We chatted for a while about our high school and the changes the two decades brought since I was a student there. I asked about their favourite subjects and what they plan to study in college. The girl who was struggling with remembering each WWII battle in a chronological order said “Whatever college program that does not have history, I cannot wait to study something fun for a change and not just memorise lists of dead people.” Her friend nodded and closed her neatly organised notes, as our bus was approaching.

Here is a sentiment I could understand and sympathise with, both as a student and a history teacher, although it is not one I agree with. I do not remember a time when I did not love art and history. This love was fostered by my parents who are great bibliophiles and gifted me with volumes on mythology, ancient civilizations, and artworks created by people long gone. My love for history may have come from the fact that I was born and raised in the 20th-century version of Colonia Flavia Scupi, one of Rome’s younger and smaller sisters; a city where history is ever-present and as real as it was 2000 years ago when the Romans came and built their aqueducts, theatres, and basilicas. Furthermore, I was fortunate enough to have history and art teachers who nourished this love with interesting lectures, clubs, and infinite patience for every question I had.

I do not blame the sentiments voiced about history by my young acquaintances. In many parts of Eastern Europe, and worldwide, history is narrowly focused on the chronology of main events and personae concerning the white, Christian world. A harried march through lists of dead people, indeed. A more frightening trend is using historical narratives in nationalistic agenda and dishing it to students as the only true and acceptable version of the past. Therefore, I understand the aversion to studying history. Apart from this being a personal sorrow, it is also a professional concern, as I see history as very useful in raising generations who would be emotionally intelligent, compassionate, open-minded, and great critical thinkers.

Indeed, history can teach us compassion and can endorse our emotional intelligence. However, in order for this to happen, it is the task of the teacher to “flesh out” history for the students. By bringing the history of everyday life and personal accounts of people who lived through the events which are more often than not narrowed down to a point in a timeline, the teacher provides context. They provide perspectives, opinions, and choices. This contextualisation teaches compassion, as it makes students live through these events and experiences, if vicariously.

A famous saying goes “hindsight is always 20/20” meaning it is always easier to evaluate and make the right decision when analysing past events. We always think that we would be heroes if we were to live through these past events. However, the people who actually lived through them had sometimes to choose between the bad and the worse and only hope that everything will turn out fine. Sometimes we learn that one needs to betray all their principles, morals, and values to simply survive. We, the students of posterity, are allowed our moral high grounds, but survivors were rarely allowed theirs. If we teach middle schoolers to approach historical persons with compassion, they will also start treating people of their immediate surroundings with the same tact and “walk a mile in their shoes” approach.

History is, in its most basic form, a consultation of sources created in times before our own and extrapolating conclusions from them. Here we have a great basis to foster critical thinking, as a conclusion is as good and solid as our source. In this era of fake news and outlandish conspiracy theories, it is crucial to develop the critical thinking of our middle schoolers, as they are our future educators, social activists, and lawmakers. History is diverse and often exacts multiple sources on the same event in order to create a clear picture and a sound conclusion.

Students learn to evaluate the veracity of their sources, notice bias, and identify propaganda. They learn to read between the lines and to know that what is omitted and not said can be as informative as what is in plain sight. Therefore, I tell my students, nullius in verba, the motto of the Royal Society: do not take anyone’s opinion and words for granted. Question everything, including and especially, your teachers. The history classroom is a great place to practice critical thinking in an unrestricted environment.

Open-mindedness goes hand-in-hand with having empathy and the ability for critical thinking. The world is becoming more and more segregated into cliques and the more one learns about differences, they become a tool for advocating “otherness” and separation, instead of diversification and enrichment. A student who learns about the achievements, artworks, and progress of past generations will realise that they all equally contribute to the collective history of humankind and that there are no “superior” nor “inferior” nations, cultures, religions, languages, and traditions. Furthermore, they will realise that no single country or nation can use history as a justification, a right, or an excuse to commit atrocities against other peoples and countries.

To add as a conclusion, history is simply fun. Fun, if one does not take the life out of it by narrowing it down to disconnected names and years, that in the grand scheme of things, mean nothing without the proper context. For instance, if I tell you that the first fax machine was invented in 1843, it means nothing to you. However, this is the time when Saigo Takamori, the last samurai of Japan was alive. Therefore, a Japanese samurai could have sent a fax both to young Queen Victoria in England and the president of the USA, a country less than a century old. What could have been the topic of this fax? Well, two decades before the fax machine was invented, Mary Shelley wrote her novel Frankenstein and the genre of science fiction was born. We would never know without consulting our sources, but the time and place are right for an international book club on science fiction between Japanese samurai and rulers of new and old countries.