A Better Way to Teach History | Seth Berkowitz | TEDxArcadiaUniversity
something you should know about me is I love history if I wanted to I could just stand up here and go on and on about some obscure historical figure or battle or document and now it fundamentally changed the course of human events well I won't subject you to that instead what I want to focus on is why some of you might have just started tuning me out through your eyes just started glazing over because here's the thing I don't think the issue is with the subject matter because I think history is very interesting it's engaging it's exciting but that's not how most people feel you get a lot of boredom and indifference and why do you think that is think back to when you were first learning about history as a kid in school do you remember on an old heavy out-of-date textbook that was missing a bunch of pages from it or do you remember a teacher dryly explaining a concept well occasionally a pointing to something she wrote on the board or do you remember getting to visit a museum where you just excited to get out of school for the day and you never felt the need to go back and visit it again see that's that's the issue when you think back on these memories can you even remember what the lesson was about so how do we as a society fix this problem how do we get schools museums to make history more interesting for the people who are learning it and so though I will retain that important information going forward well my first suggestion would be to replace those old burdensome textbooks and get some lightweight tablets instead electronic textbooks already becoming more common in lots of schools and they're generally pretty cheaper and much more up-to-date than your average textbook and using tablets would also allow teachers to create more interactive learning experiences where they could have students use websites where they can build recreations of historic sites or use video games that take place during different time periods teach them about that time in place I also feel like another way that we can be using technology in this in this way to teach history is through social media companies and organizations already reach out engages people on Instagram snapchat and Twitter so why shouldn't universities and using be doing the same thing some of you might know that some museums and universities are doing this you'll see them post about fun facts or photos of artifacts or information about upcoming events and this all helps spread that information much farther than say a paper flyer in the street light like a few dozen people might read that that same information online could be seen by thousands and that's the thing new technology can help these organizations to better engage with people about this topic but I know what you're thinking can are you picturing a bunch of old teachers and museum workers trying to understand how their phones work so I think my second suggestion would be to highlight the work of young historians because there's already all across this country they are museum interns and student teachers and other young workers and history professions who are doing great work that isn't getting a lot of recognition so I feel like advertising for historical organizations should highlight that work and focus on how these young workers are making a difference right now and that can encourage people to take more of an interest in the subject going forward for instance museums could allow young interns to run their social media pages that would allow them to write posts about interesting important information about history in a way that a lot of younger people would take notice of I also believe that inside the museum you could have a lot of more younger workers in charge of leading the tour groups to do the museum and they could explain the stories behind those artifacts and exhibits in a way that more people would appreciate which brings me to my third point which speaking of inside the museum and the exhibits we should be creating new kinds of museum exhibits a lot of the museum's you see you say have a lot of old out-of-date exhibits that are in desperate need of updates or replacements so when I have to create ones that are more reflective of modern times and issues created an exhibit that reflects what's going on and currently like you could create a temporary exhibit focusing on the effects that politics have on a local community that would encourage people from that community to come visit the museum and that would connect them to the other exhibits and maybe certain ideas about history that they were less interested in beforehand this would also allow an opera for museums to integrate new technology into their exhibits like smartphone apps or interactive touch screens which will allow them display far more details and facts and an exhibit could ever have displayed before and they're already young historians working to make this a possibility and that change is becoming more apparent in larger museums as we speak so as I've rambled here today you're probably wondering why they talk about history and unless the past is so focused on the future that's the thing history is never-ending and our understanding of the past that's constantly evolving so why should the way we teach history continue unchanged how we teach this information to new generations will affect what happens in in the future as those generations grow up and they have to learn from the past do I better reflect what's going on in their present and as the saying goes those who don't learn from history or didn't have to take the class again next semester thank you for coming to my TED talk [Applause]