Its history class…second period. A time of day most of my peers dread-yet I secretly adore. Ever since I picked up the book Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer, my infatuation with European history began. I have always been intrigued by both the flamboyant and destitute lifestyles carried out by the upper and lower classes in the medieval era. Any and all books I could get my hands on concerning the topic I devoured; drinking in the trivia like a sweating glass of water on a dry day.
“Can anyone tell me the names of King Henry VIII’s children?”
Before I think, my hand jerks up-the rest of the class sits… completely unresponsive.
“Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward VI”. I immediately blushed, realizing the odd looks my classmates were shooting me. “…I mean…I think.”  I settle back into my desk, and attempt to camouflage by looking as equally bored as the rest of the class does. It’s so frustrating to me how so many students of all ages coast through their educational careers looking at the kingdoms of old through the same fogged glasses. They can’t see past the seemingly endless list of dates, roman numerals, and be-headings. If they would just squint a little, and think of the history their learning as more of a story than just tedious names to memorize droned on about during a lecture, they would have no trouble at all. They could see that the royalty back then were analogous to the superstars gossiped about in today’s tabloids in almost every way but style (and even that is coming back!). Think of the Protestants of then as the scientologists of now, both being at some point protested against and frowned upon in high society for their liberal beliefs. They could relate the love lives with the least difficulty; wherever the word “beheaded” comes up, just replace it with “divorced”. The kings had mistresses, just as the superstar hunks have ladies on the side.  The queens had their share of drama too…including everything from other women trying to overthrow them from their thrones to man stealing. Think Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera, only their red carpet parties of now would be the glamorous balls and masques of then.
I predict, based on the looks of the previous and current generations, that this lack of interest in the history that transported us to where we are today is a serious epidemic of the mind. Something needs to be done to entice the wandering attention spans of millions of pupils all over. Something needs to help them perceive history as the private and interesting diary of our world, not as something that extremely old men who talked funny scratched down with quills. My dream would be to write a book that basically re-tells the textbook events of the major eras. Telling it not in a way that makes people want to wish it had never happened so that they wouldn’t have to learn about it, but that makes people think about it outside of the drab classroom setting and consider it something interesting; something to be appreciated. When the bell rings it jolts me back to reality and I gather my books and stand to migrate on to third period. I enter the hallway, crowded with hundreds of un-enthused minds, mulling over how I could possibly break history into pieces appropriate for so much diversity. The cheerleaders walking into the girl’s restroom to freshen up might find it interesting that when Queen Elizabeth I was dead, coroners had to chip away the makeup from her face because she never took any of it off.  The football players might like to know that jousting was a sport far more popular and violent than football ever could be, causing numerous fatalities and gruesome injuries not unlike the gory scenes in the horror movies of today. The die-hard feminists out there would find the “horrible” Queen Anne Boleyn not so bad after all, since she took many steps in helping women out in her reign. There’s a guaranteed something for everybody’s interests, no matter how singular.
The empires these magnificent (and not so magnificent) people shaped, the wars they fought, the causes they believed in, and the splendor in which they lived is something that deserves to be remembered. Without them, who knows what the world would be like today? When you contemplate the subject, without the political figures of then, the great U.S.A. of now could quite possibly not have even exist. It was their unfair laws and treatment that spurned the revolutions that directly caused the United States of America to be formed in the first place, wasn’t it? I desperately want people to recognize that history is a wonderful story of battle, bravery, romance, and leadership. I aspire to be one of the people that make it known, and acquire it the respect and glorification it has long deserved. After all, as Queen Elizabeth once said, “To be a King and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it, than it is pleasant to them that bear it”. Remembering and appreciating the sacrifices and steps our ancestors have made can greatly benefit the current and upcoming generations… without knowing where we came from, how can we possibly find where we are going?