Without history, society will walk adrift into the sea of time~ Herodotus
Herodotus, the father of history , made the above statement when he saw the need for the present generation of people to get to know which events have led to the present state of their dwelling places, their neighbourhood and the world at large. In recent times, the Lagos state ministry of education have re-ignite the teaching and learning of history in our primary and secondary schools. This is owing to the fact that without history, people will not appreciate how they arrived, how they got to where they are and how they could work to better it.
It is true that students have tagged history as a subject to be boring and irrelevant. The study of history is incredibly relevant in schools for many reasons.
History helps us to understand the culture and tradition of people of different ethnicities. The subject therefore teaches empathy and tolerance. As a student and graduate of history, I could tell how the subject has helped me in living with people of different class, culture and skin pigment with human dignity and respect. History is about the only subject that teaches global citizenship.
Our world is shaped by different complexities and through the study of history, the student is at an advantage of understanding why some things have evolved and how they could live with it. This becomes the reason why people.make informed decisions as they walk through life. This is what history as a subject teaches.
One of the most informed people in the one are those who studied history. Historians or students of history are exposed to such information that is buried in the archives. When such truths are shared, the individuals who have such information are said to be one step above their peers. This is why it has been said in some parlance that the best administrators you have around the globe are historians and students of history.
One of the reasons I took to study history was because I wanted to know more about the nations in Africa and how they evolved. History of how nations across the globe evolved is full of fictions. It is only through the study of history that facts are sieved from the facts when history is studied as a subject.
Since history has been considered a science subject where artefacts are fetched and tested in the laboratory in the carbon ratio dating experiment, it becomes a serious matter as information to be studied is weighed through hypothesis and observation.
History can help students understand the consequences of their actions whether positive or negative. It is through the study of history that we get to know that though we may not be in the helms of affairs, on our little corner, our actions can weigh seriously to what happens in the large society.
Generally speaking, it is advantageous to study past events to understand the present and to predict the future. We can not hide from the fact that our history is a part of our present and will be part and parcel of our future. Just like the health status of an individual, a sick person's history is the first check to know how to follow up on the present circumstance. Lets not do away with our history.
