It is the fall of 2015. I am standing in front of a class of 20 adolescents. They are waiting for me to make a face, or say a word. Just when they are about to fall asleep they hear, “Welcome to U.S. History.”
I took U.S. History in my junior year of high school. I had the privilege of having the greatest teacher ever for U.S. History. I didn’t know a teacher could make a U.S. History class as fun as he did. There weren’t hours of homework, but I learned how history is all around us. I didn’t necessarily need homework to help digest things.
History is in our ever day life, for example, I was in Florida this past spring break, and my family and I went to see the Jupiter Lighthouse. I was reading some information on the lighthouse in the little museum they had. I ran across someone that we learned about in class. I thought that was cool.
I also recognized information we learned in class at the Greenfield Village in Detroit. I saw a Model T car, Henry Ford’s house from when he was a little boy, and one of the first Ford Motor Company buildings. I also saw and went in the house of Henry Ford’s school teacher.
My teacher found other ways to teach us. He played music from each era and we had to guess which one it was. We sang a song from the topic of the unit we were doing. Whichever class sang the loudest got extra credit on their test. He showed us political cartoons of past presidents and/or issues that were going on in America at the time. We would look at the cartoons and define people or objects that the cartoonist was using to get his point across.
I looked forward to his class because I knew we would be learning in a fun manor. I could earn extra credit by reading a section in the textbook and answering the questions at the end of the reading. I could also watch a movie relating to the unit I learned about and give him a summary on it. I watched “The Untouchables” when we were learning about Prohibition. I also watched “The Outsiders” when we were learning about the fifties. It gave me a better understanding what it was like back then and how people lived their lives.
However, I learned the most through the notes I took in class and the movies or clips that were shown in class. When I watched a clip or movie, it gave me a better understanding of our history. I could see it and that helped me grasp the information.
My U.S. History teacher opened my eyes, and made me realize history can be fun to learn. I want to be able to give other kids the same chance to learn about our country’s history and how we became to be the United States of America.