting.
Erm.
Goodness, I have Opinions on this topic. XD
The point I'm trying to make is that there is very little point teaching a set of facts and figures -- history classes should teach how to learn and interpret history -- but not what those interpretations "should" be. Teaching specific details doesn't help; teach how to
find and
use databases. Especially since we have the internet nowadays; everything is hyper accessable, so people should learn how to use their resources and learn how they apply to the
now.
Small Rant and maybe suggestion
Back in my plain-old, non-university history class, my history teacher had this sort of... game, I guess you could call it. After reading through some text, he would display maybe six or so different statements on the projector. We would then (in groups or on our own) write a number signifying how much we agreed or disagreed with the statement, and if we wished we could write down why we held that view. 1 was fully, totally agree. 2 was somewhat agree. 3 was somewhat disagree. 4 was fully, totally disagree. The lack of a neutral option was intentional. We would then go through each statement and see who in the class agreed/disagreed, and the next chunk of the class would be the students debating and defending their views. To me, that is what history is all about. It's a wild, blurry place, and when different people peer into its depths they should come back out with different conclusions. If everyone came to the same conclusion, history has died.
I don't know how exactly History is presented in other countries, but a "game" like that would probably help people Learn history. And it certainly makes it more interesting. By the end of the year, we consistently had every single student chime into the discussions, and we never had universal agreement or disagreement.
