Dead People, Dusty Relics, Far Off Places, Long, Long Ago...Why Study History?

Why study history? This is a question I am asked quite frequently when I tell people I am a history teacher and pursuing a doctorate in History. This is actually the question I get pelted with the first day of school by my students. Why DO we need to study about dead people, ruins, and events that happened thousands of miles away many centuries ago? The typical response is some variation of the “doomed to repeat itself” quotes floating around out there. The response to that is that we do repeat ourselves. We never learn our lessons. Why have a subject that requires a grade to graduate if it is pointless?

Our focus in history revolves around the main characters, places, and dates. This is actually an injustice to the study of history. Memorization of superficial details is what drives students away. And it is a disservice to what actually needs to be learned. I see history as not many distinct and separate events. I see history as one constantly evolving event. William Shakespeare wrote that “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”[1] I believe this is true. History is a performance or a stage act. It takes every single performer to add details to the performance. And in this performance you have multiple scenes all linked together to influence what happens next.

So what is the academic approach to answering the question? What better place to look for those answers than the American Historical Association, the premier organization for academics, researchers, teachers, and professionals in the historical field. Their website gives a compelling case for why we should study history:[2]

• History Helps Us Understand People and Societies
• History Helps Us Understand Change and How the Society We Live in Came to Be
• The Importance of History in Our Own Lives
• History Contributes to Moral Understanding
• History Provides Identity
• Studying History is Essential for Good Citizenship

These are great bullet points but what do they really mean? Simply put, we can say this answers what this play is about. Or another symbol is looking at a map once we get to our destination. But why would we look at the map AFTER we arrived at our destination? Being a family of seven, I take my wife and five children on occasional trips to some spot of interest. Being the personality that I am I try to make the most of every trip. If there are stops along the way that provide knowledge, a fun experience, or just a ‘moment’, we make that stop. Once we get back home, my children will ask questions about those places. I show them on a map. This is where we started, these are the stops we made, and here was our destination. Each stop led to knowledge or experiences we did not have before. There were memories made, questions asked, and desires to go back some time in the future. That map is the resource to help recall those experiences to choose whether to remember them, avoid them, or repeat them. These experiences altered our behavior and gave us something new to influence us in the future.

So back to that deep thinking on history from the academic world. In answering the ‘why’, we have to see what studying history does for us. What is the benefit? In a generation or society that constantly asks “what’s in it for me?” we have to show the benefits. The deep thinking academic answers from our friends at the American Historical Association?

·       The Ability to Assess Evidence

·        The Ability to Assess Conflicting Interpretations

·        Experience in Assessing Past Examples of Change

Now I know this is the academic answers that sound too deep for many to even want to think about. So what do these mean? I take a step back to explain some of the thinking on teaching history. For many teachers of history in early grades history is all about the “who, what, when, and where”. Now that may be the level based on critical thinking at certain ages. That is for the pedagogical scholars to debate on their own blog. I am going to take on the next step in higher learning for history. Again, memorization of those basics tends to lead to sheer boredom and misunderstanding of history that misses out on importance of learning history. We covered the initial questions. To understand history we now look to the ”how and why”.

As a history teacher, I like to imagine myself in the roles of what I am teaching. To understand how and why something happened I have to assume the role in that stage play. The role does not have to be one of the main characters. Or it could be a minor character that later becomes a major player. I look at an article about the son of a Japanese-American that was interred at a camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II. His father was a leader in pushing the United States and President Ronald Reagan to recognize a redress to these families. The author tells a story of an Army captain that spoke at a memorial service honoring a Japanese-American soldier that died in combat in Italy while his family was interred here in the US. This Army captain spoke on the courage and honor given by this Japanese-American soldier that disregarded race. Fast forward to the future. President Reagan was hesitant to accept the concept of redress due to many possible negative consequences and impacts on the image of the US. The author’s father reminded Reagan of one simple fact. Reagan was that Army captain that looked past race and ethnicity. This captain saw courage and patriotism in this soldier that gave up his life for even his family that was interred. Reagan was reminded of his role. He was put in the shoes of his own self decades earlier. It was at that moment he understood the role, the historical event, the moment of significance. This moment gave Ronald Reagan the wisdom to see the past, to accept that past for what it was, and to shape the future by acting in the present. This answered the “how and why” of learning history.[3] This is the importance of not just studying history but learning from it.

Adieu.

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[1] William Shakespeare. “Speech: ‘All the World's a Stage’ by William Shakespeare”, (Poetry Foundation 2020). 

[2] Peter N. Stearns. “Why Study History? (1998): AHA.” Why Study History? (American Historical Society 1998).

[3] Andrew Ujifusa. “Sure, We Teach History. But Do We Know Why It's Important?”(Education Week Journal 2020).