How Not To Teach History

In the post “The Scientific Revolution in 90 Minutes” (November 17, 2009 5:32 PM) at Teacher Magazine‘s Blogboard, Anthony Rebora says:

Mei Flower thinks the world history curriculum she has to teach moves just a little too quickly:

For example, we are currently studying the Enlightenment, and our most recent section dealt with the Scientific Revolution. In 90 minutes, I had to talk about Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Newton, some guy who invented trigonometry, another guy who made advances in anatomy by dissecting human bodies, yet another guy who invented the decimal system, some guy who’s the father of modern chemistry, a woman who wrote a book, Francis Bacon, the scientific method and Descartes. DESCARTES.

Well, good thing the Enlightenment wasn’t all that important. … Seriously, are there people out there running schools or education policy who don’t think this sort of thing is a travesty? © 2009 Editorial Projects in Education

Antidote: Powell History. He understands history and how to teach it, and puts that understanding into practice.