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How to Teach History

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  1. Lessons & Discussions

    Lesson 1: What Is History and Why Study It? (Preview Content)
    3 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  2. Discussion 1: How to Teach History (Preview Content)
    1 Topic
  3. Lesson 2: History and the Liberal Arts (Preview Content)
    3 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  4. Discussion 2: How to Teach History
    1 Topic
  5. Lesson 3: The Role of History in Classical Education
    4 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  6. Discussion 3: How to Teach History
    1 Topic
  7. Lesson 4: Problems in the Study of History
    4 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  8. Discussion 4: How to Teach History
    2 Topics
  9. Lesson 5: Developing as a Student of History
    3 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  10. Discussion 5: How to Teach History (Preview Content)
    2 Topics
  11. Lesson 6: Essential Qualities and Practices of a History Teacher
    3 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  12. Discussion 6: How to Teach History
    1 Topic
  13. Lesson 7: Important Books for the Study of History
    3 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  14. Lesson 8: Major Historians Teachers Should Know
    2 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  15. Lesson 9: Two Ancient Historians---Livy
    3 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  16. Lesson 10: Two Ancient Historians---Bede
    3 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  17. Discussion 10: How to Teach History
    2 Topics
  18. End of Course Test
    End of Course Test: How to Teach History
    1 Quiz
Lesson 2 of 18
In Progress

Discussion 1: How to Teach History (Preview Content)

Wes Callihan and Christopher Perrin discuss Wes’s first lecture about the discipline of history.

Outline of Session

  • (00:00) Christopher: We are looking for honest and open witnesses, apparently there are some unreliable ones.  We have to develop some discernment.  What does it mean to encounter a reliable witness in history?
  • (02:15) Wes: One thing to look for is freedom from an obvious agenda.
  • (05:30) Christopher: What are the good habits that are cultivated in a mature historian but also in a student, who has been growing in his ability to think historically.
  • (07:00) Wes: Seeing a disagreement and knowing how to resolve them.  How can I resolve these disagreements without offering favor to a beloved historian?
  • (10:35) Wes: The mature historian knows the questions and instinctively knows when to ask them.
  • (13:12) Christopher: Students start becoming like a teacher.  Is that one important way that students become historians.
  • (14:10) Wes: Students will naturally imitate the teacher, who is in front of them all the time.  That is the best way to learn something.  Education is always personal, it is always a project between two people who have a relationship with one another.
  • (15:55) Christopher: What are some of the different questions for the different areas of history (political, military, social, biography, etc.)
  • (16:00) Wes: Some questions might be similar between categories.  With the history of art and literature you would ask questions of transmission and influence.
  • (17:50) Wes: In asking questions about literature you are a lot more likely to have access to written sources than asking questions about architecture.
  • (20:55) Christopher:  What misunderstandings and shallow assumptions about history do you see young students (9th grade) bringing to history that need to be addressed, clarified, or corrected?
  • (21:30) Wes: The biggest thing is their inability to distinguish between our culture and the ancient culture.
  • (26:08) Christopher: In what sense is history an art and a science?
  • (26:40) Wes: Science is based on knowledge.
  • (29:15) Christopher: Are there a couple other examples of a people who has been informed well by understanding their own roots?  Can you think of a time when a people got cut off from their roots and suffered harm as a result?
  • (30:25) Wes:  King Josiah recovers the law, which had been lost for a long time and there is a change in the culture of Israel.
  • (33:45) Wes: If you can control history and make it say what you want then you can control people.
  • (34:40) Christopher: Could you talk about the boundary lines of history as a discipline? Is there a discipline of history?
  • (36:05) Wes: To the extent that it is learning how to ask questions about the witnesses of the past, like the tools of grammar, logic, and rhetoric can be applied to anything.
Lesson Content
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