The study of history is much more than a dry and dusty account of “what-really-happened-in-the-past.” History deals with values in ways that the sciences do not, so it’s particularly susceptible to all the problems that afflict human enterprise – such as pride, vanity, self-righteousness and the deliberate or subconscious obfuscation of reality.
It is also a very tricky business to determine what really happened, as anyone who has ever tried to reconstruct an accident scene from eyewitness reports knows. Historians try to make sense of the messiness of history by comparing and contrasting different people’s accounts. That’s a process of interrogating sources, just like a journalist does when reading the news. Unfortunately, most civics classes rely solely on government-provided textbooks and the rote memorization of dates and names without teaching students how to analyze sources and make judgments about their credibility.
A lot of history is about the great and good working through moral dilemmas and overcoming challenges to their beliefs, philosophies and goals. Those stories of grit, perseverance and courage can be inspiring to young people and help them believe that they too can do great things in their lives. They can also give them hope in the face of adversity and inspire them to work through their own problems with the same courage as those who came before them.
Nevertheless, teachers must be careful not to turn history into a weapon in the culture wars. marshaling historical facts and deploying them against those who disagree with an ideological agenda can only damage the field’s integrity. History is a powerful tool, but it should never be used to promote or discredit actions, events and individuals that do not have a clear ethical value.
When historians sift through the sources and find common ground they can then take any historical event and see how it connects with the world we live in today. That’s the power of history – and the reason it is so important to learn about it.
For example, students should be encouraged to study the Civil Rights movement, the struggles of the abolitionists and the populists, as well as the great wars, the rise of industrialization and more. Students can then compare and contrast these events with what’s happening in the world around them. This is how history becomes alive and relevant to the lives of children. And that’s the goal of all good education, of course. It’s why we teach history, in schools and in homes. And it’s why we must keep pushing to get more people interested in history, and more kids learning about it. This is the only way that we will be able to keep history as a useful and worthwhile endeavor for generations to come.