The question I ask myself as a private history teacher is: what is history for? This is a question I care about, because it is a question that I struggle to answer clearly and simply for the boys and girls I tutor in history.
I can answer it from an academic point of view, but I want to find a way to communicate the importance of History in an engaging and meaningful way.
The formal approach of teaching tends to be serious, cold and detached, just as one learns in academic environments. This is justified to maintain objectivity, but I want to try to communicate the importance of History in a more accessible way.
If you think studying history is boring, think that History is humanity's curious, sometimes smug and moralistic, but inevitably necessary look at its past in an attempt to understand how we got to what we are. It is a path of examples and answers from which we build our future, it helps us understand the evolution of social, political and economic contexts.
Delving into history online lessons offers comparable advantages to face-to-face teaching. Online history lessons allow unparalleled flexibility. This learning path, if undertaken with dedication, stimulates critical analysis and offers a historical framework that, if it has no immediate applications, is nevertheless indispensable for understanding the present and shaping the future.
Taking history tutor is amusing, almost paradoxical, because the exploration of history is a retort of self-analysis that humanity makes on itself, so whoever studies it is a bit of a doctor who has himself on the couch. It is a cynical art that confronts us with the reality of the world. If one is not motivated, intellectual frustration can lead to abandonment. History is a disenchanted look at our human nature.
The work of studying is a thankless job; satisfaction must be sought in the details. It is a bit like an electrician you call at home, he spends a whole month rewiring your house and at the end of the month nothing is ready, but in response he points out to you the extreme variety of colours of the new copper wires!
History not only shows us distortions in the current social system, but can present us with concrete experiences of how things have been in the past and from a perspective help us understand how things will be for mankind.
Consider, for example, certain ways of thinking that have become instinctive today and that generations ago were patriotic and avant-garde; in the long run, these ideas may not survive, especially in a globalised world. History shows us how difficult it is for national authorities to submit to a supranational authority without conflict, but it also shows us how much in history we have tried to unite national and intranational territories and regions.
It is important to study history objectively and not to select only positive or negative parts. This selective approach can lead to propaganda and prevent an understanding of the past.
History is also essential to look at the myths of race and nationhood with today's eyes. Nationalism may be a natural response to protect oneself from external threats, but in a globalised and interconnected world, this response can be a disadvantage. History lessons, both in person and online, are essential to understanding the evolution of human ideas and problems.
William Golding in his afterword to Lord of the Flies wrote 'in Europe borders resemble wrinkles, the only solution to eliminate them is the death of the body'.
The solution to the challenges of globalism today is the confederation of European states and the death of national bodies. The confederation of European states represents an attempt to promote peace and coexistence, whether this will be successful will only depend on the individual actions of those who live there.
European values, never truly defined with clarity, can boast the Enlightenment authorship of universal and inviolable human rights. Who could speak more of peace, a direct expression of the natural evolution of human history for Kant, than Europe, which has the cultural and historical authority to do so? Mutual coexistence ensures the vision of a common sense, the interest in agreeing, finding the necessary mutual trust between those who inhabit it.
In his essay Perpetual Peace, Kant argued that the state is a natural instrument that Man has set himself to curb the indiscriminate use of his free will, and relations between states must be channelled into international cooperation.
Peace is therefore not just a truce but an effort that overcomes the limits of the natural instinct to belligerence and leads us towards a vision based on reason, a process of natural evolution inherent in the mechanical course of History, whose horizon point is Peace.
Our democracy is self-destructive because the right to liberty and equality is abused. In fact, it has taught citizens to view bullying as a right, breaking the law as freedom, the insolence of words as equality, and anarchy as personal freedom. (Isocrate 436 a.C. - 338 a.C.)
Our democratic system, however, risks self-destruction due to misinterpretations of fundamental principles. History shows how the transgression of rights is often misinterpreted as freedom. These errors can only be corrected through careful education and historical analysis.
In the name of emancipation, of liberation from the past, today, the severity and judgement of constraint mechanisms - institutional, social and familial - has been abolished.
Let's think today: it seems that the word 'old' is juxtaposed in assonance to shabby and the elderly seem to be ashamed, apparently basing their existence in the world more on their presence than on experience, when before they were a light with which the future was indicated. A country without memory has no future. Memory is the bond that unites generations.
In conclusion, online history tutorials are an effective approach to embracing this crucial discipline. An objective understanding of history eradicates erroneous myths and promotes harmonious coexistence. Collective memory, as a common thread between past and future, creates a solid foundation for a more cohesive and informed world.
Pier Paolo Piscopo
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