It also demonstrates that human nature has remained fairly constant," he said. There are also people like John Roos , who has used the study of history to transform his personal and professional lives. Roos was just a child when he visited Gettysburg National Military Park in with his family. Despite initially pursuing a profession outside his passion, delivering packages for a lucrative startup company contracted with Amazon, Roos said his inner year old won out.
Roos earned his bachelor's degree in history with a concentration in American history and now works in the very environment that initially sparked his excitement 28 years ago. That experience, earning his degree and a pair of internships at historical sites, led to his current position at Fort Washington Park outside Washington D.
Like Roos, many who share his zeal for history earn a degree in the subject or a related field prior to heading into the professional world.
James Fennessy , associate dean of faculty for history at SNHU, for instance, said he has always appreciated the study of history, but it was the influence of some of his professors, who shared his fervor, that helped him find direction. Fennessy said history graduates develop many soft skills — research and assessment, interpretation in a larger context, critical thinking, and strong communication of complex issues, to name a few — that have direct carryover to the career field.
In addition to his own chosen path in education, there are many professions that embrace those with a degree in history , said Fennessy. You might need additional training for that type of role, however, depending on the job. Public Domain. Watch a video explanation on the History Skills YouTube channel:. Subscribe to History Skills on YouTube.
How do people decide what is significant? Examples One of the reasons that Julius Caesar was considered significant by his peers is because he was the first Roman to successfully invade and conquer the region of Gaul.
World War One was considered significant at the time it was happening because of the incredible number of new technological advancements that were used for the first time.
Examples How the Ancient Romans incorporated foreign peoples into its empire might become significant when trying to understand modern immigration concerns. The events of the Cold War conflict between the US and the USSR in the s and s might be considered significant as a way of understanding how to deal with modern tensions between America and Russia. For example: The Gallipoli Campaign is considered to be a significant event in Australian history because it has been commemorated as an important event in the formation of Australia's national identity.
Examples The Black Death is considered to be significant in European history because it killed an estimated one-third of the entire population of Europe in just four years.
William Wilberforce is considered to be a significant historical figure because he played a central role in abolishing the slave trade throughout the entire British empire. Example research questions. Criteria Examples of sub-questions for a research task about historical significance Novelty What did people in the past think was important about the person, event or idea?
What did this person, event or idea achieve which had not been done before? Applicability In what way can the person, event or idea relate to modern events? Memory Why has this person, event or idea been discussed since that time? Effects In what ways have people been affected by this person, event or idea? Test Your Learning. What do you need help with? Download ready-to-use digital learning resources.
History Research Journal. Year 9 Online Classroom Access Year 10 Online Classroom Access Year 7 Online Classroom Access Year 8 Online Classroom Access About Privacy Policy With the exception of links to external sites, some historical sources and extracts from specific publications, all content on this website is copyrighted by History Skills.
This content may not be copied, republished or redistributed without written permission from the website creator. Please use the Contact page to obtain relevant permission. Engineers constantly tinker, test, and reformulate. Debugging software often includes trial-and-error, based on prior experience. Composers do not write a perfect scores the first time; they compose, listen, revise, hope for inspiration, and then finally complete a song.
Probing for and creating new knowledge always requires a measure of uncertainty and almost certainly involves some failures. The same holds for history. Scholars are those who learn to accept and even thrive in such an environment. History is both quite similar to and different from other disciplines that you may be familiar with. For example, history includes a full range of "knowables," from solid facts, to working hypotheses, to general theories.
History has Elvis is dead and the North won the Civil War. Nothing to debate. However, evidence can be fragmentary, incomplete, and contradictory. Every discipline has to winnow lots of data, much of it extraneous, during the research process. A scientist will do a major literature review, reading many articles that ultimately have no bearing on the case at hand.
Visualize an archaeologist, trying literally to piece together broken fragments [building stones, pot shards, textile remnants, human bones] from a prehistoric site.
That's analogous to what the historian must do-- piece together often seeming unrelated pieces of the past. In the process, you'll encounter evidence that doesn't fit with the case at hand. That's part of any research and inquiry process. But keep in mind that such evidence may become relevant to a later research project.
No inquiry is every wasted. History thus gets much more interesting when we move from a simple compilation of facts to an explanation of those facts. My job as your teacher is not to "cover" a huge body of facts.
We have computerized databases for such mundane tasks. My job is to give you an opportunity to work and think like a real historian. YOUR job, as an apprentice historian, is not to run to a textbook so that you can regurgitate the "right answer.
It's the process, the attempt at grappling with the evidence, that counts. You get better at it by practice, as with anything worthwhile. You'll be rewarded for your attempt at working like a historian, not at parroting back what prior historians already wrote.
So dig into the primary sources with relish and energy; that's where the fun and action are. Need more convincing? Explore the Why Study History page for more links and information. Below you'll find historians commenting on a wide range of historical issues. Perhaps their words can help you better understand the process of historical inquiry that I've asked you to undertaken.
Historians on History , ] History: What is it? History is often seen as a vast array of facts, arranged more or less chronologically, unalterable except for the occasional unearthing of a lost city of the discovery of a trunk full of letters in an attic.
At its best, it is an exciting and vivid costume drama; at its worst it becomes a tedious, turgid catalog of facts and names designed to torment the young. The problem lies in presenting history as a story with a fixed plot and cast of characters.
It is true that this approach is natural and to some extent unavoidable, particularly with students receiving their first systematic exposure to history. But it is also possible, indeed critically important, to offer at least a glimpse of a very different concept: history as a dynamic process.
By this I mean a rich, varied, evolving intellectual system that allows us to achieve a deeper and better understanding of our world, indeed of ourselves. In this vein history still deals with the past, but it conceptualizes a past in constant dialog with an ever-advancing present, one that responds to new questions and reveals fresh insights into the human condition.
This is history as it is understood and enjoyed by professional historians, and it is high time that others were let in on the secret. As apprentice historians, your job is to join in the fray-- to grapple with evidence from the past and to cast it into a logical, convincing interpretation. History has an irreducible positivistic element, for its subject is real, even if that reality is evanescent and dependent upon texts.
Historical writing creates objects for our thoughts, making audible what had become inaudible, extracting latent information from the objects that men and women have constructed. The concreteness of history is what gives it the power to compel attention, to stretch imagination, and to change minds.
What happened in the past was not fated or meant to be. It occurred because human actors shaped their destinies by the choices they made, just as people today shape their futures by the choices they make.
I use this term "construction" in the pedagogical sense that a teacher and students jointly build from evidence interpretations of the past.
This view stands in opposition to the more traditional image of the teacher or sage dispensing wisdom into students--empty vessels-- who passively receive and regurgitate what they've consumed. Thus I am not implying that all versions of the past are equal or accurate. We will constantly check our constructions against those of other scholars and against as much evidence as we can include.
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