Enduring Understanding

This concept of enduring understanding is what made me want to be a history teacher, although I need a lot of work in successfully working with my students to reach this level. The lessons that are learned in history can and should be used as a political tool today. While many students may say "We study history so we don't make the same mistakes again," many of them see no relevance whatsoever. Even that phrase in and of itself has been repeated to them over and over again that they can recite it at will but have very little understanding of what it actually means.

To have a student not only remember important data from history but also translate how it works today is the greatest challenge teachers face. Apart from the way teachers teach, however, the way that the educational system is set up is also at fault. Students don't see the connection between world history and calculus, or physics and english. Therefore, when they learn information from one area, they don't know how to convey it to other areas.

Once students begin to truly understand the development of history (I'll use that since that is what I teach), then they will begin to see themselves as agents of change, and that the world isn't static, but constantly changing, and all of our actions affect how it changes.