"When I was little, I used to think the past was black and white," began my history teacher, Mr D. "I thought the movies were always black and white because, well, those were the only colors they had back then. But we know this isn't true. Today we are watching a movie: World War I in color!" He held up the DVD box and I saw that in fact, the movie was titled "World War I in color".
As the menu screen came up, showing a purplish image of soldiers, someone said, "I didn't realize it was so purple!"
"Yes," someone responded, "It was a very purple war."
We began to watch the show, but it was having problems so Mr. D took out the disc to clean it. Meanwhile, I watched the screen as the words that said "DVD" moved across and bounced off the edges. Whenever I watch one of those screen savers, I always hope it will bounce off the corner, or very close. Now this seems to me like one of those wierd quirks I have, but in actuality, everyone has it. So as we were waiting for the movie, the entire class was staring at the screen, holding our breaths together when it looked like it would hit the corner, and sighing in desperation when it came so close but didn't make it. Every so often, I would just think about the situation and almost burst into laughter.
Soon the movie was ready and we began to watch it. Now, I had thought that Mr. D was being rather original when he said the thing about the color, but I soon found out what had inspired him.
"World War I is always seen as a war in black and white," the narrator narrated, "but that is not the reality...The grass was green, the mud was brown, the fire was red... now with new technology, the color has been restored to the films..."
After they made such a big deal about it, the color wasn't even that great. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the faces were a little too pink, the uniforms were a little too dull...
~~~
Another day in my history class, Mr. D was talking about poison gas and the smell and I had to laugh as he said, "stick your nose in a bottle of amonia--DON'T DO THAT!"
~~~
"Once I had a French student in my class," my history teacher said, "and that was really hard for me because I always make fun of the French."
~~~
After neglecting to tell us that the Hapsburgs were the ruling family of Austria-Hungary, Mr. D explained, "I sometimes forget that other people don't know some things. That doesn't really make me a good teacher."
-Rebecca
Friday, February 6, 2009
Who Says History is Boring?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
My AP European history teacher is quite good and also rather amusing. Yesterday, we were supposed to have an essay test about Napoleon. Everyone who came into the room and saw the sheets of paper placed on the desks sighed a figurative sigh of despair. The teacher mentioned that he had considered having a class discussion instead of the essay, but that a discussion wouldn't be able to determine who was a wart (Mr. S has a famous saying that if you don't do the reading, you are "a wart on society's ass). The class then proceeded to try to convince him that we should have a discussion. "George and I were studying together in the library," someone said, "and suddenly we were having an argument about Napoleon. It was amazing, and I learned a lot. George was such a good study partner." Other people used the best of their persuasive skills to try to convince Mr. S. that we should have a discussion. Eventually, Mr. S. interrupted: "Stop trying to convince me. You're wasting effort. I already made up my mind a half hour ago." Everyone was silent. So we would have to do the essay, after all. "Take the papers off of the desks," he said, "and let's move into a circle." We then had a very interesting discussion about Napoleon's role in shaping history. And it was better than any essay test.
Post a Comment