Fea - Why study history?: reflecting on the importance of the past

E VERY FALL I WALK INTO A LARGE LECTURE HALL FILLED with students for the first day of History 141: United States History Survey to 1865. Over the years, this course has become the bread and butter of my job as an American history professor. Students enroll in it to fulfill a general education requirement, and thus, for many of them, it will be the only history course that they take during their four-year college experience. A large percentage of them do not want to be there. They would rather be taking a more specialized course in their individual majors. But from where I stand in the cavernous surroundings of the tiered classroom, I realize that this will be the only chance I get to convince them that the study of history is important to their lives as citizens, Christians, and humans. My approach to the course is something akin to evangelism. Every now and then, I will get a converta student who decides to become a full-fledged history majorbut in the end I am happy if, at the end of the semester, students have developed an appreciation for the past and how it has shaped their lives.

For many history professors in American colleges and universities, the United States survey course is something to avoid. They prefer to teach advanced classes in their areas of expertise. These courses take them out of the lecture hall and into the seminar room, complete with its long table and more relaxed atmosphere. Such courses are populated not by students trying to fulfill a general education requirement but by the advanced history majors who have signed up for the class presumably out of a love for the subject. These kinds of courses are fun to teach, but History 141 remains my favorite. If for whatever reason I could no longer teach it, my pedagogical life would be less satisfying. I guess you could say that I am more of an evangelist and a preacher than a pastor and teacher.

A few Septembers ago I was chatting informally with a first-year student about how he was adjusting to his initial week of college classes. He observed that every professor in every course he was taking spent the first or second day of the semester delivering what he called a What Is lecture. After probing some more, I realized that the student had coined this phrase to describe the lecture that most professors give to general education students to introduce them to a particular field of study. This student said he had just sat through a week of lectures with titles such as What Is Physics?, What Is Sociology?, and What Is Philosophy? If you are a professor, I am sure you know exactly what this student meant. In History 141, I always devote some time to a What Is History? lecture. During this lecture, I get my students acquainted with the basics of the field, such as the difference between a primary and secondary source, the meaning of the word historiography , and the ways historians practice their craft. I talk briefly about how the past speaks to the present and how it is also a foreign country, where people tend to do things differently than we do today. And since I am a Christian who teaches history at a Christian college, I get the privilege of exploring questions about the integration of faith and historical thinking. What kinds of resources are available in the Christian tradition to help us gain a better understanding of the past? What is providential history, and why will it not play a role in the course?