Why Education? Why History?

Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear. For the past decade I have been able to inundate myself with the knowledge and worldly experience that any educator would dream of. I have studied in foreign nations, traveled across the U.S and Canada and have experienced many diverse cultures along the way. Growing up in and around the greatest city in the world I have been able to keep an open mind as well as an open mouth. My thirst for history is almost as big as my appetite for delicious cuisine. Living in the digital age has caused me to saturate my information through all forms of media. I intend to use those media within a classroom setting to teach. In the 21st century, the interaction between teacher and student requires that we find different ways to communicate. In my experience, I have learned that today’s students are engaged by using all of their senses and leveraging the new media technologies that defines their generation. My plan is to make history relevant and accessible in a classroom.

In a history or social studies classroom, traditional teachers often fail to utilize all the media opportunities that are available to them to review, rehash, and inscribe history. As a joint degree in history and mass communications, I hope to bring a fresh perspective to help understand why history is portrayed the way it is. By analyzing different pieces of history, I could use text; video, pictures and hands-on work which could help the spectrum of learners as well as help me grow as an instructor and historian.

The first medium of voice and language gave us stories which were passed down through generations. Eventually humankind decided to write down these stories, which birthed the print medium. Gutenberg’s press ushered in the modern world and a few hundred years later, the first photographs were shot. After the turn of the 20th century, the invention of radio brought all kinds of information directly to the listener’s ears. News was transmitted as soon as it could be spewed over the airwaves and the technology of the future was at hand. The 1950s brought television; the 70s and 80s satellite television revolutionized the world. Live television let information flow at a rate with which humankind could barely keep up. Using radio clips students would be able to hear the voices of the people who they read about in their text books. Maps and overheads, hands-on cartography helps people understand why borders and rivers are important to nations and empires both past and present. Ever since I could remember, I have been in environments that allowed me to use visual, hands-on, and auditory ways of learning and experiencing all kinds of educational disciplines. Finally, the internet has turned into the ‘information super highway’ and allows access to millions of other people with different ideas, which are converted through print and video and audio wrapped up in one.

This extraordinary opportunity is a gift to teachers – allowing them to better communicate and teach through media which speak to today’s student. The opportunity to teach history with today’s media tools is unprecedented and exciting. It demonstrates how people are able to take different disciplines and blend them to better help students look back, share, and enjoy. What I would bring to this experience is a passion for humankind and a deep understanding of mass communication. It’s that little thing inside of us that makes us smile at positive evolution on our planet: that drive, that passion to help people understand who we are, where we come from, and how we can mold our own future together with our own hands is an important reason for this choice in education. With the help of modern technology, history can come alive from different directions and send someone back to that time. To have a young person, a student experience something for the first time, to learn the reason why he or she lives in a certain area can open their eyes. It can help them learn, open up and explore their passions. The question of what will be taken away from this experience would be that I hope to live long enough to never stop learning.

As a historian, I look behind me into the past especially in things that I enjoy like medicine, arts, entertainment, sports, and other areas which all use history as a marker for their place in time. But part of what makes me a unique historian is that I am also able to look forward. With this new methodology, it might even be considered that history is being made through the collection of ideas between student and teacher.