Good History Room: 8 Essential Equipment’s Needed

Some of the most essential equipment’s required for a good history room are as follows:

It would be desirable to have the history room a little bigger than an ordinary class-room.

It should then be furnished and provided for carrying out various activities such as instructional work, demonstration, group works etc.

For carrying out such activities the following material is essential for every history room.

I. Chalk Board:

The color of such a board may be green, yellow, white or even black. This is used to draw outline pictures as also to write summaries etc. It should be located at such a place that it can easily be seen by the students.

II. Bulletin Board :

It is used lo display maps, charts, current events, news-items, paper cuttings, magazine articles etc.

III.Furniture:

Sufficient furniture for seating of the students is provided. It should also be provided with a movable desk or table and a chair for the teacher. In addition to this it should be provided with a table dictionary, desk calendar, and pen etc., for teachers use.

IV. Books and Book Cases:

Text-books by different authors, current magazines, periodicals, reference books be provided in sufficient numbers so that students have an easy access to the reading material. Open-book shelves may be provided for storing these items.

V. Audio-visual Teaching Aids:

The history room should be fully equipped with various types of audio-visual teaching aids such as pictures, maps, models, specimens, films, film-strips, globe etc. If possible provision should also be made to have projectors, record player, radio-set and tape recorder in the history room. There teaching aids play an important role in teaching of history.

VI. Collections:

A corner in the history room is reserved for old coins, old clothes, dresses, utensils, historical relics, old paintings, art pictures etc. Such items may be got collected through history students.

Flags of different nations are also exhibited in the history room. It need be a brief history of such flags may also be tagged with the flags.

VII. History Room:

History room should also be provided with paints, water colours, coloured pencils, inks, pen-holders, brushes, rulers, compasses, erasers, scissors, blotters, special papers of different size and colour, paste, paper clips, drawing sets, pins, nails etc. All these things are needed by students for their practical work in history.

VIII. Cabinets and Files:

Cabinets and files are required to store different materials. The filing system is helpful in locating the needed article at once.

The above points can be summarised as under:

(a) It should be spacious enough as to accommodate the students and have space for demonstrations, models, blackboard and charts etc.

(b) It should also have arrangement for acting certain dramas.

(c) There should be a good arrangement of blackboards. Teaching of history requires a lot of use of blackboards. There may be overlapping boards. Such arrangement would facilitate the drawing of charts and the maps.

(d) There should be a small collection of books in the history room.

(e) The history room should be decorated with the pictures of historical personalities and charts etc. There should also be pictures of the battles and wars and similar events.

(f) There should be arrangement of Epidiascope. There should also be arrangement of globes and project pictures.

It shall be useful to have a small historical museum. This museum should consist of the coins, clothes, dresses, utensils etc., of olden days. Models of these things would also serve a good purpose. There should also be devices for developing time sense in the students.

All these things can be arranged only if the teacher of history is competent and painstaking. Without hard labour on the part of the teacher, the teaching of history cannot be made lively and interesting.