"History" when the majority of people and students hear this word they only have one thing in their mind...BORING!! Well not to me and let me tell you why?
History is not boring, it's the way that people have taught it that seems boring. Many people think that history is all about dates, places, rulers and wars. Whereas this just scratches the surface of what history is. History is about cultures, it's about values, it's about languages, it's about the behaviours of our ancestors and lots more.
I feel that the problem of not liking history starts from school life where children are expected to just memorize dates of wars, of when people died, of the places that were crucial in a chapter and loads more. To be honest, I don't like that either but sadly that's what is happening to me and various students around the world. But sometimes you have to look out the textbooks and research more. I found my love for history when I bought a fun pop-up book on Ancient Egypt history. It fascinated my mind and from there I researched more, and more, and more.
I bought books on famous personalities and their experiences. I used to read more books on history during the library period. But my most favourite thing to do was go to a youtube channel called "Extra Credits'' and watch their animated videos on lots of eras in history. The one thing I always wondered was "Why weren't we learning like this in school?" It was a question that puzzles my mind to this day. I don't like learning about big dates and Numbers and places because that's not history, that's just some technical parts of history.
I believe history is important because it teaches us not to repeat our mistakes that our ancestors did. Like maybe not bringing up World War 3 in the future, maybe not doing a civil war, or not destroying our environment like how the 'Industrial Revolution' did. There are many examples of history where our people made mistakes and we learn from them and hope that we don't do the same thing. I felt that I learnt a lot about cultures in history, their beliefs and their values.
For example "Did you know that in the ancient Aztec period human sacrifices were done to a god called 'Tlaloc' who was the rain god." or "Did you know that the famous 'Sistine Chapel' in Vatican City took four years to paint by Michelangelo and he refused to take help from his workers as he thought that their work was inferior to his."
I could go on and on about this and give you more interesting facts on history. But one thing I noticed rather than my history classes were that I was enjoying learning about this history and not the way that history is taught in class. I understood that maybe it's time that a change is brought into the way history is taught cause I feel history is such an interesting subject to learn and can make you even more curious. Currently, I listen to podcasts on different topics in history and I thoroughly enjoy it.
So, maybe by the end of this, I hope I brought a change in your mind about the perception of history and maybe encourage you to even research by yourself and know that "History is more than what meets the eye."