Teaching History so Children will Care

This reading caught my attention because when I was in grade school learning history, we weren't really taught to provide our opinions about what were taught.  History lessons were being taught in a teacher-centered setting where we had to memorize dates and 'important' historical events that the State and school district deemed necessary for us to learn and we would move on to the next thing.  Because we ran through things so quickly,  I feel that this has a lot to do with why I am unable to remember a lot of events from history.  This article made me reflect on how I teach history during my school teaching.  I don't allow the students to provide opinions and I don't provide different perspectives of historical events.  The reading (2005, pg. 130) talks about how the teacher makes the students connect what they just learned to self, text, and world, allowing them to make connections, causing more feedback from students.  In the article, the students became involved when they made connections and kept bringing up history throughout other lessons. The students learned about slavery and that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, when a student saw Jefferson on the nickel, he became upset because Jefferson was a slave owner.  To conclude, I will try to remember to make students make connections so that more historical events will stick with them.