Well Paige, this is an interesting argument you bring up. Sounds like you're coming from an awfully postmodern worldview. You probably believe that there are no moral absolutes and that everything is relative to the individual. Many people believe that because history was mostly written through the eyes of the winners make it less credible. It is true that history can be told a little differently through the biases of the different people that wrote it. However, this does not present a valid argument as to why you shouldn't study it. Just because the "winners" wrote it does not change the facts that are presented in history. It may be fabricated a little bit but as seniors in high school we should be able to decipher what is actually fact and what is exaggerated.
History is so very vital to our education. We are able to look back on our nations history and see what we did right and wrong. We can learn from what we did wrong in the past and we are able to look back at what worked and do it again. If we did not learn these things, our nation would not be as successful as it is today. For example, In English this week we read a poem titled "The History Teacher” by Billy Collins. In this poem, it talks about a history teacher that is afraid to tell his students about the brutal reality of history and he distorts it to be much more innocent and less bias. Later he sees them on the playground being very brutal and tormenting each other; ultimately because they were never taught about the truths in history, they ended up repeating it. WE NEED HISTORY
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