Why Study the Past?
Our mission at Knowable World is to be the best place for parents to go to help their child make sense of the world we live in.
Notice that our goal is not focused on the past, but on the world we live in—the now—the present.
That’s what powers Knowable World!
Ever since I can remember, students in history classes, myself included, have prodded their teachers with the uncomfortable question: why do I need to know this?
The inability of advocates of history to answer this question always stuck with me. I remember seeing it in high school with teachers. I remember seeing it in college with “professional” historians.
I even remember disdain for the question from those so-called “professionals.”
Back then, I couldn’t understand why such a natural question would be met with derision. But the fact that it was certainly affected me, as it did just about everyone else around me. I, we—the vast majority of people—just tuned out.
Because it’s not just a valid question. It is the most important question.
And if you can’t answer it, then there is no reason to proceed.
We all know how important motivation is to learning. A child that wants to learn is a child that will learn.
But if history is just the “study of the past,” then motivation sinks and disappears—the further into history children are asked to go.
Why?
We don’t live in the past!
It’s so simple, it’s painful. The past does not exist anymore. Yes, it’s full of “interesting” stories. Yes, it’s full of drama. Yes, it’s full of lessons.
But when history is merely the “study of the past,” those stories and lessons are about the past. How do we know they apply now? Maybe things are different now? Don’t we have our own problems, that people in the past could never have imagined? Don’t we have new sets of answers? Isn’t the world we live in fundamentally different than the world of the ancient Romans, the people of medieval Europe, or the Pilgrims in the wilderness of Massachusetts?
Of course it is. We live in an America-centric world. We live in an interconnected world. We live in a world of technological marvels. We have an astounding superabundance of food. We can fly anywhere in the world within a day. We’ve been to the moon, and have Mars in our sights.
What could it possibly matter to us that Egyptians once quarried limestone and piled it into pyramids to honor the pharaohs? Is that going to help you pay your mortgage or balance your budget? Who cares that knights and damsels once lived by the code of chivalry and once practiced the rituals of “courtly love” under the guidance of Eleanor of Aquitaine? Or that later scholars now reject the term “courtly love” as an anachronism to describe the twelfth century? Will that help you navigate the world of social media? Will that help you figure out how to manage your “screen time”? Nobody doubts the answers to these questions.
What History is Supposed to Give Us
The problem, of course, is that by failing to study history (properly) we lose what history was supposed to give us. We lose the ability to understand and navigate through the complicated world we live in with the confidence and competence that only knowledge can give.
It’s all about what kind of knowledge. That’s why Knowable World is based on my philosophy of present-centrism.
Yes, that’s a neologism. I invented it. I needed a word to describe what I simply could not find anywhere else: a fully integrated approach to history—one that integrates the past and present.
At Knowable World history is the revelation and explanation of the world we live in. My students can all recite that with confidence and pride.
They know that we live in a world that is an interconnected agglomeration of nearly two-hundred countries, organized into ten major cultural blocks (and various outliers), predominated by five cardinal cultures, in which the United States has primacy.
Yes, my second graders know that one too! As you’ll soon see in a series of interviews that I’ll be posting to Youtube where my students show you what it’s like to understand the world by means of history.
History is an indispensable tool for understanding not merely the past, but the present.
Knowable World is the world’s only present-centric history curriculum. That’s its power. That’s why students don’t tune out. They tune in. And they get it.
For a further explanation of present-centrism, I refer you to a recent blog article I wrote for the Knowable World blog. I hope it will speak to you. I hope you will see that Knowable World is the best place your child’s curiosity will truly be rewarded with the kind of insight, inspiration, and instruction that only a proper history education can provide.
Want to Get Your Student Ready for Live Classes?
If you want to get a taste for the Knowable World approach, the best way to do that is to try our of our Anchor Fact series of mini-lessons and printables now includes Ancient Egypt and Greece — and soon, Rome.
They are quick, easy, and convenient.
You can watch the lessons, as they are released weekly on Youtube. They give you a quick overview of key topics in simple, compelling 5-minute videos. There’s no better way to get a first look at any topic.
When you’re ready you can grab each set in its entirety on the website, including printables, timelines, and activities, and really fly!
Scott Powell is a historian and teacher who has been teaching homeschooled students online for nearly 20 years (as “History at Our House”). He is the author of three books including “The 4-Hour Historian”, “The History of Now”, and the upcoming “The History of Tomorrow”. His present-centric approach was developed from the conviction that history is an essential subject that is vital for anyone who wants to live a fully engaged life and make sense of the world they live in.