For years, we have been reading books out loud to our kids and we both felt that there was something missing. We wanted to create a series where the reader would actually live though a historic event, through the eyes of character with whom they could relate. We wanted the books to teach values like perseverance and determination. And for the kids in the stories to act age appropriate with decent manners. The twist is that the students arrive at a point in the past just as Abraham Lincoln has decided to give up his dream of freeing the slaves and has quit the presidency.
How history is learned should be determined by each parent and teacher. There are many great books, movies, and websites waiting for discovery. Great speakers and scholars hoping for an invitation to share what they know.
Museums to visit. The list goes on. They are simply a starting point for discussions. And further research. For example, we are able to evaluate war, even when a nation is at peace, by looking back at previous events.
History provides us with the data that is used to create laws, or theories about various aspects of society. History can help provide us with a sense of identity. This is actually one of the main reasons that history is still taught in schools around the world.
Historians have been able to learn about how countries, families, and groups were formed, and how they evolved and developed over time. Did family serve in major wars? Were they present for significant events?
History helps us to understand present-day issues by asking deeper questions as to why things are the way they are. Why did wars in Europe in the 20th century matter to countries around the world? How did Hitler gain and maintain power for as long as he had? How has this had an effect on shaping our world and our global political system today?
If we want to truly understand why something happened — in any area or field, such as one political party winning the last election vs the other, or a major change in the number of smokers — you need to look for factors that took place earlier.
Only through the study of history can people really see and grasp the reasons behind these changes, and only through history can we understand what elements of an institution or a society continue regardless of continual change.
History can help us become better informed citizens. It shows us who we are as a collective group, and being informed of this is a key element in maintaining a democratic society. Through knowledge of history, citizens can even change their old belief systems. By looking at specific stories of individuals and situations, you can test your own morals and values.
You can compare it to some real and difficult situations individuals have had to face in trying times. Looking to people who have faced and overcome adversity can be inspiring. You can study the great people of history who successfully worked through moral dilemmas, and also ordinary people who teach us lessons in courage, persistence and protest. The study of history is a non-negotiable aspect of better citizenship. This is one of the main reasons why it is taught as a part of school curricula.
People that push for citizenship history relationship between a citizen and the state just want to promote a strong national identity and even national loyalty through the teaching of lessons of individual and collective success. We learn from past atrocities against groups of people; genocides, wars, and attacks.
Through this collective suffering, we have learned to pay attention to the warning signs leading up to such atrocities. Society has been able to take these warning signs and fight against them when they see them in the present day.
Knowing what events led up to these various wars helps us better influence our future. The skills that are acquired through learning about history, such as critical thinking, research, assessing information, etc, are all useful skills that are sought by employers. Many employers see these skills as being an asset in their employees and will hire those with history degrees in various roles and industries. Understanding past events and how they impact the world today can bring about empathy and understanding for groups of people whose history may be different from the mainstream.
You will also understand the suffering, joy, and chaos that were necessary for the present day to happen and appreciate all that you are able to benefit from past efforts today. You can refine your reading skills by reading texts from a wide array of time periods. Language has changed and evolved over time and so has the way people write and express themselves. You can also refine your writing skills through learning to not just repeat what someone else said, but to analyze information from multiple sources and come up with your own conclusions.
There are so many sources of information out in the world. What was a victory for one group was a great loss for another — you get to create your own opinions of these events. It helps us understand the many reasons why people may behave the way they do.
As a result, it helps us become more impartial as decision-makers. In the study of history you will need to conduct research. This gives you the opportunity to look at two kinds of sources — primary written at the time and secondary sources written about a time period, after the fact. This practice can teach you how to decipher between reliable and unreliable sources.
There are numbers and data to be learned from history. In terms of patterns: patterns in population, desertions during times of war, and even in environmental factors. These patterns that are found help clarify why things happened as they did. All people and cultures are living histories.
The languages we speak are inherited from the past. Our cultures, traditions, and religions are all inherited from the past. We even inherit our genetic makeup from those that lived before us. Knowing these connections give you a basic understanding of the condition of being human. Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who lost an arm fighting the Nazis, the commission was largely conceived in order to establish a legal and political case in Congress against internment and for some kind of redress.
But Nisei men and women, the children of Japanese immigrants who had kept virtually silent for decades due to a social code inherited from their ancestors, captured the moment.
They used the hearings to share their stories of sorrow and humiliation. The intense emotion of these personal histories galvanized a political movement that succeeded in winning monetary reparations from the federal government for those who had been interned. It was an unprecedented event in the American experience. I guess the whole community cried. When the nation feels not just divided, but divided in an unprecedented way, studying history serves as a guide.
A nation that can see through and place the turbulent present in historical context is better empowered to grasp the present and decide on the best course of action ahead. Those who work in classrooms and with students grasp this. Therefore, we study and share history in part to give us the foundation for action.
We build that foundation in part by learning and sharing stories of immigrant forebears and their legacies; the Project from the New York Times, which consists of a series of essays about the legacy of slavery, does something similar, but in a fashion that its creators want to be unsettling, if not excruciating for many.
Telling different stories within a single broader narrative, and using those stories to create empathy within an agreed-upon historical framework, are powerful skills. For a liberal audience, the main argument went like this: These immigrants and their children were the victims of powerful white men who, in the name of national security, exploited wartime panic and longstanding anti-Asian bigotry among other whites to deprive Japanese-Americans of their civil liberties.
For conservatives, the tougher audience, it went this way: Japanese-Americans were content to obey the law and grow artichokes and strawberries. They were exemplary models of enterprise, the free market, and family values—until they were deprived of private property rights and denied due process by an overbearing federal government.
Together, these arguments succeeded because both narratives underscored the ideals that presumably governed American history, and how internment undermined those ideals. This should not be confused with warping history as if for some kind of novelistic experiment, or perverting it for political control. But in classrooms, it has always been a struggle to teach history in a way that resonates with students. Watkins, who went from dealing drugs in the city to teaching at the University of Baltimore.
The consequences for this approach, if done right, can be profound, she argued. In , a young Army captain spoke at a service honoring Kazuo Masuda, a Japanese-American soldier who died in combat in Italy and whose family had been interned.
This Army captain said men like Masuda were heroes, distinguished by their sacrifice and love of country, not their race. Decades later as president, he was initially opposed to redress for internment.
But when Reagan was reminded of that moment, he changed his mind. It was crucial for Reagan to see himself as a character in a crucial moment in American history. The arc of that narrative can be questioned. Why did men like Masuda have to prove their loyalty to the land of their birth? What about those Japanese-Americans who out of principle resisted military service?
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