Lesson video

Hello, welcome to history here at Oak National Academy.

My name is Mr. Newton and I'll be your teacher today guiding you through the entire lesson, right?

Let's get started.

Before we begin our story today, I want you to imagine something.

Imagine you are feeling poorly.

Your head feels hot, your body feels tired, and you just want to lie down.

What would you hope a doctor would do to help you?

Would you want them to listen to you?

Would you want them to be kind and gentle?

Now, let's travel back in time, not just a little bit, but a very long way.

Long before hospitals looked like they do today, long before doctors had machines, screens, or computers, how do you think doctors helped people back then?

Some people had very strange ideas about sickness.

Some thought people became ill because of invisible spirits or because they had done something wrong, but today we are going to learn about a real doctor from the past.

His name was Al-Razi.

Al-Razi didn't just guess what was wrong with people.

He didn't blame bad spirits.

He loved asking questions, watching carefully, and trying to find real answers.

By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to describe how Al-Razi used science to help people and improve medicine.

Let's get our brains ready for today's learning.

We are going to learn some important words that will help us understand the story about Al-Razi.

We'll say each word together.

I will say the first word.

Then it's your turn to repeat it back to me.

Ready?

My turn, doctor, now it's your turn.

Good, a doctor is a person who helps sick people get well.

Okay, let's move on to the second word.

My turn.

Observe.

Your turn.

Well done.

Observe means to look closely and learn.

People observe when they look and listen carefully.

Now, let's try our final word.

My turn.

Medicine.

Your turn.

Great.

Medicine means things that help us heal or get better when we are sick.

Well done for helping me to repeat those important words.

As we go through today's lesson, let's see if we can spot those words and remember what they mean.

Today's lesson is called Al-Razi, the Doctor Who Cared for Everyone, and we will split the lesson into three parts.

I'm going to tell you what each part is so your brains know where we are going.

First, we will learn about a time when Al-Razi helped a sick child in Baghdad.

We'll think about what Al-Razi does, how he treats people, and what makes him a kind and special doctor.

In the second part of the lesson, we'll move on to testing cures and writing books.

This is where we'll learn how Al-Razi didn't stop learning.

He tried things out, watched carefully and wrote down what he discovered so other doctors could learn too.

That's a bit like being a scientist, isn't it?

Finally, we'll look at how Al-Razi's ideas spread.

That means we'll see how his clever thinking didn't just help people in his own city.

It helped people in other places and even long after he was gone.

Right let's begin the lesson with Al-Razi helps a sick child in Baghdad.

Look carefully at this picture.

This line here is called a timeline.

A timeline helps us see when something happened, whether it was a long time ago or closer to today.

Can you see the numbers along the line?

They show the years.

On the far right of the timeline, this end here is nearer to now, the time we live in.

That's around the year 2000 and after.

As the line moves back to the left from 2000 to 1700, we are traveling back in time.

Further and further and further back, right back to here.

This is the year 900, and that is when a man named Al-Razi lived.

Let's think about that for a moment.

That's not when your parents were born, not when your grandparents were born, but over 1000 years ago.

That means Al-Razi lived a very, very long time ago.

So this timeline is helping us understand that Al-Razi is a person from the past, from long before our lives today, but his ideas were so important that we still learn about him now.

Al-Razi was a doctor and lived in a big city called Baghdad.

Baghdad was a busy city.

Imagine people chatting, animals moving, shops opening and streets full of noise.

Al-Razi had always been a curious person.

Curious means he loved asking questions.

As a young man, he was interested in everything.

Al-Razi would walk through the streets and markets of Baghdad asking questions like, why do people get sick?

How can we help them feel better?

Those are very caring questions, aren't they?

So of course, when he grew older, Al-Razi became a doctor, a job all about helping people.

Okay, let's check your understanding here.

I want you to answer this question.

What job did Al-Razi become?

Was it A, a builder, B, a doctor, or C, a sailor?

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well well done if you knew the correct answer was B, Al-Razi became a doctor.

Okay, let's continue.

Long ago, many people thought sickness came from bad spirits or punishment from God for doing the wrong thing.

That must have felt quite scary if you were ill.

Let's look closely at this picture.

Can you see the child lying in bed?

He doesn't look very well, does he?

Now look at the grownup standing beside him.

She has her hand raised as if she's praying or asking for help.

Some people long ago thought that if you just prayed hard enough, the bad spirits and the sickness would go away.

