“Why should I care about some dead guy who lived a thousand years ago?” How many times have history teachers been challenged on the importance of their subject? From personal experience I know that I get that question once or twice a year from my most frustrated students. What are some common complaints about secondary history education?

1. History is just a bunch of dates and names
2. History is not relevant to my life
3. Why should I study this stuff, its all online, I can look it up
4. History is content not skills and thus doesn’t contribute to my future career.

First, History is just a bunch of dates and names if you consider a cake just a bunch of sugar and flower. While this complaint is more likely caused by teaching methods history teachers use it does fail to see the broader picture. It is up to the history teacher to lead student to this fuller more beautiful view of History or to guide them to discover it themselves. If all we do is ask student for dates and names it is no wonder why students say this.

Second, History is relevant to our lives. Can you function without memory? I would argue that you can’t. If you can’t function without memory than do you suppose that a society can? History is the collective memory of society. It may not always remember things correctly, and it may forget some things, but nonetheless our species would be running around in circles if we never remembered anything. You can’t learn without memory, you can’t truly live.

Third, the argument that you can always just look things us is lazy and imperceptive. It also speaks to a misunderstanding of the nature of history. All works of History are made through the lens of interpretation. Since we will never know exactly what happened in the past it is the job of historians to use what evidence they have to reconstruct what the story. While some historians try to remove their bias, it is impossible to completely remove it. By saying “I’ll just go look it up” you ignore, or are ignorant to the fact, that what you are reading is an interpretation. Without being exposed to history you are accepting information that is biased as fact and, most likely, accepting wikipedia as the authority and sole interpretation

Lastly, History is uniquely situated to develop the skills of individuals. Specifically, History allows its learners to see cause and effect relationships. History exposes students to the idea of multiple causation and how our actions have ripple effects to those around us. This can lead to skills in analysis. Writing and argument are both core to history. Taking positions and using evidence to back your claims is one of the most transferable skills history has to offer.

What do you think? Have you heard these complaints before? Is there any you would add? How would you respond to these complaints?

Thanks for reading!