History lessons

For the young colleagues who asked me by e-mail. My method after seventeen years:

• One main idea per lesson. If you cannot say it in one sentence, the children will not carry it home.
• One story. History is not dates, dates are the nails. The story is the wall.
• One question for the end that has no answer in the textbook.
• Five minutes of silence in the plan for what you did not plan.

The fifth is the most important.

Today in Talas the American flag came down at the base. I did not see it, nobody in Kyzyl-Adyr saw it, we saw it on the television in the teachers' room during the long break. Then the bell rang and I had the 8th class.

I did not know what to say. So I wrote the date on the board, 3.12.2006, and under it: "Today is history." A boy asked: "Saltanat eje, will it be in the test?" Maybe in ten years, I said. Open your exercise books.