Personal Essay 1: Why History?

At first, studying history when I was a kid made me bored and uninterested with
it. I don’t really like to remember when those important events happened. I always want to
question why do we need to study the past while we need to worry about the present and the far
future. I don’t see its relevance and impact if I study it. However, some people posed great
interest and importance on studying history. My interest in studying history seems to remain
static but my teachers in high school made me change my mind. Their way of teaching history is
interesting and I took a liking of history since then. However, since I was a child, I am inclined
on learning new words and its meaning. While reading lots of English books and writing stories,
it spark my interest to become a Secondary high school teacher majoring in English. As I reach
my current age, I understand that studying history is relevant and interesting. Studying history
made me aware of what have happened in the past and how it contributed to the present state. As
a person, we need to be open and knowledgeable to understand history. Edward Hallett Carr
defined history as “An unending dialogue between the present and the past and the chief function
of historian is to master and understand the past as a key to the understanding of present”. I
believe in this definition and I want to fully understand the past to be able to understand the
present. Those important events creates changes and made what the world has been up to
present. Our past is connected with our present and it is relevant to study it for us to move
forward in life. History is important and it remains relevant up until now. History is a part of us
and by understanding it we will know better.
As an individual, studying history is significant for us to be not ignorant to
important events that have happened in the past. History is like a ball of information waiting for
you to burst and embrace it. It helps us to understand society and human behavior. We need to
rely on historical information for social scientist to undergo experiments to study how people and
its society behave. Change may create confusion and chaos, however this change created how the
world is at present. These changes made our world advanced and much easier. Imagine watching
at a black and white television up until now. These changes also bare negative and positive
effects. Back then, trees are abundant and valued. A little money can buy a lot of things.
However, human innovation and technological advancement create bad effects to our nature and
small money can only buy small things. Our culture, religion and language is also influenced by
colonialism and imperialism. However some things remain unchanged despite of changes. It
contributed to what the Philippines is currently. History contains lots of stories to tell. Its stories
served as an inspiration and the experiences from the past serves as a way for us to appreciate
how people live and function in the past and how it change in the present. It also provides us an
identity because each society has its own history to boast and it makes us all unique. Our bad and
good experiences may serve as an inspiration or let down but most of the time, these experiences
made us feel motivated to achieve more and avoid doing the same mistakes again. History can
made us a better citizen. Studying our own history, improve our understanding on how our
culture and language change. It created loyalty and shows love for our own country. As a
student, studying history can hone skills such as ability to assess evidence, conflicting
interpretations, and experience in assessing past examples of change. Studying history benefits a
student like me. History also may contribute in aspects such as work. I may be a college student
for now, but through the progression of years, I will became a professional teacher. It will benefit
my writing and speaking skills for me to be able to convince and share my understandings to my
future students. It is important because our past is responsible on what our present and future will
be. We also need to study history to be able to gather trusted information to support our opinions
that we are fighting for and for it made sense and not be a source of laughing stock to others. By
also having enough understanding about history, it made us more knowledgeable and we can
share our knowledge to others.
Studying the past may pose some challenges for you to give up on learning it.
Some of the challenges is finding the appropriate and trusted historical sources to learn it and
also some periods of the past contain few sources while others have a lot and it is difficult to
know if it is trusted. You may have varying understanding to it because of its accuracy. Your
determination to study it may change as time passed. Being determined and focus on studying it
may made you feel complete because our past is a part of us that we need to study and
understand. We also need to be open to all kinds of information especially if you are not open,
you will not fully understand history and may deny it. We also need to make a decision if we are
happy to study it and we are not forced to study it just because it is a requirement at school or
your friends are interested and you don’t want to be left out. Having enough sources of history to
study is also a challenge that we may face if we don’t know where to find it or if it is confidential
to the public. Time may also be a challenge because we need to allocate our time for us to be
able to fully understand history. If you don’t have enough knowledge and experience about the
past, it may be hard for you to fully understand history. The thought of past being irrelevant may
hinder you to understand it, that the present is much important to dwell with than dealing with
past. One of challenges also may be the thought that their interpretation of the past is wrong. The
choice of subject to argue with may hinder you to made up your mind and create a confusion.
History helps in interpreting our current social and political situation through
looking back to when those social and political situation also happened in the past and may find
solutions made in the past beneficial or irrelevant. It interprets our current social and political
situation as a situation wherein the actions and decisions made in the present will mold what the
future will be. It creates distinction in how the past and current differ and how rules and laws
implemented in the different periods made our social and political situation better or worse. It
also creates comparison and distinction. Our current social and political situation may differ from
the past social and political situation. It helps to make better decisions for our government to
produce and work efficiently for the benefit of many. Our current social situation may be as
similar as the past situation where in isolation and distance from each other is important for the
spreading of virus. History made us aware of how our society and politics works before. The
difference in beliefs and values and how it gave an identity to each of us. It showcase that it is an
important event that happened wherein people are dealing with another pandemic that will be in
history that our great-great grandchildren will look back to. It helps for us to look back and
compare how different the past and the present is and the changes cultivated what the world is
now.