Earlier this week me and Our Sidekick when to a Pre-Admission’s appointment at his new school. I don’t remember going to one when I moved up to Upper School but it’s always possible that it did happen. We happened to meet with one of the history teachers and we walked through the history department to go to the classroom that we were going to have an interview in. On the wall outside the classroom there was a board about all the work that was being done. On one board there were photos from a trip to a medicine history museum – looked very interesting and would have probably kept my interest in history when I was at school.
On Thursday I got in from band and sat down at my MacBook to get on with various bits and I’ve now put a history documentary on iPlayer. I posted on Facebook “You can tell I’m my father’s daughter when I watch a history documentary on iPlayer because it looks interesting…..”
A friend of mine commented and I responded with “It’s funny because at school I did history because I enjoyed it but by the end of GCSE I hated it – it was so boring – but history itself isn’t boring. I’d sit around and read a history book for fun and potter round a museum to learn about where i came from and the history that affected the world we live in.”
It got me thinking – if GCSE History had been taught in a different way would I have found it more interesting – I studied the Cold War and WW2. I did choose AS Level History for Sixth Form but I ended up dropping it as a choice before starting as I actually failed History in the end (I got an F and I’m kind of proud of it in a way because I got a B for Italian and 5 Cs and that was enough to get me into Sixth Form in the end lol).
I’m not sure how History is being taught at schools now but from the feedback I get from Our Sidekick his History teacher is good – and I should know she taught me when I was in Year 8. She taught me History, English and French – she just has a passion for the subjects that she teaches. If I had had her for GCSE who knows I might have got better grades…….
What was your favourite subject at school? Did you enjoy history at school or was it boring? Did you have a particular time period that you liked learning about?
I also did History GCSE but we didn’t do the typical War stuff (which is why I didn’t continue it at A Level as that was in the syllabus). Our two areas topics were The American West – so how America came to be which included things like Custer’s Last Stand, Manifest Destiny, all about the American Indians and battles etc – and the other topic was Medicine Through Time. For that it was right back from the Stone Age to when the NHS was formed – how medicine has developed, basically. We then did Women in China as one of our coursework pieces and the other one was a local history project on coaching (so Highway men time and how the country was back). Everyone else I know though did War stuff for GCSE and I for one am glad I didn’t!
That’s funny. Medicine Through Time would have been right up my street. Clearly I went to the wrong school!! Either that or was just on the wrong exam board.
Although I think The American West would have bored me lol. I think we did a bit of it at middle school because I remember learning about Custer’s Last Stand.
I loved history! I was lucky to have a great history teacher: it really is a subject that can go either way depending on the teacher. I even wanted to be a history teacher for a while… until I realized how much what I taught would be standardized by the US state I live in. Our public education is really hurting right now.
What kind of thing would you have had to cover? I know ours involves at least WW1 or WW2. Is the Founding Fathers covered in History? (or is that Social Studies?) I’m never too sure what are our equivalent subjects at school.
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