Flashback Friday #57

Mr. Barker's History Class.

Hi, folks. Welcome to another look over my shoulder to what used to be.

Some kids hate school all together. Some just hate certain subjects. Until I moved to Jr. High, all the classes were taught mostly in the same classroom by the same teacher. In Jr. High, some kids hated certain teachers. It was hard to hate Mr. Barker's class.

Mr. Barker taught 7th grade Ohio History and 8th grade American History. In his class you just didn't study rote dates and facts, you became them. Let me explain.

There used to be a TV show called "You Are There", a quiz show called " In The Know"and a game show called "To Tell The Truth". He incorporated these shows into his teaching style to put us in the history we were learning.

In "You Are There", he would give a small group (3-4 people) an event in history and have that group study it. They would then brainstorm and create a skit to act out the event for the rest of the class. These often times were a hoot.

When we played "In The Know", the class was divided into three person teams. The teams were then set up on a matrix and played one another like college basketball's "March Madness". All the material that we had studied during the chapter was included, so you always needed to review to keep sharp. The team winning the bracket was given a small prize.

With the game "To Tell The Truth", a group of three people were given a historical person to portray. One of the people in the group would actually be the famous person and give only correct answers to questions asked of them by another group. The other two would give answers that weren't quite right, but not wrong enough to be obvious. At the end, the question panel would vote on who they thought was the real person. The real person was then asked to stand.

I had always liked history, but Mr. Barker made history come alive for me. I guess that's why I teach Sunday School like I do. Many times I will have the kids act out the story and the kids have a lot of fun learning.

Did you have a class that you enjoyed?