Teaching History When You Hate It

hy do we hate history? In my first year of high school, I took the only history course required to graduate—American History. Our teacher, who didn’t want to be there any more than most of the kids, read from the textbook for his lectures—in a monotone. It was enough to kill a love of history in even the most passionate. I avoided history like the plague for my remaining school and college years.

I hated history because it was meaningless—so I thought. I had nothing in common with those dead guys from other countries. Those dead guys were nothing more than a set of names and a list of accomplishments, without faces, without personalities. And who cares who fought who over what five or ten centuries ago?

I hated history because it was boring—so I thought. Dates, places, names; an endless list of facts. It's about as exciting as watching a skeleton on a stand, when you could be watching figure skating or football instead; or better yet, figure skating or playing football yourself.

ow that we are adults, out of school ourselves, we need to begin a search for the truth about history as open-mindedly as we can. We concede that we can let past feelings of hatred color our perceptions of history, blinding us to the truth of the matter. We want to come to the truth of the matter, not colored by what may have been the horrible teachers or horrible textbooks of our own school history classes.

Is history truly meaningless? If all we know about history is a bunch of names and a list of major accomplishments, while that may not be exactly meaningless, it will certainly do little to help break the hold of apathy. It helps if we think of our own time as history in the making. There are significant events going on in the world right now, and people shaping those events. Our times will be history to someone else someday. Can we look back with apathy at the news clips of President Kennedy being struck with bullets; of jubilant people, with tears streaming down the faces of some, anger infusing the faces of others, tearing down great chunks of the Berlin Wall, and smashing statues of past tyrants? Or the magazine photos of Princess Diana’s car, twisted almost beyond recognition, and the outpouring of love from the world at her funeral? Or the faces of starving children in Somalia, sitting beside their dead families, too far gone to even beg for food? These images wrench emotions from our hearts, and stir our minds to action. These events, these people, these times are important. Real people, valued by God, with real lives and cherished families were liberated, were ennobled, or suffered, or were killed. It is important for the generation to come to know about these times, to be humanized by these emotions, to learn from these mistakes. To a future generation, the history of our times has meaning. We know that without doubt. Can we believe, therefore, that the history of a preceding time is just as meaningful for us? We just have to find that meaning.

Is history also boring? Names, dates, and places, and nothing more, certainly is; as boring as a skeleton on a stand. But our own times have as much greater life in them as a figure skater has greater life over a skeleton. Our own times are engaging; while past times seem to be lifeless. And yet the past was someone’s present; the past was engaging and full of life and excitement in its time.

The reality, the immediacy, the gut-wrenching images burned in our minds gives meaning and life to our present times. Times past also have their own reality, their own immediacy, and their own gut-wrenching images. The past has its own lessons, pregnant with meaning; and its own adventures, exhilarating in its life-full-ness. Just as we have a few heroes and a multitude of villains, so does the past. Our present heroes and villains live lives full of value or wickedness, of joy, of heartbreak; and past heroes and villains did also. We all, past and present, are human, experiencing life in a way that is common to all: the human condition. We have much to learn from each other, no matter in which century we have lived.

t is very rare to find the reality in history in a history textbook. They are much too limited to even begin to contain its grand scope. History should be about the stories of the day: the people and their lives, the immediacy of their times. Even though in our own education we learned facts about the Civil War again and again, who didn’t come away with a much greater sense of reality and the immediacy of the times after watching Roots? It told the story behind the facts. History textbooks simply don’t have the space for the stories.

But the stories are there. We must read these stories ourselves if we want to replace our apathy for history with tolerance, or even passion. We love stories. It’s why people flock to movies year in and year out. And history contains the best stories. One of the most enduring television shows of all time, Star Trek and its offshoots, uses stories from history and literature all the time to give life to the future. I believe it’s one of the things that makes it such a favorite with viewers across the board. It builds upon the great stories of the past.

In order to find the stories, we can look first of all in the literature of the time. The Iliad is a great story about the Trojan War, which took place in antiquity. If you think it boring, listen to the plot: a Trojan prince kidnaps the wife of a Greek king because she is the most beautiful woman on earth, and he wants her for his own. The king, of course, is outraged, and vows to get his wife back or die trying. The Greek kings and their armies rally together and lay siege to Troy, where the prince and his captive are holed up. Each side has its illustrious heroes, full of bravery, skill, honor and virtue: Hector for the Trojans, and Achilles for the Greeks. Amid night raids, burning ships, one-to-one combat, insults and glory, the Greeks finally realize that they cannot win Troy by siege, so they devise a devious (or ingenious) plan: to send the Trojans a great gift, dedicated to the gods, and conceal inside it hidden soldiers. After the Trojans accept the seeming defeat of the Greeks and draw the Trojan Horse inside the city, the Greek soldiers steal out at night and open the gates of the city to their comrades without. They sack and burn Troy, and kill the inhabitants. The Trojan prince that started it all gets his, and Helen, of the face that launched a thousand ships, is reunited with her husband. Pretty great story!

If you can’t at first handle the style of the original literature, read a retelling to get the gist of the story. Once you know what’s going on, the original becomes quite enjoyable, if you are willing to give it a chance.

oetry is another great place to find the stories of history:

William the First was the first of our kings,
Not counting Ethelreds, Egberts and things,
And he had himself crowned and anointed and blest
In Ten-Sixty-I-Needn’t-Tell-You-The-Rest.

But being a Norman, King William the First
By the Saxons he conquered was hated and cursed,
And they planned and they plotted far into the night,
Which William could tell by the candles alight.

Then William decided these rebels to quell
By ringing the curfew, a sort of a bell,
And if any Saxon was found out of bed
After eight o’clock sharp, it was Off With His Head!

From William I—1066 by Eleanor Farjeon

Many of the most important events or persons in history have been the subjects of poems, and these poems give delightful and fresh insights into the reality of the times.

Histories retold in narratives, in story form, are a wonderful source. My favorite narratives are by H.A. Guerber, who wrote excellent histories for children in the 19th century, and Albert Marrin, who specializes in American History as well as in world events such as the Napoleonic Wars or World War II. Authors like them give history back its background, its color, its reality, its immediacy, and its life.

Good historical fiction also tells the stories of history, in the course of weaving a story of its own about made-up persons. Just because the main characters in the story are from, many times, the author’s imagination rather than the history books, don’t overlook this important resource. The events shaping the character’s lives are the events of history, and the authors of historical fiction allow us to see those events through the character’s eyes. This is a powerful way to give ourselves the reality of the times.

fter having worked so hard overcoming a hatred of history in our own lives, we surely don’t want to give our children the same handicap, for handicap it is. We want to use, in the main, literature, poetry, historical narratives and fiction to tell our children the stories of history. Textbooks have a limited place: they serve as good reference for finding out which events happen next, and the people about which we should find the good stories. Once we find the good stories, history time then just becomes storytime, the most happily snuggly delightfully looked-forward-to time of the day.

Where to find the good stories of history? The resources on this website will help guide you to the good stories. Once you start reading narratives and literature, they themselves will lead you to more: authors often mention the works that proved invaluable to them, and those books of interest for further reading. After that, it is just a matter of using your library card and building your own home library.

All Through the Ages was put together to make the task of finding the good stories painless and easy.

Copyright © 1997 by Christine M. Miller. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission of the author, except as provided by USA copyright law.