Anika Week 14 - History: Boring but Necesssary
You’re sitting down in your eighth grade history class, thinking why in the world is it important for me to know the different battles of World War II? A few years later, you’re in world history, thinking why do I have to memorize all of these reasons for the independence of colonies? I mean, I get that they want freedom, but is knowing all of these things really that important? I thought the same for a while, until I took AP United States History this year.
While teaching us about various events that occurred in the distant past, my history teacher often says, “as sad as it is, you can use current scenarios to memorize these events for your tests,” and that made me truly understand the value of history classes making you memorize seemingly random facts.
A key example of this is the Alien and Sedition Acts, which “gave the president the power to deport any noncitizen thought to be dangerous,” according to this article. Sound familiar?
One of these four acts from 200 years ago, the Alien Enemies Act, is currently being used to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador. This law from the distant past is being revived in current day society, and understanding this law has become important to understanding current events in the United States.
I finally began to understand why United States History is a required class throughout the nation, as learning about the beginnings of this law helped me be more informed and gain a more nuanced perspective on the way that this law is being wielded by members of the government today.
As annoying as memorizing dates and such for history class is, there is more to history than dates— understanding and remembering events that occurred in the past ensures that society is more prepared for when they recur, as history often does.
An image of the Alien and Sedition Acts from the National Archives.
Hello, Anika! I agree with your initial perspective, as I used to have a similar one. I used to think that history was pointless and boring, that we shouldn't be learning about the past and instead focus more on the future. However, I soon realized that in order to understand our present and future we must understand and apply the past. Past experiences have played out a map of the cause-and-effect consequences for different actions, and recognizing those patterns today helps us to prevent those consequences. I now understand and actually like history, as we relate things we learn about the past to our current situations. I think that without learning history, humanity would continue to create the same mistakes. This blog post was very insightful, thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHello, Anika! I completely understand and used to share the perspective you mentioned at the beginning of your post. Even today, you can often catch me commenting on how history and memorizing meaningless dates and facts is not necessarily “my thing.” Admittedly though, this is perhaps just because I never truly understood how meaningful history is to our society today and therefore never put in the effort to learn it as well as I otherwise could have. I have often heard the phrase “we must learn our past to know our present” repeated by several of my history teachers on many different occasions, however, it was the way your teacher put it that finally made me understand how impactful that lesson is and what that sentence truly means. Your blog was insightful and has finally made me understand just why history is so important.
ReplyDeleteHi Anika! I also used to think that history was useless and often thought on why it was so important for me to learn it. When I first had history as a class, I thought it was a fun subject to learn about and that it was interesting re-visiting the past of many incredible parts of time. But when I had to learn it over and over again, it eventually got really boring. But when I started taking United States history, I also felt that past experiences are needed to truly understand our country and progress ourselves forward. I actually really like history now as we can correlate things from that past and contrast them with things that happen now. As the saying goes, "History repeats itself," and I really found that to be the case while in United States history. Your blog made a really insightful need on how History is important!
ReplyDeleteHi Anika, your blog brings about a lesson that I believe everyone should come to learn. I have a lot of friends who tell me that history bores them to death, and while I am not a history fanatic, I do believe history is important to learn and remember. Much of the US’s political action, like you mentioned the Alien and Sedition Acts, is probably unfamiliar to many despite being taught it from a young age. Without knowing the disastrous consequences it brought along many may ignore current political action out of ignorance. Learning history and deeply understanding it allows us to build critical thinking and not develop a desensitized and numbness to current political action. However, as someone who does debate and argue real world issues, understanding history and its effects are incredibly important in being politically literate. Especially people of our socioeconomic status, political action may not hit all of us as hard, developing us to grow ignorant to the issues that affect the marginalized. Overall, I think your blog says it best when you tell us that history prepares us to not repeat the mistakes of the past. Thank you for sharing!
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