This picture helps us imagine how confusing and frightening being ill could feel in the past when people didn't know why sickness happened or how to make it better.

Not everyone believed in bad spirits, but many people didn't know the real causes of illness yet.

They relied on these ideas to try to treat people even though they didn't always work.

In those days, doctors didn't have the machines and technology we have today.

No x-rays, no screens, no beeping machines.

Al-Razi thought to himself that there must be a better way to try to help sick people.

He didn't just accept the answer everyone else gave.

Al-Razi wanted to find real answers.

Okay, let's have another check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is fill in the blank.

So I've got a sentence here with one word missing.

A thousand years ago, many people thought sickness came from bad spirits or blank from God for doing the wrong thing and to help you to answer that question, I've given you three choices of words.

So you can use magic, sunshine, or punishment.

So fill in that blank, pause the video, make your choice, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's see how the sentence should have read with the correct word placed inside the blank.

A thousand years ago, many people thought sickness came from bad spirits or punishments from God for doing the wrong thing.

Okay, let's continue.

Al-Razi believed the best way to help people was to observe.

Observe means to look very carefully like a detective.

This means he thought doctors should look closely, ask questions, and learn from the people they treated.

One day, Al-Razi was looking for somewhere to build a new hospital in Baghdad.

A hospital is a place where people go to to be cared for when they're ill.

This was a very important job.

If he could find somewhere to build his hospital where people were less likely to get sick, surely he could help more people to get better.

Al-Razi knew that the cleaner the air and the streets, the more likely a sick person was to get better.

He knew this because he had observed this many times before.

Al-Razi decided to use what he knew to work out where to build this hospital.

He hung raw meat all over the streets of Baghdad.

Let's stop and look closely at this picture.

Can you see the man standing in the streets?

This is Al-Razi.

Can you spot the piece of meat hanging in the air?

That looks strange, doesn't it?

Why do you think he might do that?

Al-Razi hung meat near the markets, the mosques, the drains and sewers.

Those are the places where dirty water flows away and the parks, he hung meat near the shopkeepers, the metal workers and the leather makers near the city walls and near the barracks where the soldiers lived.

All over Baghdad, Al-Razi's meat hung in the air.

Imagine walking through the city and seeing meat hanging everywhere.

Every day, Al-Razi went to check on the pieces of meat.

One by one they started to rot.

Rots means going bad and smelly, yuck.

Some of them rotted quickly, others more slowly.

Some took a long time to rot.

Whenever a piece of meat began to rot, Al-Razi took it away.

Eventually, his journeys each day became shorter and shorter until he had just one piece of meat left.

Aha, interesting.

This was where he chose to build his hospital.

Al-Razi knew that the air was cleanest there, because the piece of meat had not rotted like the others.

He had observed what happened to the meat and worked out the cleanest place for Baghdad's new hospital.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding, true or false.

Al-Razi chose where to build the hospital by hanging pieces of meat around the city and observing which one rotted the slowest.

Is that true or false?

Pause the video.

Have a think and then come right back.

Welcome back and well done if you knew that was true, but I want you to have a think about that.

Why is it true?

Can you give me the reason for why that's true?

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Welcome back, and well done if you knew it was true because Al-Razi believed that the place where the meat stayed freshest the longest must be the cleanest place to build the hospital.

Stories of Al-Razi's cleverness and kindness spread quickly through the city.

One day, many years after Al-Razi had become a doctor, a worried mother carried her sick child through the crowded streets of Baghdad.

She had heard of the wise and gentle doctor named Al-Razi.

He helps everyone, people said, rich or poor, he will see you.

When the mother reached the hospital, Al-Razi came at once.

The child was hot and sleepy.

Al-Razi listened to the mother, looked at the boy, and gently felt his forehead.

And if you look at the picture on the left, we can see Al-Razi helping the sick boy.

Al-Razi is asking, "Can you tell me where it hurts?

" That shows he's listening and asking questions, not guessing.

He wants to understand how the child feels.

Al-Razi had felt skin this hot before in another patient and he wondered if it was the same kind of sickness.

He didn't guess or blame bad spirits.

He observed, listened, and used what he had learned from helping many other people to understand what might be wrong.

That's what made him different to many other doctors at the time.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

How did Al-Razi try to find out what was wrong with the sick boy?

Choose two answers, A, by guessing, B, by listening, C, by observing, B, by using magic.

