Day 7: History (11&12)

Well this wan't much more success either.
I am coming to the point that I agree that their laziness is the main obstacle in their learning. Everything is out there and we should be having meaningful, interesting conversations about what they have found out but they seem to be less and less interested and the lessons are sinking in a general abyss of hopelessness and an occasional whimper about the exam.
I wonder how many of them will actually sign in to Edmodo and look at the stuff I have prepared for them.
I never claimed to be a History teacher but I have a life-long passion for the subject and I am willing to learn and this is all the students really need to acquire too. Interest but how do you teach someone interest!?
The attempt with grade 11 seem s to be quite promising. They have done serious work on the Moors and I am looking forward to finding out more about them.
In our class we will look into what happened, and some of the key characteristics and try to discuss some key questions.
(Class 11 started a bad habit of complaining about their grades, which I find ridiculous as these grades have no bearing on their final results so there is no point in whingeing about them. It's just a student thing.

Day 2: History in English (12)

Lessons 1-2
Yeyyyy, I am history teacher - a dream come true? Definitely.

It's perhaps the biggest challenge of the year - one that I was very enthusiastic to accept. I will have 3 periods a week talking history and helping students prepare for the 3 papers and the Historical Investigation. It's a lot to get my head round and I have been working on it ever since I found out about this opportunity.

The first couple of weeks will be a look at the students' preparation for their Historical Investigation (due in January-February - just like everything else in IB). This is a major challenge for the students whose attitude to history is less than favorable. They need to find a historical event, come up with a knowledge question and write a 2000-word essay, using extensive bibliography and research.

This paper will be written in German but I will be able to help the students to work on their research and ask them challenging questions to nudge them in the right direction.

Source: TOK Guide

The main body of work in the next few weeks is a revision of the two topics they covered last year: Peace making and peace keeping - International relations during the period between the two wolrd wars, and the causes and consequence of wars.
The four (!) new topics to be covered this year:
Topic 2
- The Cold War
Topic 3
- French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars
- German and Italian unification
- Imperial Russia and the rise of the Soviet Union

In today's lesson we are going to talk a little bit about wars and history in general as well as discuss the plans for the Historical Investigations.

I am excited and scared at the same time but it's a wonderful feeling to start doing something new.