should history be an elective subject? if so, why should it?

NO! Most people in the US don’t know enough about US and world history even having taken it as a mandatory subject. If we allow students to opt out entirely….that is just BAD!

There are many arguments for making history an elective. One is that so far, history has predominantly been written by a certain type of person, and only reflects those realities. People, then, should not all be required to pass a class that requires agreeing completely with the biases of someone totally unlike themselves.

Another is that history is one of those subjects that is incredibly hard to do hands-on learning with a subject like history. It has been shown that when we simply read and/or hear information, that we retain only 15% of it. This number increases if the listener/reader had a passion for the information. What our schools are currently doing, is just filling us with information that we try to retain just loong enough for the tests, and then promptly forget. Is this what we want to teach students that learning is about?

Hope this helps! I actually find history to be an important subject, but I do know that the only parts I actually remember are ones that I had a particular interest in (happens to be WWII), and the dates surrounding that still elude me!

History should be an elective subject. Firstly in my experience no one who wasnt interested in learning about history retained much from class if anything at all. So what is the point of wasting all that time money and effort on teaching students who are going to walk out the door at the end of the period and all the information will fly out of their heads. The people who learn about history are the once who are constantly interested in researching the past not those who sit in a class for hours forced to listen when they have absolutly no interest.

History isnt going to help add up how much you are buying at the local store, it isnt going to help you understand why your light isnt working or how to write the perfect application letter. These are all skills from other subjects that are way more important and beneficial in the real world.

People may say that we can learn from the mistakes of history and that is why we should learn it. But as “history” itself tells us we dont learn so it seems pointless to bother trying to teach people what they wont take on board anyway. We still have wars, we still have hungry people and no amount of dates and dead people’s names will change that. The truth is that no one learns from history we are too busy living in the present and making our own mistakes.

Let the people with a real interest in the subject persue it while the rest study what they believe will be most beneficial for themselves.

Ok i hope this helps i actually agree with the other side but as a good debater you have to look at both points of view even if you dont agree 😀

It should be both. There need to be certain requirements, which there are, but electives are great for individuals wanting to further educate themselves in that area if they are really interested. I took 3 history elective classes during high school aside from the required, and I feel that I am a better citizen and a more educated person now.

well, my personal opinion is that it should not be an elective, but for your debate, ill come up with a few reasons that i guess could be used.

* names and dates are easily forgotten

* the internet makes it really easy to come up with any information we need about specific events

* the saying “we are doomed to repeat history” wont make a difference for the average blue or white collar worker.

* if history is an elective, or a major-specific course, that would free up credits for people to learn even more imformation about much more important subjects

I don’t think history should be an elective subject. My reasoning is that the world has problems today that are the same as and similar to problems which the world has dealt with before, and by studying history, students may learn how to resolve these problems now and in the future.

I feel you should have a choice between standard history…. BORING or Historical literature…. reading about historical times and stories.

For me… it would have made a much bigger impact to read stories of lives in historical times (both non-fictional and historically accurate fiction).

I don’t think it should have as MUCH stress as it currently does. FACE IT…. it doesn’t matter who invented the “telegraph”….. there is no more use for it…. we’ve moved on …. developed….. progressed…. WHO CARES.

We should need to study CURRENT EVENTS and only use history as it applies to current events…. (for example… the history of Iraq… the Muslims and Shiites…. etc….)

Don’t think we need to learn about the Boston Tea Party anymore….

NOW>>>> AS FOR THE CORRECT USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE… anyone on this site can probably attest to the fact that we are in need of that!!!!

Here’s a thought… cancel history class… double up on English

nicely MCA desires math in +2 . yet there’s a paintings around. you’ve got been given for MCA with the aid of IGNOU.. Fror so you might take CIC alongside with MCA Ist Semester. you’re required to do CIC concurrently with MCA first semester and could effectively complete it earlier registering for the 5th semester of MCA. wish this facilitates

Yes and u should do it because history has a tendency to repeat its self.

of course it is. We must learn from past failures and triumphs to either recreate success or prevent catastrophes. It is a great way to get to know your culture and that of others, without history we are lost souls.