So, what is "history"?
In vague terms, it is the study of the past. However, the person who is reading this is much too intelligent to settle for such an answer so let's dive a bit deeper. History can involve a wide array of areas. One could study the past of an individual, a group of people, a town, a state, a country, multiple countries, cultures, the world and much more! Believe it or not, history is in just about anything that you enjoy learning about. If you are a math wiz and enjoy performing algebraic equations, there is history in that. Who came up with these equations? Why do teachers require you to learn this in school? Where did it come from? Who even "invented" math? These questions stem from history. History can answer a lot of questions, but it can also leave you with more questions. That is the beauty of it! Where we are today is because of things that happened in the past. So, if you ever wonder why things are the way they are today, you can always look back and see where it came from. Be prepared though, because you may be sucked into a vortex of more complicated questions that will certainly arise from your journey; questions that may not have an answer to them or questions that require some serious excavating to find the answer. Even if the answer does not fully satisfy the question.
I brushed my teeth this morning. Since that is in the past, it must be history right? Not necessarily. The past and history are not the same. The past is something that simply already happened. The sentence right before this one was written in the past. History, however, is the study of past events among other things that help us understand our present and where we may be going in the future. History is much more complicated than just the past. To be a historian, it requires a lot of digging, a lot of questions, and a lot of reading and examination. It requires the ability to critically think.
Why is history important?
Like a lot of students I have interacted with, they think that studying the past has no purpose. "It already happened, who cares?" Well, it's my job as an educator to fill them in. I always ask my students why history is important and I often get the generic answer of, "to learn from our past and not make the same mistakes". This is true, but it is much deeper than that. We can not only learn from it but free ourselves from it. In a way, I am glad they think this way originally. It gives me a chance to broaden their horizons and help them think differently and more intelligently. Afterall, that is my job as an educator.
One thing that studying history teaches us to do is to ask questions. As you can see in previous paragraphs, I have asked several questions about several different topics. Asking questions is an important life skill. Is it a good idea to believe everything that you are told? If something does not make sense or something seems a bit off or confusing, it is GOOD to ask questions. When studying a certain topic of history, it often starts with a question. That is where the research begins. As you dive deeper, you begin to ask more and more questions which take you in several different directions. After all of your research, there still may be questions left unanswered (which happens a lot) but you will have a much more broad understanding of the topic because of the questions you asked along the journey.
Studying history also teaches us how to think critically. Going back to my question in the previous paragraph, is it a good idea to believe everything that you hear? To think critically means to examine a situation and ask yourself, "does this make sense?" Even if the situation does make sense, thinking critically also means to think about all possibilities which may lead you to the conclusion that no, what is happening right now actually does not make sense.
For example, let's say you are trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle has 1,000 pieces in total. Obviously, this is very complex puzzle and will not be easy. Now you are wondering, "how will I put this together"? A person who does not think critically, perhaps a young child, may just run through a trial and error with several different pieces. The person who is not critically thinking about it may be like, "Oh, these two don't fit? Let me try two different piece. Nope, those don't work either, let me try another. Still not working? Okay let's try this then". Can you see how this will take this person forever to solve? They may not even solve it because they will likely give up from their failures to put the puzzle together.
You, on the other hand, are thinking critically about this puzzle. You decide to first flip every puzzle piece over so that the colorful side is facing upward. Sure, you aren't putting pieces together yet, but it is a great way to organize. Once that is done, you decide that you are going to locate all of the pieces that belong to the border of the puzzle and place them in a pile. You know which pieces are the edge pieces because they all have a straight line on them. Your next step may be to create the border of the puzzle with all of the edge pieces you have gathered. This will take some time, of course, but once you have finished you will have the entire border of the puzzle completed while the one who did not critically think may only have a few pieces of the puzzle connected. Perhaps your next step will be to organize the remaining puzzle pieces into different groups based on the colors of each piece. All of the dark blue colors go in one pile, the green ones in another, and the yellow ones in another. Clearly, those pieces that are the same color probably go together. Finally, after a few days (or hours if you are really tenacious) the puzzle will be completed. Critically thinking about how to best solve it worked well in your favor while your counterpart has given up and kicked the puzzle pieces across the room calling it "stupid". This is what critically thinking can do for you and that is a skill that studying history can train.
