Revised thoughts on teaching history

My latest blog. "Being a history teacher: 1 part educator, 1 part actor."
Hey, guys!
I promised a post earlier in the week, but life got in the way, sorry for that. I thought that today I would write about a topic near and dear to my heart, teaching history. There is much negativity out there about teachers and the profession of teaching in general, but there will be none of that here. I love teaching, yes some things drive me crazy, mostly the insane attention paid to DATA and test scores, the word data makes me physically ill come March, but enough of that. Teaching is rewarding, that may be too small of a word. Teaching kids give me such joy that it makes all the data-driven crap worth it. I could write a book about teaching history and the love I have for it, but I wanted to focus just on one simple thing today, instilling a love of history in your students. We all had our fair share of boring history teachers, most of my terrible history teachers were in college. I made it my goal, once I got my teaching license, to entertain kids every day. A good teacher, in my opinion, is 1 part educator and 1 part actor. Standing in front of 12-year-old kids and trying to get them to give a darn about the Viking invasions of Britain requires a little acting, but the payoff is worth it. The best payoff a history teacher gets is when you hook a group of kids on your topic, it's like a drug for history nerds when kids are hanging on every word of your story and wanting more. I work with two other fantastic history teachers that have that gift as well, it is a gift that I am so thankful for because it makes teaching fun. So the next time you think that history is boring, you just have to open your mind and bring it to life.