Have you ever heard the phrase: “to study history is to study change”? This phrase isn’t far from the truth. You may not realize it, but every time you study history you are learning life-changing lessons. For example, when you watch your parents do something that might end up with them being upset, as a child you would want to do the opposite of what caused your parents distress so that you wouldn’t be worried. In other words, learning history helps teach humans a lesson and makes it so we are less likely to make those mistakes as a population again. History is our past, present, and future. So I will explain why history is the most important subject a child can learn in school.
Some people find that history can build empathy in a person’s life through the study of the history of humanity. This type of study can help us appreciate all types of cultures and traditions not common to everyone. Doing this can help us recognize them as many special and meaningful products of times and places. Studying the lives of others helps us realize how different our current experience of life is from that of our ancestors, however, many of our values and goals have not changed much over time.
History can be similar to completing a puzzle or solving a mystery. Assembling a few sets of clues through many mixed-up documents and sources, then taking them and piecing the parts together to tell the amazing story that answers your questions and will tell you something unexpected about someone from another time and place. You are making history right there!
History can also sometimes be intensely personal; as we learn about our past, we see parts of ourselves and how we fit into the human experience. For example, History Day student Dutch Smith, explains how history changed his outlook on life when he started learning more about it. He says, “Learning history has given me a more well-rounded knowledge of myself and others, creating a sense that I am not just one person living this one life, but a component of an immense and intricate tapestry that is the history of humanity.” When people use history to look inward at themselves, it creates a human that will begin to treat life with a sort of care you don’t see everywhere.
Nobody can deny history is a part of their lives because history is everywhere, everything has history. As Dutch Smith explained “ History is our everyday life. Everything in this world has a history behind it that continues to have effects on our daily lives. From the invention to the lightbulb to English vowel changes, our current lives reflect millennia of human history.” There is not one thing on the planet that doesn’t have a story. From the bed you sleep into the food you eat for dinner, every single piece includes a part of history. Even in some of our other classes, there can be some historical elements of importance to that course. That could include the understanding of the topic changing or the discipline which takes a historical perspective. Nothing can outrun the chase of history.
