Our History
I’m Emily Park and I’m a junior at the Horace Mann School in New York City.
Up until the 6th grade, I disliked history. My early history education was limited to memorization of dates, names, and superficially covered events which had little personal resonance. Example: “In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America”. If not a monotony of dates to remember, history was taught through revisionist, “feel-good” narratives – for example: “Once in America, immigrants lived the American dream”; “America is the land of opportunity”.
Up until I entered 6th grade, I never learned the true essence of history – the diversity of perspectives, the nuanced stories behind dates, names, and events, and the aspirations/actions of real people that resulted in our world’s history.
But my real epiphany occurred in my 10th grade US History class where my teacher awakened me to the importance of the study of history in our modern day world. I was awakened to how major historical events always have mixed legacies, with the more negative aspects being obscured under the embellished positive stories that majority groups retold. I began to see the legacies the past has left on the present and repeated patterns of human behavior throughout history – both of which proved to me the importance of history in shaping a better world.
It was through this class that I began to internalize the value of history.
Human progression can only be achieved through learning lessons from history. Thus, I started the Perspectives of History to promote education about history and bring underrepresented stories to light.
Why History?
For many, history may seem like a plethora of boring facts, dates, and a sequence of events that occurred in the past.
But history is far more than these things.
The study of history allows for us to better understand our present-day world and the possibilities for a better future. History allows us to empathize with people who once thought so differently than we do today, allowing us to see a variety of perspectives. Most importantly, as the proverb goes, “those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” – history allows for human progression through learning from past evils.
Our modern day world is a culmination of actions and events that occurred through history. History imparts lessons about human regression and progression – how can our society progress to avoid tragedies that happened in the past? The formation of economic and political systems, sovereign states, effects of warfare, international blocs, cultural dynamics, and the division/unification of humanity all occurred because of events in history.
Without taking a side, let’s take the current polarized political climate in the United States, which is divided along fault lines of political party, religious, and ethnic affiliations. This political climate can be traced back to a plethora of global and domestic historical events that have occurred throughout decades. And this history is not merely a body of events – it is about real people, conflict between two political systems, grievances spanning centuries, power struggles, imperialism, and clashes of cultures.
By studying history, we are able to understand patterns in human civilization, the “why” of societal conflicts, and the causes of our current world – all of which will help us build a future brighter than the past.