History: From Hobby to Profession by Olivia

History: From Hobby to Profession by Olivia - October 2016 Scholarship Essay

If, by some weird twist of fate or in an alternate timeline, I would have to teach, then I would teach history. Why? Math teachers, even the likeable ones, always garner a lot of hate over their careers; science, though one of my favorite subjects, has far too many words that I would struggle to pronounce thanks to Greek and Latin; though I have an ear for music, I do not have one for foreign languages; and, interpreting the multitude of themes, motifs, and instances of symbolism as an English teacher would slowly but surely drive me crazy. History, however, has always been a hobby of mine.
As a reader, I often enjoy historical fiction books and how they put a certain spin on history, bringing it to (sometimes inaccurate) life. I subscribe to a couple historical magazines because I like to absorb the information, see the causes and effects of events and people. But, I never liked to be tested on it in school; to boil the subject down to simple concrete facts and dates without including the backstory and interpretations of them is so boring. Dates and dry facts, though the backbone of history, are not what makes up the essence of history; the human element, the why something happened, the stories and speculations, are.
To be honest, I have never imagined myself as a teacher. I sometimes help classmates to understand concepts at school, but actual teaching is a whole other thing. But teaching history, especially higher level history, would be better than teaching anything else. Asking me about a certain part of history is like asking a Star Wars fan about the backstory of Star Wars: a long, enthusiastic lecture with extended explanations is sure to follow. But my lecture wouldn’t be based on a galaxy far, far away; it would be about actual people that lived and breathed on this earth, and what they did. To be able to spread this knowledge and teach others how to pull at the threads of history to discover the many interrelated causes and effects of events throughout history would be awesome, assuming my hate of public speaking had vanished.
History is an ever expanding topic. Some would say that the past is the past, it’s set in stone, but there is always new information and insights to be gained. In the thousands of years of human experience, so much information has been lost that history is based on the fragments that survived and the insights gained from them. And if I were to ever teach anything, it would be history and the interpretations and insights that it’s made of.