High School Lesson Plans

not wrong though?

Well the use of the present tense is a bit dodgy for a start.

SRS - ah ok, yeah I dont know if we have any other teachers on here, be interesting to see.

Well with the Cold War you could look at East Berlin/Poland '53, Hungary '56, Czechoslovakia '68.
http://libcom.org/tags/hungary-56

WWII you could look at the Spanish Civil War as a precursor- Condor Legion/appeasement etc. then of course exand it to the CNT/FAI and the collectives. Then trace back WWII to Weimar and the KAPD etc.
http://libcom.org/tags/kapd-lib

Vietnam there were all the protests and fraggings: http://libcom.org/history/vietnam-gi-resistance

And that's just within the curriculum.

there's alot of source material in soldiers' diaries/memoirs, which can lead to good (in the senses both of enlightening and of completely acceptable in form to supervisors) class projects: find yank diaries, japanese diaries, german diaries, aussie diaries, break the class into sections, assign one side to each group, have them make presentations etc. there will be passages in all of them to the effect that war is hell. letters home during the war were censored, but there's still stuff in there. in the US there was no small opinion to stay out of WW2: another topic? this approach also works for WW1, esp. in the US with the violent speech supression and gov't sponsored ethnic baiting

Yeah I'd agree with that. I learned some interesting stuff in history but the overpowering memory is just learning every fucking insignificant detail about Nazi germany, right down to the structure of the ministry for paperclips. Focussing on why things happened rather than just learning the minute details strikes me as quite subversive in this context.

I reckon that if you want to do what you are saying you need to attack it from a perspective not of telling kids how it really is, but of trying to create situations that let them explore issues themselves.
If you go in there saying "this is real, the rest is lies", then you are behaving no differently to other teachers. You'd be using a power position to impose your views. Kids bring a lot of ideas and opinions to your lessons. The difficulty is in allowing them to express them and then challenging them but in doing so in a way which accords them a level of equality with you. In effect you have to back down a little and not try to impose yourself. Better that the kids come out of your lessons with a sense of having expressed views and been listened to with respect.
And I know it's hard to do.

Still, I go along very much with what knighrose says. And I was very lucky during my education I experienced this attitude in practice
One of my history teachers was an old guy -probably only about 50- who was fantastic. He introduced us to Kapital and Marx in a very favorable way. He also used to get us to look at historical events from different angles: half the class was say the Allies and the others the Germans and you had to argue the justification for their actions from their point of view. Undoubtedly he taught us that WW2 was a 'good' war etc but what he did was make us think. We also used to get something called social studies, where for half a day we went to the local youth centre and two youth workers would show us films about the bomb, wars, contraception etc and get us to discuss them: we used to have some right old ding dongs. There was probably a 'social' agenda to all this, but it still taught us to discuss, listen to other peoples opinions etc.
Thus, whilst I left school with all the usual illusions about 20th Century history: democracy good, dictatorship bad, I had been given a real thirst for knowledge and the basics of a critical attitude towards everything that I was told: if you can do the same with those you teach you should be very happy. You cannot change the system of education or have illusions that you can, but you can help the children to question and think for themselves
In Britain now there is a very tight state control of what is taught and how it is taught; there is a new focus of citizenship, democracy and ecology and above all no room for learning to discuss, listen and think critically. This is producing a very difficult atmosphere for teachers, especially those who are critical of capitalism etc.
There is a long history of revolutionaries being teachers. Teaching and teachers are such an important part of children's lives and can have such a powerful impact on their whole development, it is no surprise that those who want to change the system and hate its exploitation and oppression are drawn to it.
I should think that all of us participating in the discussion have very fond memories of some teachers: those who treated us with respect, were kind, stimulating or took the time to help us with the problems of growing up.

I think the most important thing to teach, if you're teaching history, is to teach exactly what the state is. Really explain how it functions, how it centralizes power, how it's changed from slave societies like Rome, to Religious societies like Medieval Europe, how it functions under capitalism, and especially how it was recreated by the fight for socialism in the early 20th century.

I would also bring in a dialectical analysis of history that reinforces class struggle all through the stages. Start with the great strike of Egypt (on this site), talk about how the council of tribes was formed in ancient Rome due to a massive general strike, and heck, explain what a union is and what it's for.

Teach them how to critically analyze history to understand the constant struggle for power within the ruling elite and against the dispossesed.

I realise this may not be much use now, but in when you've finished your training and take up a permanent post as a teacher, I'd really encourage you to take classes to battlefields. I remember (though it wasn't long ago considering I'm still only taking my A levels) going to Belgium and France on a trip our particularly passionate geography and history teachers organised. For me it was about the experience because I was genuinely interested, but there were other students who just went because it was a holiday. But when we stood actually on the Somme or at Tynecot they were completely silent, as if they really had suddenly come to a realisation. Coming back from there I was really changed, it was as if I'd actually seen so many die.
We were closer to our teachers to, oddly enough. I had a much more profound respect for my Geography teacher. He was a great big guy with a booming voice but I remember seeing him cry when we stood for the last post in Menin Gate. I listened to what he had to say a lot more after that.
Maybe I'm just being sentimental though.

I cant really expand much on what people have said, because there are some good contributions, but try pulling off some stuff from LibEd they have good practical and theoritical stuff