GRADE 7-UNIT 1 : An Introduction to History

S.S : HISTORY
GRADE 7
UNIT 1 : An Introduction to History
Presented by : Anang P.Setiawan

A. What is History?
When we study History, we want to find out :
a) What happened.
b) When it happened.
c) Where it happened.
d) Why it happened.
e) To whom it happened.
f) What its consequences were.

What is history, then?
“It’s the record and the study of the past human events that have shaped the way the world is today.”
It could be the study of the past of the small group or a whole country.

B. Why study History?
a) Why should I study history?
b) Why should I care about events that have already happened?

1. Understanding change and how our society came to be.
Everything that exists today has come out of the past. No matter how new or unusual something seems to be, it is the product of earlier ideas and things.

History helps us to understand why things are the way they are today.

2. Learning from past successes and failures
History is full of true stories about real people – heroes, bad guys and ordinary people like us. It is also about real experiences – great successes and equally great failures.

When studying stories of success, we will come across many hardworking, courageous and creative people. We can see them as role models. Conversely, in many past failures, we may see instances of poor planning or a lack of perseverance that we should try to avoid.

3. Understanding and respecting one another
People in the past did many things differently from us. Sometimes, when we read or hear about their lives. We may think, “They were so backward then!”.

We must understand that people in the past lived under very different conditions. Thus, we have to put ourselves in their shoes in order to understand why and how they did the things that they did.

In appreciating the fact that people in the past lived in an environment very different from ours today, we learn to understand and respect others who did things differently from us.

4. Developing our critical thinking skill
Studying history is not about memorising what we have been told – it requires us to investigate the past.

Studying history trains us not to accept everything we read or hear as the truth. Instead, it trains us to use our critical thinking skills to get the full picture of the past.

What it means?
a) Change : a process by which something has become different over time.
b) Continuity : a process by which someething has remained the same over time.
c) History : the record and the study of past human events that have shaped the way the world is today.
d) Evidence : information given to prove a point or to verify the accuracy of a statement.

Note : History is not the study of the lives of individuals. That would be called biography. Rather, history examines the past of groups of people who form a society.

Now, I understand :
a) What history is
b) Why it is important to study history.

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