Most of the people I’ve encountered don’t like history. They see it as “a bunch of names and dates that are too hard to remember.” They’re not wrong. In primary school, history is often taught in this way, as a series of events that have to be matched with dates, names, and locations. It offers a static view of the past, one in which events happened in one clear-cut way, without room for interpretation.
It won’t get you through history class.
In order to study history (and understand it effectively), you need to come at it from more than one angle. Memorizing names and dates is important, but it isn’t the only way to study and interact with the past. Let’s talk about some different ways to think about history, and how they can enrich the learning experience.
History as narrative
This one is definitely my favorite. We all have stories that we remember: fables like Cinderella or Jack and the Beanstalk, the time we met our significant other or went to Disneyland for the first time, or the plot of our favorite movie. In short, humans like stories. History doesn’t have to be any different. When you’re studying history, think about it as the story arc of a good book. Who is our narrator? Who are the leading characters, the protagonist and antagonist? Where is the climax, and when does this story end? You can even plot out the story arc on a template such as this one:
History as a science
Considering history a science might seem kind of strange at first. It has no lab experiments, no hypotheses, and can’t be measured numerically. But when you look at it from the perspective of human behavior, it somehow starts to make sense. For example, we know that human beings, when provoked, will often resort to some sort of violence. These elements of human interaction have been played over and over again throughout the course of time. There are some important questions to ask yourself. Is this how humans normally reacted in similar situations? Where have I seen behavior like this before? How is this instance different from other comparable scenarios in history? When you think about history from a scientific viewpoint, it is easy to see how patterned it is, and how it follows set rules.
History as a list
This takes us back to the beginning of this post. While names and dates aren’t everything, they are still important for studying history. These tidbits of information, though small, still answer big questions: Who? What? Where? When? By categorizing this information into bite-sized chunks, it becomes easier to conceptualize the main points of an historical topic. Flash cards containing names of people or places, for example, are a good way to remember general information about an historical event or time period.
While I've given each of these three ways of thinking their own category for the sake of organization, this is no way means that they should be considered exclusive. On the contrary, these three methods for learning history only work best when they are working together. To fully understand history, it's important to understand the stories and the dates and how these human events are phenomena governed by laws.
Would you like to see each of these three methods discussed in a post of their own? Let me know down below!
Next we'll be talking about tips for efficient reading. See you there!
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