I suspect there is a compromise between an extreme use of history and ignoring it.<p>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.<p>Note: We did have a great teacher.<p>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.