Current Events > Ugh, I gotta teach 7th grade world history this year.

(+) Yeah! (+)

750 bc to 1600 ad

I feel like the kids are gonna be real bored with it.
---

It's your job to not make them bored.
---

Go on a 6 month tangent about brian peppers
---

just have them play crusader kings 2 for the latter half of the course
---

History was something that bored me to tears as a kid but now as an adult, I regret not paying attention because history is so fascinating to me now
Make it fun for them!!!
---

Middle hope posted...

Go on a 6 month tangent about brian peppers

I used to live like a half mile from him.
---

How to make history fun?
---

billcom6 posted...

Middle hope posted...

Go on a 6 month tangent about brian peppers

I used to live like a half mile from him.

Brian peppers got Lucas county shook up.

Is it true he had a booster seat in his 87 Chrysler?
---

How the fuck are kids supposed to learn anything, have fun and not be bored when you have to cover 2000 years in a few months
---

The crusades can be fun, but a lot of it is boring as shit...glad I teach high school.
---

Are they gonna even understand it?

I feel its too advanced for 7th graders. A lot of big words and countries
---

Don't worry about anything past 1400ad. You won't have time to get that far before class ends.

billcom6 posted...

750 bc to 1600 ad

Well, you got the Italian Renaissance. That was a fun time.

You also got the Greeks and all their mythology.
---

Try to make the important players seem like characters in a movie. Let their motives be known and the reasons behind their actions.

"So this Ghengis Khan guy, right? Conquered so much shit, he was the Mark Zuckerberg of the 1200's. This mother fucker salted the Earth and shit."
---

You get to teach the most epic part of human history. You'll have to try to make it boring.

The Roman Empire (including the content of the movie 300)
The Persian Empire
The Spanish Inquisition
The Dark Ages
The Renaissance
The Crusades

It's an era of gods and legends. Empires and plagues. How could you fuck that up?
---

PoopPotato posted...

Try to make the important players seem like characters in a movie. Let their motives be known and the reasons behind their actions.

"So this Ghengis Khan guy, right? Conquered so much shit, he was the Mark Zuckerberg of the 1200's. This mother fucker salted the Earth and shit."

Then you got this Leonardo DaVinci dude in the 1400s coming up with all sorts of wacky inventions - kinda like Elon Musk.
---

"not long after that, this Christopher Columbus fella decided that his chicken needed some seasoning and knew that India has lots of this curry flavor that makes everything taste dope. He looked for a shortcut but ended up in the carribean Islands! Imagine that. Wanting some chicken curry but ending up with banana smoothies instead"
---

Why those years? What theme ties those 2000 years together? And that's so much time to cover. What are the 6th and 8th grade history curricula covering?

I would have restructured that to the ancient world covering Ancient Egypt to Rome in one year. Then covered the gradual shift into the Middle Ages ending with the Renaissance in the second year. I'd skip deep diving into the dissolution of the Roman Empire because its kind of a gradual process and there are a lot of nuanced opinions about that.

The story for the first unit is antiquity and the origins of modern civilization, the theme for the second is the story of the Divine Right of Kings and the marrying of the church to national sovereignty. The Renaissance would then cover the severing of that connection and the rise of secularism.

My pre-high school education didn't really spend much time on European history after the fall of Rome. It was one year of American history up until the writing of the constitution with the rest of the year shifting to focus on civics, the mechanics of government, and understanding the politics reporting. This was followed by a second year of American history comprehensively covering everything from the Mayflower to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

I can't imagine trying to tackle two millennia of history while jumping all around Europe, let alone the globe. Kids will struggle to follow it too, unless you can tie it to a central theme, and use that theme to give them a sense of direction.
---

hollow_shrine posted...

Why those years? What theme ties those 2000 years together? And that's so much time to cover. What are the 6th and 8th grade history curricula covering?

I know in Louisiana 6th grade is world history, 7th is American history, and 8 is state history. Id imagine they follow a somewhat similar structure.
---

So the theme is the foundations of western civilization (except we're cutting out half the Classics). We're looking at the rise of Rome and teaching through to the Renaissance a handful of years before Luther's Ninety-five Theses.
---

I feel like social studies is above the heads of 7th graders

In 7th grade I couldnt spell Renaissance or understand economics
---

knuxnole posted...

I feel like social studies is above the heads of 7th graders

In 7th grade I couldnt spell Renaissance or understand economics

We can learn though. My first dedicated history unit was in third grade and our focus was the history of the ancient world and origins of civilization and their myths for one semester.

We kept it super simple. What defines a civilization? Written language. Why is the cradle of civilization such a big deal? Because that's where the older examples of written language were found. Why is that such a big deal compared to ancient Egypt or the inhabitants of Crete? Because where Egyptian and Minoans wrote on perishable materials that broke down over the years and examples of their writing is relatively rare, but the Sumerians and Babylonians wrote on stone and that lasts longer. Spell 'Mesopotamia.'

Don't discount kids' potential to learn. The key is figuring out how to teach them.
---