As a teacher I feel and believe that I need to help my students get excited about learning. When people find out I'm a history major they automatically think, "boring!" I want to disabuse them of this notion. The thing about history is that it's really just stories. It is the that books and movies are made of. It is important to make students realize that it can be fun to learn the stories of the past as well as the future.
It is also valuable to show students that all events can be seen from more than one point of view. It might help them to get excited about their subject if they can see the people they are studying as real individuals with their own sets of values and beliefs. By letting them read first person accounts of the Revolution or the Civil War from opposing perspectives they can come to see how history is written by the winners, and that people in the past had just as many ideas and opinions as people now.
It is also extremely important to create a safe environment in the classroom where students know they can express themselves without being bullied or ridiculed.
