Those who claim to discover everything but produce no proofs of the same may be confuted as having actually pretended to discover the impossible.

Archimedes of Syracuse

Despite advances in technology, it is still a lamentable fact that the vast majority of history teachers throughout our education system present lectures that are terribly tedious and extremely dry, to the point where students dread going to that class. Indeed, for many students, watching paint dry holds a better promise of mental stimulation.

To combat this mind-numbing trend that robs history of its riveting stories and rich complexity, history teachers ought to spice up their lectures with presentation tools that convey the key information in an appealing fashion, as well as enhances the teacher’s story telling.

Furthermore, a lesson taught in an appealing manner imparts upon a mind the gift of knowledge that lasts a lifetime. I can attest to this truth of these points from my own educational experiences. When I ruminate on all my Primary and Secondary school teachers I have been forced to endure, I cannot recall one that had a supportive demeanour, a positive classroom environment, or made any attempt to make their lessons engaging.

It was not until university that I met inspiring teachers that encouraged me to learn for the pure joy of learning. Before that, I detested school and made every effort to escape its doldrums. Fortunately, I was obliged to attend the Queen Victoria School where I had ample opportunity to disregard my studies and engage in activities that I thought were more important. Looking back, I wonder what type of historian and soldier I would be today if I had Lower School teachers as passionate as some of my university professors.

The two professors that I admire the most were unorthodox and rough around the edges. Nevertheless, they had a passion for their discipline, as well as, the depth of knowledge required to make the content truly captivating. Moreover, these teachers genuinely cared about what I had to say and took a sincere interest in me as an individual who had his own ideas to express. Moreover, they made their classrooms a safe place, where an honest debate of ideas could occur unencumbered by the arbitrary dictates of emotion. As a consequence, it was those very non-traditional approaches to teaching that made their lessons linger in my mind all these years later. Accordingly, I have attempted to model my own teaching style and classroom atmosphere on their examples.

Fortunately, in our current technology dominated epoch, the impassioned history teacher has access to technological tools that can enhance the students’ learning experiences by making the content more gratifying. While technology ought to be employed with moderation, one should not shy away from utilising a few prudent tools that make the learning experience more enjoyable for everyone:

The first option is the use of History/Political channels on streaming websites like Dailymotion. These sites are a great source for high-quality history lectures by practising historians. With that said, the trend towards censorship of politically incorrect content is most distressing and many of these channels have been targeted by these illiberal policies.

Despite the real threat to the free exchange of ideas, many of these channels are professional productions that intertwine lecture with archival footage and are filled with personal stories of the people who lived through such extraordinary times. Making history tangible for students’ sets ablaze within them an unquenchable flame of curiosity that will burn for a lifetime.

Dailymotion is surprisingly users friendly. To find content for a class, use the search bar in the upper right-hand corner. It is advisable to do this search with the projector placed on the freeze mode so that unsuitable content is not inadvertently displayed. No matter how innocent the search phase, something inappropriate will always be displayed.

To post lectures, the first step to posting a video is to create an account. Then one locates the upload video tap on the menu bar in the upper right portion of the screen. Click the button which will take you to a separate screen with another upload video button, click the button. The action will open your video library then you can click on the video that you wish to upload. The rest of the lecture production is left up to the user. With that said, there should be no excuse, apart from the expense, for history teachers to produce high-quality lectures that surpass content on educational sites like Hillsdale College’s free online courses.

These platforms can provide history teachers with further research homework by assigning the students to watch a lecture or a legitimate documentary. Students are also directed to take notes on the key ideas or events covered in the content in order to be ready to have a Socratic discussion about the homework. Such assignments are great for long breaks or weekends. (Aye, teachers ought to assign homework over the breaks to keep students’ mental skills sharp and to combat the effects of fade-out.)

The next option is to jazz (Aye, you hand use jazz hands) up the day to day history lectures with engaging content on PowerPoint or Prezi. As previously mentioned part one of this blog, these platforms offer the teacher a powerful tool to aid the student in distilling the key points of a lecture for those who have not yet developed the skill of deciphering what information is pertinent enough to place in their notes. Additionally, a teacher can make the material on the slides as engaging as they wish by incorporating works of art, historical pictures, videos, animations, and old recordings.

Both platforms have their strengths, PowerPoint is more for lessons that have a linear format, whereas Prezi is grand for its zoom and pan feature that allows for the exploration of events in detail. Most teachers have some experience with PowerPoint, but many do not utilise Prezi’s approach to play to its strengths. An example lesson in Prezi would be to use its features to explain a complex historical event by transitioning through and zooming in on the stages of an event. I have put together a decent lesson on Prezi for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that takes the students along each stage of those complex events. Pausing on each significant stage that builds up to the moment when Ferdinand’s diver takes a wrong turn and happens to pull up to a stunned Gavrilo Princip, who had given up on a chance to murder the Archduke. As one can see the features of Prezi enable a teacher to create the emotion of suspense with the students and then the emotional rush of the reveal. Moreover, it allows a teacher to demonstrate that these events were not pre-ordained to occur, at any stage, the individual actors could have chosen to a different path.

Regardless of the technological tools a teacher desires to use in the classroom, the main intent should always be to make the lesson more engaging and to highlight the key points of a lesson. It is essential to understand that placing a chrome book, or similar device, in front of a student and letting them look up random information is not the same as teaching core knowledge. Prudent teachers should always hold to the ideal, that they are equipping their students with information that is necessary for them to function as a free citizen, who has the capacity to think independently about complex ideas. Accordingly, one should keep in mind the difference between an instructor, a teacher, and deadwood.