I suspect there is a compromise between an extreme use of history and ignoring it. In my physics class in high school, we discussed the progression of models o

I suspect there is a compromise between an extreme use of history and ignoring it. In my physics class in high school, we discussed the progression of models of the atom. Each time, we learned what experiment led to the new thoughts, and how surprising it was. I thought this was a great way to learn the topic. We didn't, however, spend too much time on the history and never read any of the original papers. Note: We did have a great teacher. On the other hand, one difficulty with teaching topics historically is that it is hard to group things by topics. For example, in mathematics, the function is a relatively recent idea. Newton died before the function was thought up, but calculus is usually taught as "take the derivative of a function." This is not to say that history would be useless in this case, but it may require even more talent from the teacher.