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, Mr Fred Daniels, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) 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.
He also introduced what he called “History Wall”, where a section of the school walls would be used to display the images of notable historical personalities for the students to go and look at Nigeria’s past heroes.
Daniels said that the approach simplifies history, thereby, making the subject very interactive and interesting.
According to him, it also demystifies the historical personalities often seen as mythical beings, as well as the dates, names and places that makes the subject too technical and abstract.
He thanked the school management for giving him all the support and the room to bring his innovation and creativity to bear in the teaching of history.
The Director of the school, Mrs Zainab Aliyu said that the school reintroduced history from primary to secondary school section when the subject was reintroduced as a subject in schools.
“We initially made it optional, but the students went for Government subject and when we realised that, we made history compulsory for all arts students.
“We then went looking for good hands that will promote the subject and that is how we got Mr Fred, and I am happy that his ideas and innovations are already yielding the desired result,” she said.
The Chairman, Advisory Committee of the school, Brig.-Gen. Abdulkadir Abubakar-Gumi, retired said that history was critical, otherwise the mission and vision of the school, with focus on Islamic, Arabic and culture would not be achieved.
“Without history, humanity will have no identity because history defines who we are as individuals and as a nation and forms the basis for intergroup relations and international relations,” he said.
One of the students, Umar Kabir, told NAN that the only thing he knew about Nigeria’s past was that the country became independent in 1960, because the subject was boring.
“But Mr Fred made it very easy, using pictures and other imaging to teach us. This has made the subject interactive and very interesting.
“We have seen the pictures of some of the European traders who brought many products to Nigeria, and explorers like Mungo Park, the Lander brothers.
“We also know about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Trans-Saharan Trade, as well as the centralised and non-centralised states of Nigeria before the coming of the Europeans,” he said.
Another student, El-Habib Nasiru, also said he knows only little about Nigeria’s history until now, “because Mr Fred has made it so easy that we can relate with the personalities after seeing their pictures.” (NAN)
