A moniker often given to the study of history, which I personally hate, does little to engage learners in the pursuit.
History is often seen as an impersonal learning tool for students. However, history is so much more than that. It is the persistence of humanity and everything we hold dear.
As students, we have access to innumerable historical institutions, programs, classes and initiatives dedicated to making history more accessible. With this almost-excessive access, we should apply ourselves to the history discipline. Yet so often, history is seen as a faraway glimpse to an archaic reality that does not concern us.
However, this is usually not the case at all. Even though history can be presented in our middle school years as a dry disassociation, everyone can benefit from the skills and civil awareness that history provides.
Olivia Reed, assistant archivist at Taylor University, frequently connects people to historical resources and content they are wanting to explore.
“You have to know what has been, not just to know what will be, to know what is,” Reed said. “Just be familiar (with historical concepts), or else you’ll just make stupid decisions now.”
Despite us sometimes begrudgingly understanding that we’re living through history, we often miss the complexities of what happens around us; and complexities are something historians love most.
Philip Byers, professor of history and Taylor University Halbrook chair of Civic Engagement, said studying history does not necessarily make the wisest citizen, but offers a fundamentally different way of comprehending the world. This can only help.
A difficulty that many people have is a personal connection to history beyond their own heritage.
“If you can make a connection…it’s actually the story of human ingenuity that often involved entire generations of, often, young people grappling with the most consequential things in the world when they were alive,” Byers said.
Understanding our own identity can be a daunting task. There can be a certain comfort to take in history, beyond what it can factually offer.
History seems to exist in a sphere apart from our reality. Some causes and effects seem more direct. Other times it is not clear how interpretations from ancient material culture affect us at all.
This could be because we are only looking at history for what it has to do with us. Elizabeth George, an associate professor of history, global and political studies, said there is value in learning more about the world in order to meaningfully engage with it.
“Being a person who is going to engage with the world means that you need to have a certain curiosity about things that have very little to do with you,” George said.
The danger is not simply repetition, but a lack of human interaction across generations. We are risking the loss of a deeper understanding of the world and our context.
Documentaries, historical fiction, ‘National Treasure’ are examples of real history rooted in multitudes of media. Engaging with these can help to foster an understanding of the past, restructuring our way of thinking and our consideration of the world as a whole.
We are all anxiously awaiting the future and, if we are risking doom, we may as well apply ourselves to learning about what has already happened.
