I can’t help but feel that the teaching of history should be deferred till one is much older. When history is taught in textbooks to schoolchildren, they are taught dates, places, battles, which treaty was signed, and what the outcome was. In other words, they are taught impersonal history from the point of view of someone who was not really part of it.
This sort of teaching never did anyone any good. Especially with history, the real value comes when the student understands the actual people involved. When studying the Bolshevik revolution, does the child understand the real reasons why it was fought? Can he really understand the injustices of war communism without entering into the life of the farmer? And how can he do that if he only taught dates and places?
Even the description of the miserable status of serfs cannot move a person below the age of sixteen or so. To truly understand history of humans, one must be in the place of the persons involved. Children are too young to understand these things. Their mind cannot really grasp the horror of the holocaust.
For the teaching of history from a human perspective, I feel that the learning should start with stories of the actual people involved first. When in college, they could be shown movies like the Pianist, or Schindler’s list to start people off with the ground realities. Books dealing with the lives of individual people as portrayed by famous authors are the correct way to gain a real appreciation of history.
People forget facts and figures, but never emotions. Emotion in history can only come through appreciation of the people involved. Their struggles, victories, and defeats. Only then will history remain in their minds, and only then will they be able to judge for themselves the direction their country is taking, and whether or not the politicians know what they’re doing.