One of the things I find is that people have a stunted knowledge about things from the past. History was always that one class most people hated in school, they never understood why they had to learn about "dead people" and things from the past which didn't seem to matter much in the "big picture" of getting their drivers license, that date with the one who they had a crush on, or where the big party was that weekend.
I was an ace at history, naturally. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be writing this, now would I? I was the person who the dummies in class always wanted to cheat off of when it came time for homework to be turned in and I always obliged. In fact, in junior year American History, I was the crutch everyone rode to a good grade. My teacher believed in a lot of exercises in simulating things from history, and the people who had the best grades were the leaders of various teams. Needless to say, everyone always wanted to be on my team. If I had known then what I know now, I would've traded my knowledge and time for things that I wanted. See, a lesson from history, right before our eyes!
I was reminded of the good times in that class a few years ago at my High School class reunion, when I shared some of the more humorous escapades with my partner in crime in that class...I had almost forgot about it, but he remembered. We used to sit in the back and always pass notebooks back and forth, ridiculing our teacher and generally being pests. Don't get me wrong, I liked the teacher, he was a good man, but we were bored and had to amuse ourselves while the rest of the class struggled to get a grasp on things. This guy still had his notebooks and had been leafing through them prior to coming to the reunion, which is what brought up the whole conversation in the first place.
Yes, this trip down memory lane has a point, which I'm getting to, eventually. Occasionally when we look back at things we have done, we only think about one aspect or another, never bothering to look at both sides of our history. We never quite grasp the significance of what our past means to us while its happening. Go figure. We are caught up in the moment, never thinking about what it means to our future. The future we have comes from our past, as individuals, as a nation, as a society. Sometimes the answer to our problems isn't in front of our noses, it's behind us, in the gray murky depths of our memories.
A brief object lesson: a woman meets a man who she really likes. This woman, attractive, funny, bright--uses her charms to win the man over as a potential mate. She tries everything she can to win the affection of this man, but seems to be getting nowhere. What is she doing wrong, she wonders, all these things have worked in the past, why not now? Now, does she think that maybe the fact she is doing them again for the umpteenth time might have something to do with it? If she has done it before and hasn't snared someone, maybe it's what she's doing that's the problem. Maybe she has driven men away in the past and has to go back to square one because she doesn't see that she might need to change the pattern of how she goes about it. She might justify to herself that those other men "weren't right" without looking at the fact that maybe they were, if only she had adapted her style, looking back as to what it was that didn't work before as a guide. History.
No one wants to be stupid, no one wants to be seen as not caring about things that are important. The only way to accomplish something worthwhile is to remember how you got to that point in the first place. Don't close the door to the past, because you're gonna miss something important if you do. It's popular right now to tell people who are harried in their lives and trying to find a direction "don't sweat the small stuff". I learned a lesson in High School, not in History class, that you take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves. If you don't know how to multiply 2x2, you'll never figure out how to find a cure for cancer. It goes back to an elementary principle, you can never remember what you don't learn.
History is an important building block in the development of everyone...it's who you are, it's why you exist. Learning how to learn about History is an important element in the growth of every person on this planet. It makes you think, and it provides you with the ability to overcome problems that crop up every day. Never underestimate its value and always keep it in mind. Someday, the "dead people" kids don't wanna learn about will be us. Will we have a worthwhile lesson for them not to wanna learn?