The Lessons of History is not a School Course, but Should be

   Sometimes, it is more important to learn the lessons of history than to learn the history. I don't know that such a course exists anywhere in our schools, but perhaps there should be such a class. one that takes the greatest lessons to be learned from history, a class that focuses not on the events themselves, but on what can be learned from those events.

   I suppose, if I were in charge of our schools, I would create such a class. If you ask what I would do to reform our education system, this would be one thing I would do. 

   "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history," said George Bernard Shaw. If we can see that he was correct, we should change that. We should start teaching the lessons of history, so that they will be learned.

   There would be two ways of going about this. First, you could take some of the lessons of history and specify them in the textbook. The second way would be rather than specifying particular lessons to be learned, to let the teachers and students come up with them. That would encourage critical thinking. It would also provide opportunity for the students to practice tolerance of each other, for what one person perceived as a lesson that should be learned, would often be something that another person would object to.

   Critical thinking one of the most important things to inject in our education system, so I like offering this as we teach the lessons of history. Tolerance for the viewpoints of others is also something we should teach our people.

   So, I would have a textbook that offered up some specific lessons of history, but I would leave it to the teachers and students to come up with other things we might learn.

  Also, it occurs to me that involving the students this way is a good teaching practice, for they will learn more through active participation than they will through passive listening.