Oct 11 2008
The French Revolution in 4 minutes
I’ve said that you could spend 2 months on the French Revolution, but this guy does a great job summarizing the events in a matter of minutes. Do you think his approach is helpful? When I was in high school and my classmates would complain about the purpose for studying a particular topic our teachers would routinely reply that some day the subject would come up at a cocktail party and we would be viewed as ignorant if we couldn’t converse on the particular subject we were questioning. I wonder if over at the boys’ school their teachers were telling them the topic would come up when sitting around a bar.
As you can see this would not really be appropriate to show in class because of the location of his lecture 
And for the record, history topics come up all the time at the cocktail parties I attend…but only after people find out I’m a history teacher and people ask me to explain things they wished they had paid attention to when they were in high school!
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Hi Mrs. Buell,
I finally got on your web site…. well I think its really nice to get a summary of the French Revolution in only 4 minutes!! In my opinion I do think is helpful to spend little time in one subject because you dont get bored that quickly and you still know as much as if u spend 2 months on it, however if you could spend 2 months or more on the same subject you will know more facts about it that if u spend only 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Well good luck and see u on Tuesday!!
hey mrs.buell,
I was actually just doing some history homework on the internet when I thought I would ”check in” and see ”whats new”. After watching this clip, I thought about how great would it be, if all of my classes were taught in four minutes!! Then I realized if I was taught this in only four minutes, how long would I be able to remember this for…four minutes??? Sure it helps, but I think better as a review after learning about it for maybe days. The way I think of it, is, the longer you teach it, the more room for discussion among you and your students. The more room for discussion, the more students will learn about that specific topic. Why?? because in that discussion things that you may not have presented in those four minutes could have brought up by the students…allowing them to learn more and study further into the topic. So if I was caught at a cocktail party, I would feel better if I knew the whole story…not just the ”SPARK NOTES”:)
I believe that you should spend a great deal of time on this subject. If it were not for the French Revolution, what would have happened to Napoleon? What would have happened to France’s Colonies? It is after the French Revolution that the focus shifts from exterior France to interior and European France. The French Revolution was the “powder keg” that destroyed France’s status as a superpower. When that power keg went off sure the foundation flew up in the air (Napoleon and his Empire) but it came down crashing and destroyed France. It is from this revolution that Jingoism takes its place in the minds of Europeans and from there sets the foundation for the 19th and 20th centuries.
I believe that if you are to teach of the revolution and European politics in the class you should take your time and explain it because it is the paradigm for world politics in that era.
OH YES because school teachers are always telling me this topic will DEFINATLY come up when Im sitting around in a bar or in a cocktail party… XD…*sarcasm sarcasm sarcasm*
jk, but i think it is WAY useful to have it summerized in like 4 minutes and i bet ppl would listen and understand it much more…