Maybe this was just in my high school, but it always seemed to me that all of the history teachers at the high school level were first and foremost coaches. They always seemed to teach history because it is a general theory that history doesn't take any training, because you can just read it from the book. In this way these history teachers become more like history coaches because rather than teach you history, they just tell you what to read and then administer tests. This always bothered me because I really enjoy history, and it is a bit disappointing that so little emphasis is put into history. It's a wonder they still teach it in the schools at all with the treatment that it gets.

Recently I've noticed that there are several major categories of people in this world when it comes to the enjoyment of history.
Group 1: 'Vigilantes' These people love history because they have had enthusiastic, knowledgeable teachers that were successful in transferring their own love of the subject onto their pupils. These people may have lousy teachers later, but because they had the one teacher that inspired them, they are able to maintain their love of history throughout.
Group 2: 'Recreationals' These people enjoy history later on in life as they have lived through more and more of it. These people generally didn't like history when they were in school, but it has become somewhat more interesting as it applies more to them. Also in this category I throw people that learned to love history later because of historical novels, or enjoy watching the history channel, but still dislike history in a formal setting.
Group 3: 'Ignorants' These are the ones that claim to be indifferent to history, but in truth they have not really formed an opinion one way or another because they either never took history seriously when they were in school, or they never had enough of a historical education to really care. These people may like some aspects of history (for example WWII) but dislike others because they like what they have knowledge about.
Group 4: 'Unfortunate' These are the people that had coaches for teachers, or old teachers that fell asleep while they talked, or teachers that teach because they don't know what else to do with their history degree, or basically any form of a lousy teacher that kills the love of history in the students. These students are the ones that associate history in general with one lousy teacher that they had in the eighth grade, sometimes by this point the damage is irreparable. Even if they have excellent teachers in subsequent years they refuse to like history because one teacher has killed it for them. (This group is unfortunately large, and this is the one that I hope to do something about in my lifetime.)
Group 5: 'Stubborn' These are the ones like my younger sister that had excellent teachers, and paid good attention, and had everything going for them, but still dislike history for the simple fact that it is history. "Who wants to learn about a bunch of old dead guys that did some stuff a long time ago... even if some of that stuff was kinda cool." This is my younger sister's quote directly. She realizes that it is very interesting, and that it is cool, but she feels like she has other things to learn that is more interesting just because it is the here and now.

I had a few other groupings too, but these are the main ones that are on my mind at the moment. I fall into the first category. I had an excellent teacher when I was in eighth grade. In ninth grade my teacher was substandard, tenth was great, eleventh was the worst, twelfth was amazing. I've seen both sides of the spectrum. I've taken this knowledge and now I'm doing something about it. I want to teach history so that there are fewer people that are forced into the 'unfortunate' category. There needs to be more teachers out there that are there to teach, and not because they are good at basketball, and nothing else, so the principle plops them into a history teaching position. I'm not saying that no history teachers can coach. My senior year I took a history class from the girl's basketball coach. She was probably less than 5' tall, and she was just so enthusiastic and excited about history, that it was impossible not to enjoy the history. At least, that's what I thought. My younger sister had the same teacher for a different class. She hated that class the entire year. She is a musician and she only likes music. She is 'stubborn.'
For any of you history teachers out there, please please please be a good one. I don't want to send my children off to school someday and they come back despising history because they had a lousy teacher. I'm trying to do my part in stopping this from occurring. I am currently in school studying history-education. I graduate in two years, and I'm hoping to teach as soon as possible. No more students should have to suffer through Mr. whatshisname droning on about something that he really doesn't know much about and doesn't care about.