Study the Past, or Study the Future?

Today we learned that history is the study of the past ... and the students immediately began to question whether it might be more valuable to study the future, rather than the past!

Why, the students asked, should we spend an entire year learning about things that have already happened, rather than preparing for things that might happen in the future?!

Andrew, Dylan, and a couple of other students responded with a fantastic point: learning about the past can actually enable us to prepare better for the future! They said that we can study our past mistakes in order to avoid making them again in the future. WOW! This is a really insightful comment.

A couple of other highlights from today's classes:

During a discussion about names and how they can be traced back to particular historical meanings, Joey taught us that his last name comes from a word meaning "quail farmers"! 

Meanwhile, Annabelle posed a fantastic question that is worthy of further investigation: what was the first known human language?

Based on the students' comments today, it's clear that our examination of prehistoric times is going to be fascinating!