history lesson in UK/US

The curriculum of (state) schools in England might give you ideas: National curriculum in England: history programmes of study

An example for how it is done actually at schools an example >here<.

In the United States, each state and territory has its own curricula, lesson plans and process of text book selection. It always amazes me that people assume that a nation with a population in excess of 300,000,000 people, which spans a continent from one ocean to another, assume that customs and laws are monolithic and uniform throughout.

Thank you for the answers. I did not assume anything; just hoping some native English speaker could talk about their experience.

At the same time, the links do not have what I was looking for, though the effort is much appreciated. What I was looking for was, how is a class conducted? What exactly do students and teachers do?

Well, for your future reference, the United States is comprised of fifty states and several territories. In most matter, those states and territories are sovereign. You're not going to get a realistic answer as to how anything is done in the United Sates--there are just too many variations in play.

Thank you for the answer.

The way History is taught in the UK has changed. When I was a kid we would study a period, like the 19th Century or Tudors and Stuarts. The last history paper I looked at they were being asked about a strand in History, the development of medicine from the ancient Greeks right up to the discovery of penicillin.

UK and US education is very different.

Good answer. Thank you. But when you were still at school, in history lessons, what did you actually do with the teachers? Did they just read the book once, adding so-called explanations or?

In the United States teachers rarely, if ever, read a book aloud to students. That's not really teaching. That's just reading.

When I was in school, history was divided into U.S. history and world history. In the lower grades, we mostly studied American history from precolonial times to the present.

We studied world history in high school. However, when I was in school, the whole world was not included. It was mostly Western European history.

As to the method of teaching (this applies to many subjects, not only history), teachers give the students assignments, usually reading a section of the text book. Then in class the assignment is discussed. Students may have questions for the teacher. Teachers may ask the students questions to see if they understood the assignment.

Keep in mind that teaching methods vary, as do curricula.

Basically, chalk and talk, small group work, assignments, research, presentations in varying degrees.

Good answer. Thank you. But what do you mean by presentations? You mean reading things off powerpoint slides? I thought you were old enough to have not done this when you were a student.

We had paper and voices.

My reply reflects Roberta's. Hey, I'm even older than she is.
I'm from the U.S., born in California but living in my childhood in several other states, including New York, in the Bronx, where Roberta also did.

But, a difference, I went to Catholic schools for my elementary and secondary education, which thus suggests points of view from the different teachers, all nuns. But even nuns differ, it turns out.

Anyway, no history for me until fourth grade, when I moved with family to the Chicago area and a new school. This school had a library and what to me were many books. We had assignments to read books easily obtained from that library. I don't remember if the assignments were specific books or only to read up on a list of people, for example, James Madison, which would have made a difference re source materials and libraries. I was happy enough have a library of any sort across our city block. I think I wrote several book reports that year and found the exercise enjoyable (no matter how poor I was at it).

5th grade, I don't remember details except there were a lot of geography hours and more history (what, I don't remember specifically, except something vague about New Orleasn), and it was easy to like the teacher, Sr. Mary Rita.

6th and 7th grade - Sr. Mel, the nun who loved baseball. There were something approaching fifty students in her class, divided by desk space into two different grades, 6 & 7. She must have had a lot of stress, imagine handling a whole class of that size, those ages, by yourself.

She did it with baseball - she invented or so it seemed to be her idea, a game of classroom baseball. The whole class lined up on two sides, somehow mixed grades by her, and got to different bases or were out on wrong answers. (I can see now this could be hard on challenged children but some of the quieter ones could be good at stuff, math for example).
She did this with questions on spelling, history, math, maybe geography. Not every day, maybe once a week. That could whipsnap an afternoon, probably no one in the whole room was bored.

In the spring, she also gave us long recess time at least once a week for a class baseball game. I was good at softball after school, but never hit a ball in one of her recess games. Sigh. She was a good pitcher.

Eighth grade, boring, something to get over, and then we moved to California and for me, a high school recommended to my parents by relatives, Catholic of course. That high school was formative for me in a negative way.

Well, not all negative. I won't go on about it, but those nuns were different. Very restricted ideas, and the further I am away from it, the more restricted I see those teachers. A religious coat to almost everything.
I did like World History, especially getting to draw maps. In retrospect, I learned way more about history in my elementary school.

By that time, I was reading on my own at home from various magazines, newspapers, books out of my local library, but in a scattered way. I got a little fanatic about the history of medicine for a while, and most of my reading was not so much about any kind of big picture, but some specific article about this or that. In those years I'd say I was mixed up, confused, and self educating. I don't remember another history class after that first year. Religion classes all four years.

I'll skip over my first year of college, back to sane nuns, science, english lit, even Dante at length.
Then I transferred to UCLA.
It was free then, 1960. Pre-Reagan. No tuition until Reagan. My first year fee? $19.00. I could hardly believe it. So many people, so many libraries, so much to learn. I would describe it now as a kind of long time joy to get to go there.

History? My best class, although one that stoked my allergies, probably forty years of cigarette smudge in that room back then, was in the old History building, Social History of the United States. Professor Meyer, maybe I'll remember his first name later.
THAT woke me up.
What did he do? he talked, but we had stiff reading assignments to start with. The room was alive, I'll guess a hundred students.
I think he called on the class and there were discussions, but I think that was the short part of the hour. I remember him as a best teacher.

Excellent answer. Thank you.