Final Thoughts About History 480

I can't believe that this semester is coming to an end, as well as my undergraduate career. I have taken a lot of history classes in the last four years, but I have never taken one quite like this one. When I signed up for this class, I didn't know much about what we were going to talk about, but it sounded interesting so I thought I would give it a try - I'm glad I did.

This was my first class about public history and in just one short semester I feel like I've learned a lot. There are a couple of things that this class has taught me, which I will take with me as I transition from being a student to being a teacher. The first is that history doesn't mean anything unless it is shared. I think this is a very important point that Dr. K brought up countless times in class. Part of the reason why I want to become a teacher is so that I can share my love for history with my students. I hope that they in return, will want to share what they learn with their peers, families, friends etc.

The second thing that I learned from this class is that history is complicated. It's not like I didn't know this before, but after doing the class project, I realized just how complicated history is. The class project was a challenge for me and I think for a lot of others but it was also very rewarding. When we started out, I felt like we had way too much to do and I was worried that we wouldn't find the types of sources that we wanted to. After a few weeks of contacting lots of people, running all over Lansing, and spending countless hours in the Library of Michigan, I was amazed at how much we were able to dig up (and how much is still out there). I think that we worked well together and came up with a quality product.

The last thing that I learned from this class is the value in local history. Too often, the focus is put on what has happened at the national or state level, but there are a lot of interesting things going on at a local level. There are also a lot of resources that can be found at a local level, if you know where to look. I was amazed at how much we could find locally for this class. As a teacher, I think that local history is a great tool to use to get students interested in what you are talking about, because they can probably relate to it a lot easier.

This semester has been a crazy but fantastic one. This class was a lot of fun to take but also very informative. I appreciate all the work that everybody put into this class to make it worthwhile. Thanks for a great semester everybody! :)