WebJunction

Until serious illness and a strong desire not to be killed or crippled by it made me want to learn something about chemistry, I was scared of the subject, and, convinced it was boring and irrelevant to my daily life, ran the other way. Then I realized I had to get over that discomfort if I was going to be able to take care of myself. I began to understand that what I had seen as fear and boredom were a response to the way the subject had been taught...and, to my amazement, discovered I could actually understand medical concepts...and that, with a basis of relevance to my own life, neither chemistry nor any other subject was inherently dull.

As a librarian I've applied the same belief to my work with people who, whether assigned a topic by someone else (usually a teacher) or pursuing it independently, have no idea why history is at all important or think that only one small aspect of the field is worth their time. It's a question of how the subject is taught, and the extent to which it's personalized. Knowing your own family's history and/or that of your ethnic or national group answers many of your questions about who you are and why you think, believe and act as you do. Knowing what life was like for people in other times and places helps us make wise choices and decisions and avoid some unwise ones, or so we hope.

At work I spend a lot of time helping people with their genealogical research (most of these are adults) and history assignments (most of these are teenagers and young college students). Last fall I started giving a genealogy workshop at my library; I've done it twice so far, each time for a group made up mainly of adults. They're already interested in history, so I don't have to convince them it's fascinating; their personal interest keeps them going--they're doing detective work! The students can be harder to convince, but one day it occurred to me that showing them newspapers not just from the time they were born but from the 1950's, when I was born (1951, but who's counting), would really get them going! Primary sources mean everything...stories about growing up in terror of Communists--and of Joe McCarthy...kids really think about such seemingly complicated and contradictory issues in very clear, logical terms, if they're shown clear evidence and examples.

My view of the importance of history is that if we don't know where we've been, we don't know where we're heading; if we do, at least we have an outline map on which to build. If we give our children, students, neighbors and library patrons that foundation, we're doing a great service for future generations.

Until 2 years ago, I worked in our library's genealogy department. I have a degree in history and my MILS. In the genealogy department I could draw on both passions. In other words, I loved my job. I too had the opportunity to teach genealogy skills to adults and to students. I had arranged with our teen librarians from our branches to hold classes for their students. The students could get credit for their history classes. It was particuarly fun when the parents joined in on the fun. I also took it a step further and helped them create their own genealogy web site on Kindo. The students got to learn about history and have some one on one time with their parents and grandparents as they interviewed them. Even today, the students will show me their work and talk about where their family came from.