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 Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 8:50 pm
Okay, this topic is very much growing out of a number of classes and experiences I've had over this summer and semester...
So, how does one go about learning history? Where do you gather your knowledge from?
Does most of your understanding of history come from written sources? What is there to say about hands-on experiences? I spent a few Saturdays this summer up at the Hopi reservation in Arizona, which as much as this was an experience of modern culture, it also was full of stories and traditions which gave us a deeper understanding of the site we were digging. And yes, the value of oral traditions versus written sources? Where do you place each? What about such things as the archaeological record? Here I'm very much inclined to think that one needs to know the story, the cultural context of a site in order to fully understand it.
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Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 8:03 pm
There's a great deal to be said on the subject of oral tradition versus written record and which best records the history. All I can really say is that it's easier to reference something that is written. In the oral tradition, you can't really document something unless you record it which some would say is contrary to the tradition. There are arguments as to why either one is better.
I'm personally a fairly hands-on learner when it comes to the experience, but a book learner when it comes to names and dates. The stuff I could go on and on about tend to be the stuff I've had some first hand experiences with, such as swordplay, choral music, renaissance theater, garb, and a bit on food (have I mentioned that I love how diverse in skills my SCA barony is?). But even then, there has to be a certain amount of book learning to get started, somewhere along the line.
Berz.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 4:30 pm
I learned most of my history in school but I don't think everything stuck with me. These days, I don't go about learning the usual ways. I suppose I could say something like Groucho Marx here:
Learning books have done wonders for my culture, as soon as I pick one up, I get an incredible urge to go watch the history channel. rofl
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Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 11:11 pm
I'm a very strong supporter of hands on and oral learning. The reason I love history so much is because my grandfather used to teach us about American history every summer we stayed with them. I remember one year, we learned about Lewis and Clark, so we read a book about them, he told us lots of stories about them, and he gave us each a large map of the US and had us trace their journey on it. Plus, our learning was also highly supplemented by the History Channel and PBS. Traveling around the country and getting to experience famous battle sites and such was also really helpful for me.
A big thing that made me love history so much in highschool was that we didn't have any actual text book reading. We read from a booklet of articles and a bunch of historical novels. Plus, our teachers were always big storytellers, and had been to a lot of the places we were studying. We also did a lot of work where we'd dramatize what we were studying, which did an amazing job at cementing ideas in our memories. And it helped that there were always strong connections between our history and English classes.
Right now I'm trying to learn a lot about Irish history and folk traditions, and just reading books and websites just isn't doing it for me anymore. I can't wait until I can finally go to Ireland and learn all of this first hand!
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Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:14 pm
I learn best on my own. Textbook readings are short, often only tell part of the story, or are inaccurate. Personal indepth research projects tend to stay with me better. Medieval history is my favorite.
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