Learning From History

History is almost considered a throw-away subject in school anymore.  A class or two is still required, but most of what is taught isn’t worth a bucket of week old spit.  It wasn’t much better back in the 60’s when I went through high school except that I had an exceptional teacher.  Mr. Lovell was his name.  I actually remember not exactly excelling in his class because back then, I was like a lot of kids and blew off a lot of homework.  But in class, I listened.  I listened because on our first day, instead of starting right out with “In the beginning”  and then go on to recite names and dates that would mean next to nothing to us 30 seconds after we handed in our test papers, he introduced the topic of history.  We spent the first few days in his class discussing why people study history and why it is important.  I was already interested in history and had already devoured most of what our little high school library had to offer on the subject, especially US history.  The lesson of those first few days left quite an impression upon me, almost more than anything else he taught.

If you were to ask most anyone on the street why we study history, I’m willing to bet the answer you would get at least 90% of the time is “to learn from our mistakes.”  I suppose it comes from the old adage that “those who don’t know history are bound to repeat it.”  And there is some truth to that old saw.  Usually, we learn from our mistakes.  But if we truly learned from our mistakes, we’d be pretty close to perfection by now.  I have a theory about those lessons.  Call it “VW’s Observation on History Lessons.”  It goes like this:  The larger the group, the shorter the memory.  In other words, individually, we learn and retain.  If the lesson is part of an organizational mistake, then the larger the group, the larger the turnover which means the organizational memory turns over just as quickly.  The other problem is that large groups move on to the next crisis, forgetting what just happened.  We see that working on the population as a whole.  What happened last week is old news.  They electorate has a very short memory.

So why do we study history if, as I claim, we learn very few of its lessons?  If no one learns, then isn’t the lesson a waste of time?  History is more than a collection of names, dates and places.  It is also quite subjective.  I can imagine that a historian’s take on the twentieth century would be quite different had the Germans won WWII.  That aside, the study of history is more than just names and dates.  We study history simply because it tells us the story of how we got here from there.  I chose the word story for a reason because by telling a story, history makes more sense then some collection of dates and names that are, for all intents and purposes, meaningless to most people other than actual historians.

You can just imagine some stuffy history teacher droning on, “On July 16th, 1790, Congress made Washington D.C. the new capital blah, blah, blah…snore.  Dates are important, but you can look dates up.  I looked that one up.  I picked a date, and looked up what happened on that date.  Rare is the time when you really need to know the actual date of some obscure historical event. Some dates are important such as July 4th or December 7th or September 11th.  Most aren’t.  Dates for most of us are either some desert fruit, the gal you took to the movies last Saturday night, or your next dental appointment.  Not many people, except perhaps someone with a special interest in American cities or early American government, care when they made DC the capital and there is no real reason why the actual date should matter to most folks.  It really doesn’t matter to me either.

History is important.  I’ve long held that you cannot truly understand politics without knowing history and how we got here from there.  Mind you, it is not the lessons of history, but the story.  And that actually brings me to the point of this rather long essay. We are not teaching our children history.

Because we get bogged down in teaching every little detail from Leif Erickson’s possible landing to the color of Washington’s wig to the length of Lincoln’s bed, we fail to get much past the Civil War.  Rare is the high school student who’s been taught US history past WWI.  Ask a kid something about the Great Depression and you won’t get much of an answer.  Ask him about WWII and he may mumble something about Hitler or Nazis or Japan or something, but most don’t know much more than that.  It’s no wonder people make comparisons of President Bush to Hitler and Republicans and Conservatives to Nazis.  It’s easy to do when you don’t know the story of Hitler and how he came to power.  It is easy to do when you are not even really sure what a Nazi is or what one stands for. 

The left takes advantage of this.  They preach the BusHitler line like doctrine.  They mingle in a few facts and spread the big lie.  Those who were never taught are easily led.

That is why you need to know history.  You don’t need to know the dates, but you do need to know the story and about when it happened to keep it in context.  When someone tries to make comparisons to Hitler, the Holocaust, the Depression, etc., how do you know if it is accurate or not if you don’t know the facts?  Not every Democrat or Republican or Green or Libertarian or any other party is going to be absolutely honest with you and the Democrats and the far left have proven in the past 6 years that they are willing to take the truth and stretch it so far, it is no longer recognizable.

Learn some history, it’s not too late.  Discern the real truth.  Know what a Fascist is.  Know how Hitler got appointed as Chancellor.  Figure out why Hitler was able to convince the Germans to perform despicable acts of horror.  I could go further. Learn why the Great Depression happened.  Learn why WWII was the closure of WWI.  Learn what caused WWI beyond Gavriel Princep shooting the Archduke Ferdinand.  Why did that single assassination trigger WWI?

Learn how we got here from there, and then, they can’t fool you.

VW

Comments

[kat]

Come on VW, everyone, Republican and Democrat, streches the truth(WMD's anyone?). By the way, I hade Dr. Lovell in high school for History.

[Violence Worker]

Kat, you are assuming that there was an intentional lie concerning the wmd. Before the war everyone in Congress pretty much had the same intelligence. They now are saying they were lied to, except that dog doesn't hunt. Many of the reports were updates by the same poeople who did intelligence for the Clinton Administration.

Also, the intelligence agencies of France, England, Russia, the United Staes and Israel all pretty much were in agreement over this.

Indeed, there were canisterd of sarin and mustard gas found that were certified by Saddam to have been destroyed. They were old and outdated, but still deadly.

Now, what lie were you talking about again?

Uncle VW

BTW, Did you like Lovell's class?

[Jenn]

I loved my history teacher. Mr. Viera, or Mr. V as we called him. He made history fun.

By the way, how much IS a bucket of week old spit worth?

[canuckistani]

Well, I'm impressed. Good essay.

When I was a teacher, I loved teaching Social Studies, a subject that has a history component to it. I found my students loved my personal stories from places I'd been to that we studied, I even had some things I brought in from those places that helped enliven the lesson for them. They especially liked my stories about the cultural differences and norms of the regions we studied. They remembered the lesson much better when there was a story component to it they could relate to.

As for learning history so humanity won't repeat it's mistakes, I think we've seen that's not always the case. I liken humankind to one person who at times, rather than doing the hard work of doing what it takes to learn something, they take the easy way out and do the same stupid thing that got them in a jam in the first place. A person sometimes has to repeat the same stupid mistake over and over before they learn. I think that is the case with humanity at times too as that is also shown in history.

[Violence Worker]

Jenn, It's worth every penny you are willing to pay for it.

VW

[Violence Worker]

Thanks Canucki. Coming from a teacher, it means a lot. I could smooth it out in a couple places, but I'll let it stand.

As you can tell, I'm a bit passionate about history and its importance. I'm thinking of actually doing a quick overview in several parts of twentieth century history. It would be quite a project. The problem is whether anyone would really care and read the damn thing.

VW

[canuckistani]

Pffft!! It's your blog, do what you like. I like stuff written by the person anyway from their p.o.v. Not a bunch of regurgitated stuff from a newspaper article. Wax on VeeDubya!

[kat]

Of course you would blame everyone but the Republicans. Just like I would blame all but the democrats. All I was trying to get across is that your party is no more perfect then mine they ALL LIE!!!!!!!!! I Loved Prof. Lovell. He knew his stuff. He was the only reason why I got into WWII. I read Mind Of Hitler first and then any book about WWII after. He also decided that it would be fun for us to memorize and write about all of the historical facts in the song "We Didn't Start The Fire". I will have to say that he was one of the hardest teachers that I had. Even after I was in college. But you know what? He made me, without knowing it, love history.