U.s. History Lesson Plans

I find that being a good teacher is all about the kind of attitude you bring in to the classroom. Looking back on my grade school years, when I recount the classes I enjoyed most, they were all the ones with enthusiastic teachers. I don't mean "enthusiastic" in that cheery, bouncy way, I just mean someone who's passionate about a subject and knows what they're talking about. The latter is a very important criterion, by the way. Turns out, in order to be a teacher, you need to be an expert in the subject you're teaching! I think schools and colleges sometimes forget about this little tidbit, and hire someone based on their resume or alma mater rather than their capabilities.

I once took an American Music class in which the professor was a Julliard-trained musician who had lived in New York for most of his life; he was age 50 or thereabouts. Would you believe that until that fateful day in OUR summer session class, he had never heard of Bob Marley? We had to sit there in our utter shock and tell him about the legendary Jamaican reggae singer...for the first time in his life. I'm sorry, but if you're not even aware of the existence of one of American music's most influential figures, you should not be teaching American music. I don't care if Beethoven trained you, you will have lost all respect in your students' eyes.

Alright then, let me return from my tangent and get back to the tantalizing topic of attitude and it's effect on teaching style. Even though we, as teachers, are truly passionate about our area of concentration, we are forced to take the bad days with the good. Even the best teachers need to sometimes rely on other resources to supplement their teaching methods. Particularly with kids these days, I've found that incorporating a variety of media and different ways to present information actually gets their attention. Sometimes, you find that the ones who seemed the most distracted of all, are actually captivated by the lesson because it's being presented in a new way.

When the end of summer rolls around and I have to settle down to write my U.S. history lesson plans, I always find that I need a little help from multimedia software, like PowerPoint presentations, when it comes to my personal weakest subjects. That's why I usually purchase my World War II lesson plans and Cold War lesson plans--those are not subjects in history that I excel at or am particularly passionate about, and therefore, I need a little help in those arenas. And that's why, if there's anything other than sheer excitement in my attitude, it will be okay, because the students will be captivated by multimedia U.S. history lesson plans.

And by the way, that music professor returned to face our class the next day, looking exhausted. He told us that he had been up all night researching Bob Marley and listening to his music. Then, he actually apologized to us. While I appreciated the gesture and took it upon myself to forgive the man, I still don't understand how he could have lived in New York City during the 60s and 70s --studying music of all things!--and had never heard of Bob Marley. It has always made me wonder who else he didn't know about.

Written by Mel Bryson. MultiMedia Learning LLC provides us history lesson plans, cold war lesson plans and world war ii lesson plans through their unique PowerPoint® Presentation software. Students learn history through classroom social studies games and engaging technology. Learn more at www.multimedialearning.org .

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