Pause the video, select your two correct answers and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you knew the two correct answers were B, by listening and C, by observing.

Okay, great.

Let's move on to task A.

This is a talking task so we won't be writing yet and we'll be talking with a partner.

This task is asking us to think about how doctors observe.

Remember, observe means to look carefully, listen carefully and notice things.

Look at these pictures.

We can see eyes looking, ears listening, and a notebook and pencil to write things down.

These are all things that help a doctor to observe.

To help you to complete the task, we have some sentence starters at the bottom of the slide.

Sentence starters are the beginning of a sentence that help us know what to say next.

You can begin your sentences like this.

Eyes help doctors because, and then you complete the rest of the sentence by telling your partner.

The next sentence starter says, ears help doctors because, the next one, a notebook and pencil help doctors because, and the final sentence starter, doctors need to observe so they can.

.

.

Now you don't have to use these sentence starters.

Just try your best to talk about how each of the pictures help a doctor to observe.

Pause the video, talk to your partner and then come right back.

Welcome back, I hope you had some really thoughtful conversations just now and well done for listening carefully to each other just as Al-Razi would are done.

Now there are many different things you may have talked about, but let's have a look through some things you may have said.

Some of you may have said that eyes help doctors because they need to look carefully and observe, and that's a great idea.

Doctors use their eyes to notice things like rashes or spots or if someone looks tired or hot.

You could have said how ears help doctors because they need to listen to their patients, and that's really important.

Doctors need to hear how someone is feeling and where it hurts.

Listening helps doctors understand better.

You may have said that a notebook and pencil help doctors because they can write down what they observe.

That's clever thinking.

Writing things down helps doctors remember and notice patterns just like Al-Razi did.

And finally, you may have said that doctors need to observe so they can remember what they saw and heard and make good choices about how to help people.

This is exactly what made Al-Razi special.

He didn't rush, he didn't guess.

He watched carefully, listened closely and remembered what he noticed.

Now I want you to remember something important.

Your ideas don't have to sound exactly the same as the ones on the slide to be good ideas.

If you said something a little bit different, but you were still talking about looking carefully, listening or remembering what you notice, then you were thinking in the right way.

And these sentences are just examples to help us think.

Okay, great.

Let's move on to the second part of task A.

And what I want you to do here is read the sentences and explain to your partner which one you think is the correct definition of observing and why.

So let's read those sentences to see which one is correct.

A, observing means looking carefully and listening to find clues.

B, observing means guessing what might be wrong without checking.

C, observing means using magic to fix the problem.

Pause the video, explain to your partner which one you think is correct and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer is A.

And the reason that was correct was because observing means looking carefully and listening to find clues about what's wrong.

Observing means using your eyes and ears.

Observing means taking your time, not guessing or rushing.

Al-Razi observed by looking at sick people carefully.

And finally, Al-Razi observed by watching the meat rot and noticing which piece lasted the longest.

Okay, great, so we've now seen how Al-Razi was kind and gentle, how he listened carefully and how he used his eyes and ears to observe instead of guessing.

Now we are ready to move on to the second part of our lesson, and this part is called testing cures and writing books.

And that means we're going to learn how Al-Razi didn't stop at helping one person.

He kept learning and tried to find better ways to help people and wrote things down so others could learn too.

Al-Razi tested medicines to find real cures instead of copying old books.

Throughout his life, Al-Razi never stopped learning.

Even grownups can keep learning.

His house was full of jars, herbs, and simple tools for making medicines.

Let's take a close look at this picture.

Can you see Al-Razi standing at the table?

He is carefully mixing things together.

On the table, there are jars, bowls, and bottles.

These are the tools he used to make medicines.

His picture helps us imagine Al-Razi testing medicines, mixing, watching and checking what happens so he could find out which cures really helped.

He wasn't guessing.

He was learning by trying.

In Al-Razi's time about 900 years before schools and hospitals like ours existed, doctors were still learning how to help sick people.

Back then, many doctors just copied old books, but Al-Razi wanted to find his own answers.

He wanted to find better ways to help sick people.

So he tested different mixtures to see how they worked.

He watched carefully to see which treatments truly cured people.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What did Al-Razi do to find better ways to help sick people?

A, he copied old books without asking questions.

B, he guessed which medicine would work each time.

C, he tested different medicines to see what worked.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was C.

He tested different medicines to see what worked.

