by Dr. Brian Regal
Teaching history is one of the most important jobs in the world. It might just save us all. In the year 2021 we need historians and history teachers more than ever. This is because so much pseudohistory and falsehoods about the past are being put forward by various quarters (rarely historians themselves) for cultural, political, and religious reasons. Here at Kean University we produce teachers for secondary and high schools who will go to positions around the region and the country.
There are states, such as Texas, which are currently banning or trying to ban the teaching of history about slavery, racism, and other of the darker aspects of our past. South Dakota wants to eliminate mentions of the lives of Native people. They think that not telling people about these horrors somehow makes our country great. This, of course, is absurd. Ignorance does not make one a better person or citizen. Ignoring evil does not make it disappear. To neglect those who suffered so we could have a better life is insulting to them and us. The way to counter this is to teach this material as much as we can.
The past isn’t always pretty, or nice, or fun, or uplifting. It can be downright awful, depressing, and enraging sometimes. Learning history is not about feeling better about yourself. It’s about learning what happened before so we can make better judgments about what is to come. It’s about holding people accountable for their deeds, both good and bad. When history does enrage us it is hoped that will lead to action to make it better. Engaging with the past is one of the things that makes a good citizen and a healthy country.
The Roman author Cicero famously said “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?” Childhood is okay when you’re a child, but eventually we must all grow up. Part of that growing is learning to accept history and holding it up into the light. That’s the lesson history teachers teach.
Teaching history is not just a job. You are having a huge impact upon your students often in ways we don’t even notice, and by extension the people your students will have an impact on. What we teach students sticks with them. We can never move forward as a society until we acknowledge and discuss our past, both good and bad. Not doing so is as foolish as refusing to take a vaccine that prevents a terrible disease. Teaching the unpleasant parts of our past might make people uncomfortable, but so does getting a broken arm reset: it hurts for a while, but in the long run you’re better for it.
Teaching history isn’t easy. It takes a lot of training, study, and hard work. You train to become an expert, a specialist. It’s not for everyone. For those brave enough to do it, you are making a crucial contribution to our society. We know history’s importance, it’s the teacher’s job to convey that to students. If we don’t then awful people will. That’s part of how our world wound up in the position it’s in: allowing non-teachers, non-experts, and the biased, and the hypocritical, and those with terrible agendas do the teaching.
But it’s all worth it, because teaching history is one of the most important jobs in the world, and it just might save us all.
Dr. Brian Regal is on the history faculty of Kean University. His next book on American discovery myths will be published in 2022 by Palgrave-Macmillan.