Have you ever wondered about the reasons why Vietnamese students don’t like studying history?

Of course, to name thousands of reasons behind this sad fact is not quite hard. But it is just pointless to blame on such external factors as that we don’t have so many historical TV series as China or we don’t have such a comprehensive and consolidated historical database as Unknown No Longer in Virginia. These factors are essentially associated with economics and technology development, which may take a lot of time for Vietnam to improve. However, there are some internal factors, at heart, which directly influence students’ enthusiasm for history. These factors involve the work of teaching and studying history at school, which include:

1)      The history textbook is just a huge no-no. After reading the textbook, you can never consider history a science anymore. History is a science, of facts, of people, in which we learn a saga, analyze the events, discuss the stakeholders and their roles, evaluate the process. Instead of learning all these in a chronic trail to reason why there was a conflict, how the stakeholders viewed this conflict, what decision they ended up choosing, how they implemented their plans, how the consequence changed the history, Vietnamese students are always overwhelmed with facts, who was the king? When did it happen? What was the date? I forgot all these right after handing over the exam paper. The history textbook gives students a totally distorted view about the way to study history: the absorbtion of dates, learn them by heart, take the exam well, and finally you don’t know anything about history at all. Ironically, the people who write the history book are very famous historians. They may be pundits in workshops and conferences and in their books but sadly, it seems that they have no contribution to the history textbook at all.

2)      Vietnamese history is mainly a history of wars, because so many countries wanted to step in to take over this militarily strategic S-shape. However, instead of setting Vietnam as a center and learning the changes in the power map of the world to help students have a sense of connection and how Vietnamese leaders helped the citizens deal with these changes, teachers of history, in general, highlight the result of a war: which side wins and whether the winner is righteous or not. However, no one knows the criteria to be considered righteous. Qianlong Emperor is considered not righteous when mentioning he sent a massive army south with Le Chieu Thong to restore the latter to the throne because Nguyen Hue is considered to represent the peasants, hence considered to be righteous. However, when studying the world part, Qianlong Emperor is viewed at the same time, a great emperor who waged wars to expand his territory. Come on, we are studying history, a science, not civic education or morals.

3)      A more general reason than the first two. Imagine the life of a typical student in Vietnam. They wake up early usually at 6 or even 5, rush to school, get tired with mathematics and other so-called main subjects, rush to a studying center and come back home. They even have no time to care about history. With them, it is just a subordinate subject to score high to balance their GPA. They may have about 45 minutes in school each week for history. How can this 45 minute period used? No idea. Teachers of history usually don’t have a voice in the faculty of a school. They cannot change anything.

Cheer up for a new semester. Study well and stay healthy. Have a great valentine.