So i have to say I get kind of tired of the looks I get when people ask me what my degree is in and I reply History. Oh really, they say... I hate History. If I have had this conversation once I have had it a thousand times. The truth is it's not the history that is boring, its the avenue used to present it that sometimes can be dry. I was very blessed to have amazing teachers in middle and high school that were passionate about what they taught and knew how to present the information in a way that made it come alive. Although i know some of my fellow classmates would not agree with me, and I will allow them their opinion, because please don't ever send me back to another math class. I will fight kicking and screaming all the way there.
Okay i will admit it .... I was a nerd. :) You don't show up to school 45 minutes early every morning to practice with the History Quiz bowl team for nothing, well actually you do ... it really only got me a trip to Raleigh, a tour of the governors mansion, and a stuffed parrot out of the claw machine, Oh well and one more thing, being the only girl on the team, I got the "privilege" of rooming with our sponsor. Lets just say she was one of those teachers who I appreciated much later in life, but lights out at 9 pm on an overnight Middle School trip was not the most fun. :)
I continued to enjoy history in high school. I learned that there were parts of History that interested me far greater than others, I needed a baseline of knowledge to be able to base my further learning on. You cant understand the Civil War without knowledge of why the Revolutionary war was fought. It breaks my heart to hear people talk about the fact that the Civil War was fought over slavery, and in part that is right, but it was fought over so much more. Slavery was only one of the states rights issues that caused the South to succeed.
But my Love affair with History really came when I was in college. I had by far some of the best History professors while I was at Western, and the ability to specialize where I was able to dive so much deeper into the parts of History that I love. I realized that I loved Social history especially in the South, and these were things that we barely were able to touch on prior to college because of the sheer volume of material that was given to the teachers to present. Luckily there wasn't standardized testing in History so the teachers had a little more flexibility with what they taught, but having to cover the discovery of America in 1492 to if you were lucky the end of the World War II... usually spending one class period each on Korea, Vietnam, and post Vietnam America, really limited the amount of material that could be covered.
When people discover the connection of History to themselves they become much more engaged. Show someone who loves baseball the connection between Southern Mill Villages and Baseball, and the reasons why mill village leagues were so important to the morale of the workers in the south's #1 industry in the early 1930s and 40s. Show someone who loves science the evolution of the Gemini and Apollo Missions in the race to Space. Show someone who loves music the impact it had on the youth and culture of the 1960s. When History is made personal, local, and specific it becomes far more interesting.
I've been really encouraged by the Mountain Heritage Center's implementation of the Digital Heritage Moment that has been being broadcast on Clear Channel Radio in WNC, as an opportunity to expose chunks of local History to the general public. This project has encouraged me to start a new blog series and daily take an event in History, and share it in a way that may, open others up to an interest in our past and in our heritage.
Ill post the first in the series tomorrow so make sure to check back :) ....
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