During a youth writing class last summer, a very talented, and equally stubborn, 13-year-old argued her case against history. Specifically, she argued a visit to a museum I had scheduled to take my class that afternoon.
Her arguments?
It's boring.
It isn't interactive.
No entertainment value.
We debated the validity of her claims (I asked her if she believed the bombing of Pearl Harbor was a rather dull story, or if there was simply nothing stirring about Titanic - both major motion pictures). Eventually, she relented to go, especially after I asked her if movies, those great bastions of education, where interactive. And, if so, how theater management felt about her running her hands all over the projector screen.
"You're saying I need to learn to like it," she said.
"I'm saying you've never really experienced it," I answered.
When we arrived, I challenged her to absorb the stories around her. To use it to build upon her writing. To take it in and make it part of who she was, who she would be. To recognize the priceless worth of the stories being told.
When we left, she pulled me aside, her eyes wonderfully overwhelmed. "I never saw history like that before," she said. "I just never saw it. I'll never look at a museum the same again."
That, my friends, is getting a sweet drip of history on the tongue. And realizing it's far sweeter than imagined.
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