Finally, studying history provides us with knowledge on what has worked and what hasn't worked. Let's look at World War II for example. There were three experiments going on at once. The Nazis were practicing Fascism which believed that there was a superior race that should dominate the world. Then there was Communism in the U.S.S.R. which believed that there should be no classes and everyone should live equally. Finally there was Liberalism which believed that everyone should be free to choose how they lived. Fascism was quickly defeated and people realized that this was not a just way to live. It was violent and hateful and caused the death of millions of innocent people. That left Communism and Liberalism to duke it out for several decades until finally Liberalism reigned supreme following The Cold War. Some could argue that The Cold War continues to this day but that is another story for another time. The point is, the people of this time did not have anything to look back on that showed them which path was best. It is clear now that fascism is wrong and evil and no other country has practiced this since. Communism still lives on, but the number of countries that practice this style of government are very limited.
How can I use the skills I learned from studying history?
To quickly recap, the three main skills that studying history teaches are to ask questions, think critically, and learn from past mistakes and successes. How can these skills be applied to real life? Let's go over some examples.
Perhaps you are in the dating world and you come across someone who is very attractive and could have potential to be a partner in the future. Will you blindly fall in love with this person just because they are attractive? Or will you pick their brain a little bit and get a better understanding of who they are. Perhaps after some time spent with this person and some questions asked you find out that maybe this is not the right person. Maybe they aren't as competent as you might have hoped or maybe you discover that they have no life goals and no motivation to do anything. Or maybe this person does not enjoy going on hikes and being outdoors and would much rather play video games all day. You can only discover this by asking some questions. I am not saying to interrogate a potential partner, however, I am saying that asking questions and getting a fuller picture is a good idea. Studying history can teach you this. Asking questions is a good thing. People who are too timid to ask questions or do not realize that they can ask questions or do not understand what are good questions to ask will surely be at a disadvantage. Ask those questions!
Think critically about things is a life skill that cannot put you above the rest! Let's look at applying for jobs for example. Perhaps you have applied for a job where there are several others who also applied. Maybe there were 200 applications sent in and only one will get the job. Feeling nervous? I would be. Let's say your resume was good enough to be considered for an interview and you get it. Now maybe the field has been narrowed down to 50 people. Wow, that is still a lot. You are going to need to kill this interview. You go in and an advantage that you have is you know how to critically think and form coherent thoughts that are delivered so eloquently. Your thoughts are translated into beautiful speech! Of course, your employer is going to ask you some tough questions. Afterall, asking questions is important. After several interviews you find out that you got the job. Congratulations! The other people may not have had the critical thinking skills that you possessed. Maybe you studied history or maybe you didn't, but the important factor here is that you knew how to form thoughts in an appropriate manner.
Finally, learning from the past and freeing yourself from it is something everyone can learn from studying history. For this example, I will use an example from the book, Homo Deus written by Noah Yuval Harari, a history professor from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He examines why people have lawns. Lawns can be such a pain. They take a lot of effort to maintain. You must constantly cut the grass which may take a while depending on the size of your lawn. They require water which may be easy if you have some sort of automatic sprinkler system installed but then that requires money. Then, there may be patches of the lawn that need more seed and extra attention which then turns into a whole project. After all that, a storm could roll through and knock down a tree which then damages your lawn and then you will need to fix that. All for what?
An examination of the past will show us that castles of older civilizations often maintained beautiful lawns as a sign of wealth. When castles were conquered, they were often burnt to the ground. However, the lawns were not touched. So now, most people have lawns which they put a lot of energy, time, and money into for what purpose? To show wealth? Our ancestors who were hunter gatherers did not waste any time maintaining a lawn. There was no point to it. To free yourself from this, perhaps you could have a "lawn" made of beautiful stones and mulch beds of flowers which take much less effort to maintain. Or maybe install a turf lawn which the grass will never grow because it is not real. Maybe you enjoy having a lawn because it gives you something to do and be proud of. To that I say, more power to you! I am not saying people who have lawns are wrong. I have one myself. What I am saying is that by examining the past and learning from it can teach us a little something about the habits that we have today and ask ourselves if they are important enough to continue doing or if something should be changed.
I am not naive enough to think that I have all the answers. There is certainly much more to history than I have posted here. Like any good historian, I am constantly on a quest to learn more. I understand that there will never be a day where I can say, "I know everything there is to know". To say that would be so incredibly ignorant and foolish. I am sure as I continue to teach and read more about our past that I will be able to add more information to this and to other future posts. I also understand that I have a lot more to learn.
Like I have said in previous posts, the ultimate goal of this blog is to help me practice becoming a better writer, thinker, and speaker. Today's topic was about something I am very passionate about and will continue pursuing. I look forward to learning more and correcting myself where I need to be corrected and digging a little deeper to find the facts. This is what history is to me at this current moment. I do not expect this to remain the same in the future. My hope is that my view of history will become more advanced so that I may share more with others.
