On looking back upon my own education, I really didn't develop this kind of thinking myself until after I was in college. In order to bring meaning to these events, young people need to see the average person living in antiquity or the middle ages as very poor with little to eat. He or she was almost always in the way of some invading army or stood a good chance of dying from disease before reaching the age of thirty-five years, even if the perilous years of early childhood and infancy were already behind them. The person living in what we refer to as the Age of Enlightenment was living in the dark ages as far as medical care, human rights, or economic opportunity were concerned. History can come alive in the classroom by making connections to people and events through the use of physical objects.
History is a pageant, a play, a saga, a story well-told.
If these words evoke bright, colorful visual images and a treasure house of sounds and smells, then I am amply making my point. Sixth grade ancient history classes should be baking bread the Roman way and being surrounded with high-quality color reproductions of Pompeiian mosaics. They should be listening to Gregorian chants and ancient Chinese music just as history classes covering later periods should listen to fine classical music or the Jazz and Blues of the 1930's. Contact with the past is enriched by reading well written accounts of desperate battles, perilous voyages of discovery, and major contributions by ancient engineers, artists, musicians, kings, queens, churchmen, ship captains, soldiers, and peasant farmers. Liberal use of strong verbs, image evoking adjectives, and moving dialogue can motivate young minds to enjoy history while not sacrificing historical accuracy.