History 101!

I am going to go straight to the point on this one - I hate History! I really do. I never liked it. I never learned anything. The exams at the end of each year in school were the reason I read through the textbook. I do not mean to offend anybody who might have a liking / affiliation towards the subject.

When I was in my ninth and tenth grade, the exams were of the highest importance. Doing poorly in one of the subjects was equivalent to you jumping off a cliff and forgetting to attach the bungee chord to your feet. Competition was at it's peak. I never bothered too much with competition anyway cause in the end the race is just with yourself. But nonetheless, I did not want to be the only duckling that spends more time on land rather than in water.

Subject Complexity: Most of the textbook spoke about World War I, World War II and India's struggle for Independence. There were so many important dates and events to memorize. There was a sequence in which things took place. Many of my fellow students thought that this sequence would be very helpful in helping them remember everything in the textbook. Unfortunately, trying to remember the sequence only made things worse. You could inadvertently shuffle a couple of events around and have a totally different history. At one point, I remember memorizing the wrong sequence and found that Hitler was the Arch Duke of Austria-Hungary. I was lost.

Subject Content: When the books came to talking about India's struggle for independence, it was filled with details of how India as a country was ravaged and looted of all her goods. In other words most of the book spoke about India's defeat and it never spoke about the little victories that we had. I'm sure a majority of Indians will remember the Mutiny of 1857 (Wiki Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_of_1857) but tell me if you have heard of the Battle of Colachel? This was a battle that was fought between the Maharajah of Travancore, Marthanda Varma and the Dutch East India Company. What happened? Well, Marthanda Varma and Co kicked the Dutch (the same way that the Dutch kicked the Spaniards in the World Cup final) and sent them home! (this however, the Dutch could not do to the Spaniards). The impact of the war? Well this is what Wikipedia has to say and I quote: "It was the first major defeat of a European military force by one from South Asia. The Dutch never recovered from the defeat and no longer posed a large colonial threat to India." Of course I am sure that the Educational Board in India thought that this battle was of no importance whatsoever and not worth mentioning. Hence, I feel it is very important that we get to know as much as we can about the stories that go untold.

Wiki reference for the Battle of Colachel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Colachel.

End Result at Examination: I guess I tried too hard. I tried memorizing way too many dates and then I got them confused with birthdays of friends and families. The sequence did me no good. All those essay answers that I had to write felt more like punishment. But I liked story telling. So when Peter Pan and Tinkle Bell helped end the War, we all lived happily ever after. I didn't do as bad as I expected but History did bring my overall percentage down. But that's history now. I never looked back at it.


But I still feel that all history books should tell a better story. Give students things that might interest them rather than to talk incessantly about the mistakes that mankind has made over the years.