General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: American education fails to teach us anything about American history. [View all]LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)I think it would be ideal to spend an entire year on a certain section of American history, beginning with the Indians crossing the land bridge from Asia, and successively teaching other sections until you get to the present time in high school. That way, the students could learn detailed information and have discussions about one era to the next. It always seemed to me that there wasn't any organization to learning history in school.
We would rush through a book and facts would be thrown at us to be regurgitated on fill-in-the-blank tests or, even worse, multiple choice. There was a little discussion in class of opinions about different parts, but I never wrote essays about my opinions or impressions in history classes until I went to college. That's almost too late. The kids need to have a good command of the facts starting at an early age, and they should start organizing their thoughts into sentences, paragraphs, essays, and papers as soon as they learn to write.