3. History D- “Recent improvement… Effort does not match ability.”
I have always cracked up at that comment on my report card, “recent improvement”. What?! Recent improvement from what, an F??? That quote completely sums up my high school experience with history classes because the bar was set so low, but it wasn’t always bad grades, missing work, and lack of effort. I’ve actually always been very fascinated with history; I love WWII and the Civil War, but most of all I love learning about Asian History. Nothing in history is more fascinating to me than Chinese dynasties, Japanese feudal societies and Samurai, and Vietnamese culture. Unfortunately, most of my History education has been centered around American and European history, which makes sense but I have never found it to be super interesting. I’ve always been more fascinated by the cultures and people who were around before this country was even created, the real people who have created and shaped the world that we know. And even though I am fascinated by their history, my relationship with the subject hasn’t always been smooth sailing.
As I've explained with both Math and Chemistry, numbers give me a hard time, and you may be thinking “How does this affect history class? You just learn about dead people and write essays”. But, I faced challenges in History classes when I had to memorize dates, names, certain historical texts, and works of art, mostly everything that you have to be good at to be a historian. Thankfully I was really good at the essays and even better when they were timed essays in class, so most of the time my grades were pretty high. However, the specific grade from the title of this piece is from my Junior year History class, AP United States History. While I didn’t struggle with this class in the same way I had with Math and Chemistry, my issues with dyscalculia still managed to throw me off balance. Thankfully though, the experience wasn’t as upsetting as the previous two and therefore my journey to reconnect with history has taken a bit of a different path.
While I loved history, it wasn’t a subject that I had tied my self-worth to and therefore any bad grades and missing work that I struggled with didn’t totally kill my self-esteem. But what did bother me was that due to my issue with dates/ time periods and timeline mental organization I had no way of mentally rooting myself to any specific timeline or historical reference point. For example, I know that the Civil War happened at some point in the 1800s but then anything else that happened after that in the 1800s is categorized as “Civil War Time” in my head. Which, as you can imagine, made accurately categorizing and remembering historical events nearly impossible. It was like my brain would choose one stand-out moment in history that I found particularly interesting and then everything else around was categorized under that one event.
This weird problem made everything much more difficult than it had to be, and it was really frustrating to be able to understand and reference an event in my work but not be able to connect or contrast it with other events throughout history, which is the entire point of the class! Obviously, my grades took major hits and it definitely didn't help that I was always late with homework because I had lost interest in the subject overall. But now that I have the space to look back on these experiences I've realized that this doesn't just have to be my fate with History and that I can really pursue whatever I want to study.
While I’ve spent most of this past year trying to grow a better perspective on Math and Science, with History I’ve been trying to return to the love I used to have for it through some of the media I used to enjoy and some new things that have refreshed my perspective.
Here are some of the things I’ve read, listened to, and watched that have renewed my interest in the cultures I really admire.
Balinese and Javanese Gamelan When I was in high school one of the highlights of that time was the summer school programs I would attend for music. I often would travel to a different part of California or the country and stay in a college dorm and take music classes. One summer I did a program at CalArts called CSSSA where I got to take amazing classes in Indian classical music and my favorite, Balinese Gamelan.
Gamelan is a wonderful musical art formed in Indonesia and celebrated around the world. It is made up of an ensemble of metal xylophones and drums that are played with wooden mallets. When I was learning how to play this music in summer school our teacher also showed a really interesting video on how the communities in Bali and Java use Gamelan music for celebrations and ceremonies and how the art form is very special and meaningful to the musicians and the people who enjoy it. It was so amazing to have the opportunity to appreciate this culture and learn about its importance, especially because I got to share it with people who also enjoyed it. Here is another example, one played by people who actually know what they’re doing.
Another wonderful piece of media that has broadened my understanding of history and other cultures is a book I have started reading, “Fire In The Lake” by Frances Fitzgerald. From what I’ve read so far the book provides insight into U.S. and Vietnam relations before the Vietnam war began, and it dissects the cultural differences that impeded effective communication and understanding between the two groups. I really appreciate this book because it is informative without taking sides. Even though the author is American neither culture or viewpoint is suggested to be better than the other, the author simply acknowledges and explains why they're different which I found very refreshing and informative. One of my favorite parts is when Fitzgerald explains the difference in societal structures that both countries are centered around; the U.S. is very focused on modernity and moving away and outward, while the Vietnamese cultural belief of the time was very community-oriented, and they looked to the wisdom of the past rather than having an intense focus on the future.
In reference to the Confucian philosophy that was the center of Vietnamese ideology of the time, the author cites a central belief about society saying “They believed that if a man moved off his land and out of the gates of the village, he left his soul behind him, buried in the earth with the bones of his ancestors”. I think this line perfectly sums up the difference between the two cultures because the Americans were marketing an idea that was not in alignment with Vietnamese social philosophy at all. It is no wonder then, that negotiations and the American influence were not happily accepted because it was completely out of whack with the beliefs that held Vietnamese society together. I could totally go on a tangent about this now but it just makes me so excited to share something that has reignited my love for learning again!
Overall, I hope you can find something interesting in the media I’ve shared in these posts, and thank you for reading! :)
