It was our first day class during my second year in high school. Our history professor walked inside our classroom and what we noticed is that he was carrying only his class record, a pen and two pieces of chalk. He placed his class record ...and pen on the desk and then proceeded to write something on the board. I was confused at what he wrote on the board. It wasn’t certainly the subject of our lesson. It wasn’t even English or Tagalog. Upon seeing our confused faces, he said that it was his name that was written on the board. He said he did it because teens like us, always tend to do the opposite of what we were asked to do.
After a brief introduction, he proceeded to our lesson. I was expecting the standard question you’d expect on the first day like “What is History?” However, the first question he asked was, “Why do we need to study history?” Our answers were, “to know our origin.” or “to know the events that took place in past.” More or less, all our answers implies so that we will be informed about the events that took place years ago.
When our entire class of less than twenty has given their answers, he then answered his own question. He said, “We need to study history because history tends to repeat itself. If we know our history, we are prepared for what is happening in our present and what we perceive to happen in the future. We study history in order not to make the same mistakes we did in the past.”
When he said those words, it was as if it was forever imbued in my memory. I never knew why, but those words seemed to make an impact on me. It’s been a decade since I heard those words and with the events that are currently unfolding, I can’t help but remember those words.
Currently, wars are unfolding both inside and outside our country. I am not an expert on wars or military strategies and tactics. I hardly remember the dates on which war took place when. They say in history books, that a particular side won this war because of tactics, or because the people knew the terrain better, or that they intercepted certain information which they used to their advantage or that they were clever enough to use pseudonyms and codes when delivering messages.
As I grew older, I’ve seen enough documentaries, interviews or movies about war. I’ve even read books or watched musicals depicting war scenes. That’s when I realized, nobody truly wins in a war. There is only loss, sadness and destruction. Over and over, we learn in our history class that after a war, a lot of lives were lost. Nations are destroyed. War has damaged the people both physically and emotionally.
So why then that after a rebuilding everything that war has destroyed, people still resolve to violence? We know the consequences of war so why do people still do things that may lead to their destruction?
What do we gain from war? Freedom? Independence? Is this reason enough to have lives and nations destroyed? We have learned more than enough to know the casualties of war. Isn’t there any other way to gain these things without us destroying each other? Do we really have to respond to violence with violence?
It was only now that I realized how truthful the words that my professor said. History really does repeat itself. They teach us in class of the horrors of wars and yet somehow it fails to teach some of us not to repeat these horrors. We’ve been taught what triggers a war. We know what happens when we retaliate. Yet we make the same mistakes over and over.
In schools, religious institutions and even in our home, we were always taught to do the right thing. We were taught to not to resolve to evil deeds. But do we ever learn? Maybe my history professor was right. We are a world full of teenage-minded beings. We do the exact opposite of what we are asked to do and what we should’ve done.
“We are fickle stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction.” – Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
After a brief introduction, he proceeded to our lesson. I was expecting the standard question you’d expect on the first day like “What is History?” However, the first question he asked was, “Why do we need to study history?” Our answers were, “to know our origin.” or “to know the events that took place in past.” More or less, all our answers implies so that we will be informed about the events that took place years ago.
When our entire class of less than twenty has given their answers, he then answered his own question. He said, “We need to study history because history tends to repeat itself. If we know our history, we are prepared for what is happening in our present and what we perceive to happen in the future. We study history in order not to make the same mistakes we did in the past.”
When he said those words, it was as if it was forever imbued in my memory. I never knew why, but those words seemed to make an impact on me. It’s been a decade since I heard those words and with the events that are currently unfolding, I can’t help but remember those words.
Currently, wars are unfolding both inside and outside our country. I am not an expert on wars or military strategies and tactics. I hardly remember the dates on which war took place when. They say in history books, that a particular side won this war because of tactics, or because the people knew the terrain better, or that they intercepted certain information which they used to their advantage or that they were clever enough to use pseudonyms and codes when delivering messages.
As I grew older, I’ve seen enough documentaries, interviews or movies about war. I’ve even read books or watched musicals depicting war scenes. That’s when I realized, nobody truly wins in a war. There is only loss, sadness and destruction. Over and over, we learn in our history class that after a war, a lot of lives were lost. Nations are destroyed. War has damaged the people both physically and emotionally.
So why then that after a rebuilding everything that war has destroyed, people still resolve to violence? We know the consequences of war so why do people still do things that may lead to their destruction?
What do we gain from war? Freedom? Independence? Is this reason enough to have lives and nations destroyed? We have learned more than enough to know the casualties of war. Isn’t there any other way to gain these things without us destroying each other? Do we really have to respond to violence with violence?
It was only now that I realized how truthful the words that my professor said. History really does repeat itself. They teach us in class of the horrors of wars and yet somehow it fails to teach some of us not to repeat these horrors. We’ve been taught what triggers a war. We know what happens when we retaliate. Yet we make the same mistakes over and over.
In schools, religious institutions and even in our home, we were always taught to do the right thing. We were taught to not to resolve to evil deeds. But do we ever learn? Maybe my history professor was right. We are a world full of teenage-minded beings. We do the exact opposite of what we are asked to do and what we should’ve done.
“We are fickle stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction.” – Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
