The Albidayatu Jameelah International School, Kaduna has introduced multimedia and drama to simplify the teaching of history, thereby, making it an interesting subject for the students.
One of the history teachers in the school, Fred Daniels, said this in Kaduna on Wednesday.
Daniels, who recalled struggling with the subject in secondary school, said he never knew that history was very interesting until his undergraduate days in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he studied History.
“I remember asking my students the name of the person that took over from the Military Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo in 1979 and the class went silent.
“I paused and went on to ask about several other Nigeria’s past leaders, and still no response. The students were just staring at me.
“I felt very bad and disturbed because as Senior Secondary II students, they should know the past leaders of this country. I felt terribly bad,” he said.
He said that many secondary school students do not know much about the history of Nigeria because the history and past leaders were hidden in text embedded in historical books.
According to him, the teaching method is faulty, adding that teachers’ overreliance on history textbooks only leaves the students with imagination and sometimes confused.
He said that to address the challenge, he introduced images and role play to teaching history, with the full support of the school management, which encouraged Information and Communication Technology and visual learning.
“So, I came up with a solution to introduce multimedia, using visuals and role play since I know these leaders, and their pictures and videos can be found online.
“The idea was to show the students Nigerian leaders from independence to date, so that they will no longer imagine them but see them visually and how they look.
“The moment I decide on a topic to teach, I will search for pictures and videos of the key personalities, download, and use them to teach my history students.
“Suddenly, there was this fresh life that came up in my class and students became so interested in the subject that they are always looking forward to the next history class,” he said.
Another innovation, according to Daniels, was the use of drama for the students to dramatise positive historical events in Nigeria – how it was created and other events leading to independence in 1960.
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