My Social Studies teacher was Mr. K. He was a fun teacher! It was because of Mr. K that I became interested in studying history.
He made history interesting by telling one curious lie, and we all believed him too. For instance, let's say we were studying The Civil Rights movement, then he would say his Uncle John attended the Civil Rights marches, or Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream speech", then he'd say his Aunt Jane attended that march.
Going back farther to the American Revolution, he would say his first great great grandfather, one of the original immigrants to this country from his family pretended to be for the British, but was one of George Washington's spies.
During the Civil War, he had cousins who fought on the North and the South. He said the southern cousin was half black too.
In other words, Mr. K told us that for every historical event in the US, he pretended a member of his family had been part of the event, so we listened to every word he said. He made it sound like he had the diaries of these relatives that were unpublished and not on the web for family privacy issues, but he would read portions of it to us.
Some of what he told us was real, some was not. I never figured out which was which, but by making history compelling and personal, our history teacher made history come alive. I do believe he may have had family members in the more recent history events, but I don't know about the ones in the far past.
He also made history come alive by wearing costumes. He would also dress up in different period costumes when teaching different American historical period. I thought he looked hilarious in a white wig similar to the ones George Washington would wear.
He would bring in souvenirs such as old newspapers, old coinage, to make American history more hands on and real for us. He would pass around these old newspapers from Colonial America or coinage from colonial times and we were able to feel the objects of history which made history more authentic and real, and not just boring facts in a textbook.
We did not just read a history textbook and memorize dates and events for a test. Our history teacher provided us with exciting family stories, dressed up in period costumes, took us on school field trips where we even visited an entire pioneer town that still dressed up in historical costumes.
He had a dynamic teaching style. When introducing the immigrant unit, he showed us pictures of a bunch of drunk Irish men, and asked us, "Are Irish people always drunk?" He then told us that back in the day, Irish people were discriminated against and that the picture of the drunk Irishman was a stereotype because it was a common belief that was false.
He also would also challenge our stereotypes of what we know about other countries, he would ask us, "When you think of Africa, what images do you see in your head?". We would answer stupidly, Tarzan, apes, lions and safari as well as dancing natives with painted faces dancing around a fire. We would think all of Africa was like that.
Then he threw us a magazine for each of us to read. They were magazines from Africa. As we looked through the pages of the magazine, we saw pictures of modern buildings and skyscrapers much like New York. Then, he would say, "Actually, Africa has over 50 countries with cities as modern as NY." We would all be flabbergasted because that's not how Africa is portrayed in western media!
Mr. K was a great teacher because he found innovative ways to make history come alive with historical objects, historical costumes, movies, pictures, and fascinating family stories attending major American historical events most of which he had made up, but it was a fascinating way to get us to learn World and American history.
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