I interviewed Ms. Bendall, a history instructor of my school who taught my 10th grade history class and has been a great help for my Signature project so far. She helped me with gathering sources for my paper, brainstorming, and thinking process. In the interview, we talked about history in general.
According to Ms. Bendall, understanding history is important because it can enlighten us to be able to see and understand the complexity of the present, facilitate critical thinking that can lead us to the examination of reality, and make us understand the power of culture. History also instructs us how to trust information, which is a crucial skill to live in the 21st century. We also talked about the period that I’m working on for the project, WWII era. She said that understanding WWII is important because it reshaped international relations and the ways we understand wars. The recent incident in Ukraine proves the point related to the significance of understanding history. Authoritarianism and totalitarianism during WWII is very much relevant today. The Putin government of Russia is the reflection of such political extremism in WWII to some extent; Putin used the technique used by Hitler during WWII. Racism, another cause and product of WWII, is an ongoing problem. The international society tries to rectify it, but it is still unsolved. Also, studying fascism is significant to understand tyranny which is the problem yet to be solved.
Another thing that we talked about was the roles of historians. Speaking of technical, historians research on specific topics, such as areas and time periods, compose writing work on them, and publish their work. There are a lot of ways to be a historian, and the role varies. Historians attempt to fully understand particular times. History builds compassion not only for the people in the past but also for those in the present, and historians try to empathize with them, analyze them, apply and into practical ways, and instruct contemporaries.
As Ms. Bendall emphasized on the writing work of historians, my goal of the Signature project is to compose a research paper. We discussed the roles and purposes of such papers. She said that research papers in history mimic what historians do. Such writing works use different kinds of evidence to light what historians or people are looking for. In essence, writing papers is about searching for evidence that supports the ideas that we believe and look for. Important thing is, finding the evidence that contradicts what we believe is the process that we should also focus on. It could be dangerous to shape ideas only in one way; we should be aware of different perspectives and be able to respect them.
I also had a chance to talk about my interest in history and how it can be connected to my other interest, journalism. She explained what history majors in college focus on and historians that can also work as journalists. It was a very precious talk which could expand my interest in history and listen to more specific information on what I’m interested in.
To sum up, the interview with Ms. Bendall provided me with a better sense of thinking like a historian, writing the paper, and proceeding with my project. Also, it gave me more clear ideas of pursuing a history major in the future.
To sum up, the interview with Ms. Bendall provided me with a better sense of thinking like a historian, writing the paper, and proceeding with my project. Also, it gave me more clear ideas of pursuing a history major in the future.