As an historian, I love History. Some parts are quite boring but there’s always something you can pick up and like since its beginning 6000 years ago when humans starts to actually write things down.
But when you present it to much of the kids, they stay it’s dead boring. I agree. I mean the programme we want them to eat is pretty much…unbearable.
Yet I truly believe that when it comes to teaching, we can always find a way to divert some way somehow to make them see that humans being will be human beings and what interests them today could be found back then.
More easily sometimes, actually. Take the boys who like to play tough and watch horror movies where you can see people gruesomely tortured. Well here’s what you could see if you were to play in Paris in the Modern Era:
About François Ravaillaic after he killes Henry IV.
On May 27, he was taken to the Place de Grève and was tortured one last time before being pulled apart by four horses, a method of execution reserved for regicides. Alistair Horne describes the torture Ravaillac suffered: "Before being drawn and quartered... he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then being torn by pincers." Following his execution, Ravaillac's parents were forced into exile and the rest of his family was ordered to never use the name "Ravaillac" again.
About Robert-François Damiens after he tried to assassinate Louis XV
He was tortured first with red-hot pincers; his hand, holding the knife used in the attempted assassination, was burned using sulphur; molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. Horses were then harnessed to his arms and legs for his dismemberment. Damiens' limbs and ligaments did not separate easily; after some hours, representatives of the Parlement ordered the executioner and his aides to cut Damiens' joints. Damiens was then dismembered, to the applause of the crowd. His torso, apparently still living, was then burnt at the stake. He is viewed by some people as the Guy Fawkes of France, since both of these men tried to kill their Kings but failed and were brutally executed.
I love the “brutally executed”. That’s so 2000! So American! So “war without any hurt”, with no collateral damage. Very clean world with no blood, no suffer, no expletives and no sex anywhere near your eyes and ears! For Fuck’s sake! Human history is a huge catalogue of crimes and blood is pouring in waterfalls from everywhere page of it.
Want sex, bitch, horrors and violence? No need to go to the bloody cinema and see Saw buggery VI!...Which, btw, in French is pronounced like “saucisse” which means sausage. And the next one will not be any better, it’s Saw VII…that sounds like “chaussette” (sock).
For instance, in France, we have a “problem”…well old narrow-minded bastards have a problems with young bloody pikeys who boo and jeer the national anthem (for Christ’s sake, it’s like Pavlov’s dog. They boo so you react, don’t react and they won’t do it anymore, you half wits!).
Well, it’s easy. Don’t just force them to sing it and love it. Show them what it’s actually saying. For those who aren’t French, here’s pretty much the translation of the part we always sing.
Come, children of the Fatherland,
The day of Glory has arrived!
Against us, tyranny’s
Bloody banner is raised,
Do you hear in the countryside
Those ferocious soldiers roaring?
They come up to your arms
To slit the throats of your sons and wives!
To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions!
Let’s march! Let’s march!
May an impure blood
Water our furrows!
And believe when I tell you the rest of it is pretty much the same.
Ask the kids what they want to see in history and take some time to show them that!
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