General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: It's time to examine where my loyalties lie, you judge, I'll just explain my position. [View all]SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Santayana had it absolutely right when he said "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
History is important in ways that people don't fully understand. Knowing what happened is just the first step. You need to think about not only what happened but why it happened, how it happened. Can things be done differently in the future? I don't know about the rest of the world, but in this country history is very badly taught. Sometimes the teachers are the coaches. Sometimes they're just not very good teachers. Most of the time the textbooks are terrible.
Personally, if I were to become a history teacher in high school, I'd teach it as a series of biographies, and approach it as if it were a gossip column, or maybe a reality show. What people did is actually very interesting, it's just not presented that way in history classes.