Al-Razi didn't rely on memory.

That means he didn't just try to remember things in his head.

Al-Razi wrote down what he learned so others could help more people.

Every time he helped a patient, he wrote down what he had seen.

Over time, he began to notice patterns, signs that certain illnesses behaved in similar ways.

When he discovered something useful, he didn't keep it to himself.

He wrote books to share his learning so other doctors could help more people too.

Let's look closely at this picture.

Can you see these old pages?

They are from one of Al-Razi's books.

Look at the writing.

It is carefully written by hand, not printed by a machine.

That means Al-Razi or someone helping him took a long time to write everything down.

These pages show that Al-Razi didn't just keep his ideas in his head.

He wanted to remember what he learned and share it with others.

This picture helps us understand that writing books was another way Al-Razi helped people, even people he never met.

His words could travel much further than he could.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is fill in the blank.

Al-Razi wrote blank to share what he had learned with other doctors.

And you can choose from one of the following words to complete the sentence.

Books, poems or songs.

Pause the video, choose the correct word, and then come right back.

Okay welcome back and well done if you knew the correct word to choose was books.

Let's see how that sentence should have read.

Al-Razi wrote books to share what he had learned with other doctors.

Okay, great.

Now we are going to have a go at task B.

And on the slide you can see the table with some sentences about Al-Razi.

For each sentence you need to decide is it true or is it false?

If a sentence is true, that means it matches what we learned.

So you give it a tick.

If a sentence is false, that means it does not match what we learned.

So you give it a cross.

Pause the video, have a go at the task and then come right back.

Okay welcome back and well done having a go at that task.

Let's look together at how we did on Task B.

You were deciding whether each sentence was true or false.

The first sentence says, Al-Razi tested medicines to see if they worked.

This one is true, so it has a tick.

We learned that Al-Razi didn't guess.

He tried things out and watched carefully to see what happened.

Okay, the next sentence says, Al-Razi kept all his ideas secret.

This one is false.

So it has a cross.

That's because Al-Razi shared his ideas.

He wanted other doctors to learn and help people too.

In the next sentence, Al-Razi wrote books so other doctors could learn.

This is true.

So it gets a tick.

And those books helped his ideas travel far and help many more people.

And the final sentence, Al-Razi guessed instead of watching carefully.

And this of course is false, so it has a cross.

We know Al-Razi believed in observing and that means looking, listening and thinking carefully.

Now, if you found one of these sentences tricky or you changed your mind, that's okay.

Thinking again and checking is what good learners do.

Okay, great.

Let's move on to the second part of task B.

So here you can see two sentences on the screen, and both of these sentences are false.

That means they are not quite right and we can see two crosses next to them.

Your job is to pick just one of these full sentences.

You don't need to do both, just choose one.

When you've chosen your sentence, I want you to turn to your partner and explain what it should say instead.

So you're not just saying it's wrong, you are fixing it.

You might say something like, this sentence is wrong because, or you could say something like, it should say, you are using what you remember from our learning about Al-Razi to make it better.

Pause the video, talk with your partner and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back, and well done for having a go at that task.

So if you talked about the first sentence, which said Al-Razi kept all his ideas secret, you might have said something like, Al-Razi didn't keep his ideas a secret.

He shared them with other doctors by writing books to help more people get better.

And if you discuss the second sentence, Al-Razi guessed instead of watching carefully, you could have said something like, Al-Razi didn't guess what was wrong with patients.

He observed them carefully and wrote down their symptoms.

Great.

We've reached the final part of the lesson.

So first we learned about Al-Razi helping a sick child in Baghdad, and we saw how he was kind and gentle, how he listened carefully and how he didn't guess, he observed.

Then we learned about testing cures and writing books, and we found out that Al-Razi tried medicines carefully and wrote down what he learned so other doctors could help people too.

That means his ideas didn't stuck with him, they could travel.

Let's move on to the final part of the lesson where we'll learn how Al-Razi ideas spread.

Al-Razi's books were shared everywhere and helped doctors understand how to treat sickness.

Al-Razi's work didn't end when he died in the year 925, his ideas lived on.

The books he wrote were copied and shared in many places, doctors in Persia, India, and even far away Europe read his ideas.

Just look closely at this picture.

This picture is from Europe, which is very far away from Baghdad where Al-Razi lived.

That shows us just how far his ideas traveled.

In the picture, we can see sick people and a doctor.

