College Admissions Essay: Writing Into The Future Classroom

History is a remarkable subject that offers and eagles eye view into the past. With textbooks such as, Hist3, a great deal of interesting information can be acquired. However, a common misconception runs rampant through students minds; the idealism that history is useless and that the subject is that of a drag. Who can blame them? Our text books can only do so much in terms of providing the means in educating ourselves when we’re not in a class room and when given the opportunity to appear in class we have the luxury of (hopefully) having and interesting professor to enlighten us on all the side conflicts, affairs, and bloodshed that has happened. Even so, when we as students have exhausted the book and our instructors, we have the privilege

There’s no secret to teaching history well or making it interesting. Barbara Tuchman summed up what every teacher, parent, and writer should know in two words: “Tell stories.” E.M. Forster gave a wonderful definition of “story.” If you say that the king died and then the queen died of grief, then that becomes a story, because it calls for empathy on the part of both the storyteller and the listener. We need historians who have the heart and humanity necessary to help students imagine the lives of people who have lived in the past and were just as human as we are today.

“I don’t understand why I have to take this class. All that old history stuff has no relevance to my life, and it is a waste of time to fool with it. My life today is more important than the lives of all those dead and boring people.” This remark is said more frequently than we realize. History is a combination of events that created our present and future today. The past it what simply gives our present it’s value. Another way to look at history is it can be compared to our ancestry line. Without our ancestors we wouldn’t have the make-up of genes that we do today. For example, the Columbian exchange is one of the events in history that has really impacted our world. Not only did one change come from the event but a variety including food, plants, animals, goods and knowledge. History also exposes knowledge to us. It is the resource that allows us to better our lives and expand our knowledge. Believe it or not, our life we peruse everyday consist of history. Including languages, we inherited, religions that weren’t just created on the spot, technologies that have been upgraded in the past years, and the clothing we decided to put on our backs everyday that has evolved from different materials to different fittings. The world has evolved in many ways in the past and it continues to evolve.

I play sports, football, basketball, baseball, track, and soccer at one point. On my very first day of preschool, I did not know what was going on. All I knew was I was not going to be home for long, and I was going to be around people I didn’t now. Besides school, ever since I was younger I always loved sports, and have been good at it. Besides my sports obsessions, academically, I’ve always disliked reading because I felt it was a waste of time , writing is the one thing I usually like to do, and I’m slightly scared of presenting in front of an audience.

The history that is discussed in classrooms today is not what it once was. History is no longer held with the same value as it was once before. History repeats itself. We can learn the story of history and unpack it to understand. Through history we can learn the effects of change. Through history we learn so much.

Why is there racial tension and political dissension in America? Why did Russia feel its Crimean invasion was justifiable? How did China become an economic power? These questions are answered by a proper understanding of history, helping us to better comprehend the world of 2015. Education’s role needs to be thus: to prepare students as learned individuals and to exist in such an international community. This is why I think history is still incredibly relevant despite focusing on the

"History never seems like history when you are living through it." This quote by John W. Gardner accurately depicts the inability of most young people to understand the importance of history. Every decision that is made creates an outcome. Once that outcome occurs, it becomes history. To many, history is seen as simply cluster of sequential events of the past. Rather, it is a record of the emotional and physical hardships generations have gone through to bring us to the present and also affect our future. In order for history to be taught well, it must be understood that the people of the past were more similar to us than we know,

Throughout secondary school, instead of accepting the facts stated in my textbooks, I continued to ask questions. Disillusioned by how complex historical events were taught like equations with a simple cause and effect, senior year of high school I determined that I would become a teacher. As a teacher, I aspire to not be hindered by standardized requirements and teach history in a way that resonates with students and evokes passion.

History is an important part of everyone’s education, as everyone needs to know the origins in every single topic in school; for example, for math, you might need to know why the Pythagorean theorem is called that, for English, people need to know about the background and history of Edgar Allen Poe before they understand why everything he writes is so

The course of history serves as an influential bridge that connects the past with our education, future, and perspectives on crucial issues. In public education, history is a school subject that is taken by a large population of students, and although authors and historians are working to create content with less bias, the course is bound to present subjectivities. Such examples include the neglect towards the Soviet era war crimes in Eastern European countries or the lack of attention given to the Nanking Massacre in Japanese textbooks. These misleading alterations of historical content can often cause the minds of youths to lack important facts and instead be distorted with false information. Thus, in order for society to achieve incremental equality and to preserve true and meaningful historical context, we must take initiatives to

Throughout academia, the questions of “why does history matter?”, and “what is the importance of studying history” arise very often by teachers, parents, and peers. The questions may seem exceedingly short and simple but they cannot be answered with simple answers. The complexity and variability of each answer has numerous factors such as background, environment, personal preferences, political alignment, and social status, that must be looked at before being able to fully understand the question and then answer it. There are thousands of quotes that can be used to answer, support and elaborate on the questions, but I find these resonant with me: “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child” (Wineburg 28), “Those who

Over time the social studies classes have become ridiculed as the boring subjects in the classroom. All too often are students overhead stating, “history is so boring! It is my least favorite class. Or, all we do is learn stuff that does not matter anymore.” Yet, to me, I do not fault these students for their perspective. I myself was once one of these students. I have always liked history and geography, but as a high school student myself I found them dull and focusing only on memorization. While I was in these classes all I can remember was thinking, “this is not even important to me”, and I can guess that that is the same thing students might think

My goal as an instructor is to use any topic of history, whether broad or narrow, to teach students how to make historical connections between cause and effect, understand the concepts of context and bias, and ultimately think critically. History, as I teach it, helps students learn how to filter through facts and the supposed truths around them in order to understand how bias effects these, but most importantly, how they can contend with this reality.

When it comes to paring down what to teach students, World War II exists as an almost extreme example. Not only would the large quantity of events be an overwhelming undertaking to teach in their entirety, but the experiences of countries around the globe varied so vastly that students from different countries seeking to understand the roots of their respective country’s experiences are seeking very different knowledge. For example, the leadership of each involved country’s government and military could be applicable to students anywhere in the world. Yet, only British students spend a unit learning about the rise of Winston Churchill’s leadership (The National). Even though students globally could benefit from the

Differentiate instruction can be a difficult task. I feel with having the content of History makes it a little bit harder the other contents. History is one of those subjects that you know or you do not. That statement may be a little harsh, but I have observed this through my journey as a student and educator. I have had to keep in mind my friends and students who just do not love History or get it. As a teacher, I have tried to relate my content to their everyday life. Students respond when you make the subject about them. Teenagers are self-absorbed and their mind cannot stay focus unless it interesting to them. I really try to relate my lessons on social media, sports, arts, relationships, and music. These few things seem to really be things that keep my students attention. Two examples from my unit would be the break-up letter and the trading card test. The break-up letter was my introduction to the Declaration of Independence. I made my students believe I found a note leaving for lunch. Since they left this note in my class, I will read the note aloud. The students are already stunned. As I read this letter, the students are shocked that I am reading and hanging on every word I am saying. The funny part is when they realize it from the American colonies. This gives me my students focus, and it 's something I can relate to while explaining the document. The trading card test relates to my sports and artsy kids. The trading card is like a baseball card trading