History - Why?

When you were little did you touch something hot that burned you? If you did you learned not to touch that anymore. People call that a life lesson. It’s simple and easy to remember. It's the history of our lives that teaches us good and bad. When we do something that doesn't work, we learn not to do that anymore. Most people say we learn more from doing things that don't work than things that do work.

I remember when I was in high school, we had to take history classes. I couldn't figure out why we needed to learn all that old stuff. I mean what good is it going to do for me? Knowledge for the sake of knowledge seems kind of useless and I have a lot of useless information in my brain. However, every once in a while, I get the chance to use that information, even if it is exceedingly rare.

It wasn't until I was over 40 before I figured out the importance of history. You see we study history so we can learn what to do and what not to do before we get burned by something, so we don't have to live through the pain of making a mistake. Simply put, we learn from the mistakes other people made. I really wish a history teacher had told me that when I was younger. I think every history teacher needs to say this at the beginning of every semester. History shouldn't be about names and dates but about lessons in life that teach future generations what to do and not do. Most people have a hard time remembering dates and teachers need not emphasize the memorization of dates but the stories they tell and the meaning of them. People learn by telling stories not just reading a list of dates and trying to repeat them. The dates aren't important, but it is good to have a general idea of the time frame though. Unfortunately, it's easier to grade a test where the answers are a number. That's why they test like that.

There's an old saying (credited to many different sources, including Winston Churchill - a name from your history classes) that goes something like this, "If you don't learn history you are doomed to repeat it."

One thing to note though, "History is written by the victor" (another saying that is attributed to multiple sources). People that write about historical events often have an agenda other than just being accurate. They can lean towards a political party or specific ideology, so they will leave out facts to try and get you to agree them. That is why you have to study history and have multiple sources - YOU must make sure the writers are not trying to manipulate your views.

I'll give you an example: My generation was in high school in the late 70s early 80s. We were taught FDR (Franklin D Roosevelt - 32nd US president) saved America from the depression in the 1930s. Since then, many people have studied this time period and realized the social policies actually lengthened the depression in the United States. In the mid-1930s the US was still bogged down in the depression while Europe had moved on. The military buildup sparked a growth in economies all across Europe. The US was busy doing social programs giving away stuff rather than using capitalism to grow our way out like Europe did.

When our children went to high school (2 out of the 3 went to the same high school I went to), they were taught the updated history of the 1930s. We were pleasantly surprised by this considering the direction the country has been going over the last 50 years.

In these times you really have to run everything through your BS detector or as I like to say my Vulcan filter to see if the story is logical or not. Even the "history" you hear may not make sense.

This is an example of how boring history class was back in the day.