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-Rudyard Kipling
I totally agree with the sentiment of this quote. It makes me think back to school days of ‘learning’ history out of dull textbooks. It seemed like the makers of these books just tried to cram in as many arbitrary facts as possible, rushing through everything and leaving little room for the actual truth of history.
All of us students were expected to memorize this slew of dry information for the test on Friday. What was the name of the ruler of such and such country during such and such years, and on and on.
But after Friday’s test was passed we would escape to the weekend and the letters and numbers would just wash away and easily forgotten by Monday.
It’s crazy to think about how many hours, days, years I spent memorizing obscure information for tests. If I didn’t know better I’d think they were just trying to keep us kids occupied with busywork.
Luckily I did have a couple of great history teachers who did their best to counteract the dulling effect of the textbooks. They would stand at the front of the classroom and tell us something that the books usually didn’t give much space to: rich stories about the people and lands we were studying and why they had their struggles and triumphs.
An obscure foreign name was suddenly transformed into a real person, someone who lived and breathed and had many hopes and dreams.
It’s to these awesome teachers that I owe much of my love of history. I see them as having rescued me from being forever put off of the subject by the sleep inducing textbooks.
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