Monday, October 26, 2009

I Love History

No, this is not a blog about cycling or triathlon. I've about decided I can't just segment my life into one blog about this and another about that. It's all of a piece. So tonight's subject--my affirmation--is: I love history.

PBS showed an episode of "The American Experience" on the Great Crash of 1929, followed by a documentary on Herbert Hoover. (This Thursday is the 80th anniversary of the Crash.) Watching it all I realized just how much I love and enjoy history. I love just knowing. I always have. I like reading something and realizing, "Aha! So that's why that happened!" or "So that's what that means!" It's like unraveling a semi-secret language--the language of human experience.

I think that's an element that gets lost in teaching. I feel so constrained by the lack of time--the rush to cover as much as possible (quantity) versus covering a few things deeply (quality). We just don't have time in the survey to delve deeply enough to personalize events. Additionally, students are of an age where they haven't gained enough life experience that would enable them to relate to the variety of persons and situations.

In any event, it's nice to have time now and again to get back in touch with the shear enjoyment of the subject. It's too bad my students, by and large, don't share the enjoyment. I just hope some day they will have the opportunity to revisit some of the events and recall them in a different light.

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