In the teaching of geography and history a sympathetic understanding (should) be fostered for the characteristics of the different peoples of the world, especially for those who we are in the habit of describing as "primitive.
Governments should encourage and facilitate the teaching of history, but one does not want them to be able to dictate, for political or partisan reasons, what kind of history and interpretations are on offer to children.
My message was 'Think African. Make schools read African history.'
Punjab history is hardly taught to students in schools.
Proper history teaching is being crushed under the weight of play-based pedagogy which infantilises children, teachers and our culture.
When I was in middle school, and teachers lectured about World War II, the conflict seemed impossibly distant and irrelevant. And it had only happened 15 years earlier.
By the time a kid goes to college, if he's taking math or science, at least he knows, or you hope he knows, some basics. But if you're teaching history in college, you have a lot of damage to undo. You basically have to start over because so much of what a kid has already learned is just wrong.
Nowadays, with history not being taught anymore in American public schools, self-esteem is taking its place.
History courses made up of all facts and no interpretation are guaranteed to put kids to sleep…. History comes alive when viewed as a patterned story open to ongoing debate.
I believe very strongly, and have fought since many years ago - at least over 30 years ago - to get architecture not just within schools, but architecture talked about under history, geography, science, technology, art.
I've seen my kids' work at school, and I think they're better than when I was young, 'cause I was brainwashed into anti-Communism. This is a much more interesting view of history than I've ever seen, and I hope to God it works. It's classic history, classically told. No talking heads. Just pure archival footage and a storyline.
I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.
Not enough people really think about the founding of our country, how it all began and what its really about. They don't even teach it in schools any more.
Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in the sense that it was the United States' initial or baptismal experience in nation-building.
History is admirably dangerous. It is not the soft option. Teachers need to be grown up and brave. Sensitivity is fine, but it stops at the door of honest narrative.
This is what I would have done if I had to have a real job: I would have been a history teacher.
Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history.
Little children can learn anything, just as they can learn a foreign language. The mind is so absorbent then. There ought to be a real program to educate teachers who want to teach grade school children about history.
In my generation, history was taught in terms of grand figures, men on whom the destiny of the nation hinged, quintessential heroes.
I remember, growing up as a kid, history class was very washed-over. They didn't really get into the gritty bits of slavery. It's a very, very small section in the history books. It's not something they really touch on directly with American curriculums.
For centuries, everything was taught through music. History was taught through music; language and mathematics were taught through music.
Novels taught me that history is dramatic. I wanted my students to know that, too.
If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.
My mom was a teacher. In the 1960s and '70s, she taught history at two largely African American public high schools in Washington, D.C. - McKinley Tech and H.D. Woodson. Her example taught me the importance of equality for all Americans.
The way they taught history in schools was not appealing. They stressed wars and dates. They left the people out. I was attracted to history by the need to know about the people. In China, I went to a British school, and we just learned about kings and queens. Back in America, I had the regular social studies curriculum.