The doctor is holding up a jar and looking at it very carefully.

The doctor is observing it to try to understand what is making people sick.

Doctors learn to do this by reading books, written by doctors like Al-Razi.

Al-Razi's ideas help doctors to learn to observe carefully, ask questions, and look for clues instead of guessing or blaming bad spirits.

So even though Al-Razi lived long ago and far away, his ideas helped doctors in Europe learn how to care for sick people.

Al-Razi's writing helped them understand illnesses like measles and smallpox, and it showed them what signs to look for and how to help people get better.

After Al-Razi's discoveries, other doctors began to observe and test medicines too, just like he had done.

Hundreds of years later, students still studied his notes.

Al-Razi didn't just help the people he met in his own time.

His ideas continued to help others long after he was gone.

Isn't that amazing?

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What happened to Al-Razi's books after he died?

A, Nobody read them.

B, they were copied and shared.

C, they were thrown away.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was B, they were copied and shared.

How did Al-Razi use science to help people?

Select two answers.

A, he guessed what would work.

B, he observed carefully.

C, he used magic.

D, he tested medicines.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answers were B, he Observed carefully.

D, he tested medicines.

How did Al-Razi improve medicine?

A, he kept his ideas secret.

B, he only helped rich people.

C.

He shared his ideas with other doctors.

Pause the video, have a think, and then come right back.

Welcome back and well done if you knew it was C.

He shared his ideas with other doctors.

Okay, great now we're going to move on to the final task.

Task C.

This task is all about showing why Al-Razi was important.

You can choose one of these ways to do that.

So you can make a poster or you can act it out as a freeze frame or a short play.

That means you get to choose how you are showing your learning.

If you choose a poster, you'll use pictures, labels, or short sentences to show what Al-Razi did and why it's mattered.

If you choose to act it out, you might freeze like a statue or perform a short play to show Al-Razi helping people.

To help you, I have given you some ideas you could include.

You might show Al-Razi helping a sick child by observing carefully, Al-Razi testing medicines to see what really worked.

Al-Razi writing books to share his ideas or doctors in other places using his ideas to help people.

You don't have to include everything.

Just choose what helps show why he was important.

Pause the video, have a go at a task and then come right back.

Welcome back, and well done having a go at that task.

Remember, this task was about showing why Al-Razi was important.

And if you chose to create a poster, it could have looked something like this.

You could have drawn a picture of Al-Razi and labeled it with details about why he was important.

You could have written that Al-Razi was a doctor in Baghdad and that helps us remember who he was and where he lived.

You could have written that he observed people carefully instead of using magic.

And that's a really important idea 'cause it shows that Al-Razi watched, listened, and thought carefully to help people.

You may have remembered that he tested medicines to see what really worked.

That tells us he didn't guess.

He tried things out and learned from them.

You could have said that he wrote books to share his ideas and that doctors in many places used his ideas to help sick people even after he had died.

That means his ideas traveled far and helped people he never even met.

Now, if you chose to act out why Al-Razi was important, then your play could have looked something like this.

Here Alex and Izzy acted out the scene Al-Razi treating a sick child.

Let's hear Alex describe what's happened.

"I played the role of the sick child.

Izzy played Al-Razi and observed me.

She then pretended to give me medicine.

Al-Razi's ideas helped lots of people.

" And now Izzy will explain how she played the role of Dr. Al-Razi.

"I played the role of Dr. Al-Razi.

I looked carefully at Alex who played the sick boy.

I am listening and not guessing, just like Al-Razi did.

" Excellent.

Well done to Alex and Izzy.

And remember, your plays will not all look the same.

And that's a good thing.

If your play showed Al-Razi caring, observing, or helping people, then you showed why he was important and acting it out helped you show that learning in a really clear way.

Okay, great.

So let's sum up today's lesson.

Al-Razi the Doctor who cared for everyone.

In this lesson, we have learned that Al-Razi was a curious doctor in Baghdad who wanted real answers about sickness.

He observed patients carefully instead of just following older beliefs, he found the cleanest place for a new hospital by testing where meat rotted the slowest.

He tested medicines and wrote down what he learned.

And his books spread worldwide helping people long after he died.

Well done everyone.

And today you've learned how one person from the past can make a big difference.

I hope you learned lots of new things today, and I hope you had lots of fun too.

And next time you hear the word observe, remember Al-Razi, the doctor who cared for everyone.

I'll see you again soon.