YouTube Transcript:
It's Not About Memorization - How to Study History
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
View:
hello and welcome back to yet another
episode of the quirky inquiry it's a new
beginning of a new year so we're gonna
begin this year by talking about a topic
that I'd never ever touched upon before
so I've been meaning to make a video
about history for a long long time now
because history is one of the areas of
study that really fascinates me not just
because its history but history really
is the context and the backbone of all
the other things that have interested
I'm interested in literature interested
in Oh science interested in philosophy
and interesting poetry all that kind of
stuff they all are connected together by
the sort of historical context and by
the sort of historical backbone
so whatever literature whatever poetry
on whatever philosophy that you read
there are not inventions that comes out
of a vat in an empty vacuum they're not
just the brain sitting in the vat and
then I think therefore I am
they cards sitting in his room alone
they didn't come in isolation it's not
invented out of a vacuum as rationalists
would like to assume but instead it is
really history is a product or rather
the fields of studies that we coming to
contact today are all products of
historical contexts philosophers dealt
with different problems in the past to a
specific history historical contexts
scientific theories are invented in
response to a certain paradigm of
viewing the world and an ideas changed
throughout time the definition of
madness have morphed dramatically
throughout the centuries which is the
title of the book math and civilization
by Michel Foucault which have been
reading for the past week or so so
nevertheless that is the importance of
studying history because it is what
brings everything together and it is
what gives context to every other fields
of studies out there so studying history
comes in to supreme importance if you
care about being a renaissance person if
you care about understanding what are
human beings doing here on earth and
then what is our purpose what is the
meaning of all this if you want to truly
understand that history is the way to go
down but the prom' here comes how do you
probably study history
how do you probably interpret historical
events how do you relate the events to
the significance of the events and how
do you make sense of it all because if
you miss read history if you read
history in a very shoddy fashion what's
gonna start to happen is that all you're
gonna have is a bunch of scattered
events in your brain you can recall
dates you can recall events you can know
what exactly happened but there's no
real cohesion happening history for you
if you study it in a wrong way are just
gonna be a collection of scattered
events collection of quotes collection
of people and collection of people's
ideas there's no real cohesion that
gives you this ah the sense of odd that
it gives you there's no real passion or
Rijn or genuine interest if you approach
history in the wrong manner so in this
video let me correct that paradigm of
viewing history let me introduce a new
way of doing history that's gonna
drastically increase two things increase
your level of accurate understanding of
history your level of interpretation and
also increase your interest in this area
of study because history is sort of a
lengthy journey and to study history
state is to investing a lot of time and
then the amount of reading that you have
to do it's truly paramount there's a lot
of reading that you have to do to make
sense of history okay so it's gonna
increase two things your interesting
history and also the righteous accurate
understanding there's a bad habit if
we've picked up from school and this is
the bad habit that I sort of disagree
with or this is the sort of doing things
that I disagree with within the
educational system which is that there's
a heavy emphasis on memorization instead
of application let me repeat that
there's a heavy emphasis on memorization
instead of application of specific facts
specific dates and specific concepts
throughout history so when a history
student when history student cracks open
a history textbook for example at the
American Revolution history textbook
when they crack open that book there's
this knee-jerk reaction for students to
memorize things to knee-jerk Lee focus
on every little detail as possible to
capture every
detail as possible to try to attempt to
memorize all these technical details to
try to really dig deep into the dates
when exactly did something happen who
was involved in it and who wrote this
thing that came to contribute to what
influence so there's a knee-jerk ration
for people when they approach historical
studies to find this memorization to be
the supreme importance to put
memorization above understanding so
therefore you have people constructing
all sorts of fancy flashcards you have
people summarizing notes as they're
reading you have people highlighting
every aspects of the history textbook
but at the end of the study you ask him
Oh what is the significance of XYZ all
that they can do is to regurgitate the
facts without actually offering any
critical thinking behind that history so
that's the knee-jerk reaction that we've
been there only toe that's the way to do
things and that's the knee-jerk reaction
that we all have when we do subjects
such as literature when we do subjects
such as philosophy or such as history at
school now there's benefits to
memorization but let's not put the horse
I mean let's not put the card in front
of a horse here there's a different
orders of magnitude to memorization but
we shouldn't get the order wrong ask
yourself why are you studying history in
the first place are you now studying
history because you want to know the
general progression of history at least
based on a structuralist definition you
are spotting a general trend of what is
happening throughout time you're
outlining what the humans are doing
through that specific era of time for
example the the American Revolution why
did it come to the land and why is it
the case that they start to rebel
against the British you want to note
that general trend line and you want to
understand the motives the motivations
and all sorts of historical packages
that comes with this sort of
revolutionary sentiment you want to
understand that that's the core thing
that you need to understand so now what
most people do is that they put the card
in front of a horse when they study
history they worry about
Oh some guy died died of a lightning
strike in seventy eighty three because
he rebelled against the British garv
government or something like that
they go jumping to the specific little
details first they worry about the trees
before actually getting a holistic view
of the entire forest now what is turning
to is them collecting random facts from
the history textbook oh okay
there's a guy by the name of something
and he died in the tide in a Boston
Massacre and then in fact he was a man
of color so yeah that's a random fact
that I should document down or there's
another guy by the name of there's this
French guy from France by the name of
the Lafayette and he came to America
when he was 19 years old and then oh
that guy okay let me document that fact
right that fact hour right there along
with the dates so then this turns into
this sort of scavenger hunt of random
information and this also contributes
back to the lack of cohesion later on
when you face your analysis tasks or
source analysis or essay tasks in the
future so instead of collecting random
facts which is a laborious process and
instead of collecting all these quotes
that you couldn't really memorize
without much context so that's the
problem with collecting random
information it's because there's no real
context to brown all of these these
information your mind is not functioning
as a map that maps all of these things
together to make you understand it in a
cohesive manner but instead you're just
collecting random pieces of tree barks
you're not exactly seeing the entire
forest bathing set you're worrying about
the little tree that's in front of you
right so there's no real context for you
to brown any of your facts in there's no
real context for you to ground pieces of
information in so therefore those
there's no cohesion in your historical
studies instead what you want to do is
to gain a holistic view of the entire
picture first lay out the backbone first
instead of putting a card in front of a
horse so to speak so instead of reading
every little details of it you want to
gain a very broad overview of what
exactly is happening you want to gain a
very broad
inspection of the entire scenery okay
from maybe 70-54 the Seven Years War
okay let me let me take a look at that
okay the L pity Congress or something
like that and you just start from that
point okay start from the Albany
Congress all the way to the Declaration
of Independence
let me just rethread adding a linear
progression without worrying about the
details and I what's gonna start to
happen is that as you assemble these
informations on a trend line as you aim
to gain a holistic understanding instead
of getting bogged down in the details
once the backbone is laid out then you
go back to your my new shot then you go
back to your little facts then the facts
will be effortlessly for you to memorize
because once you have the backbone you
can just simply attach different facts
upon this backbone without much fuss the
problem with the conventional way of
picking everything up is that it is
analogous to if you want to build your
Prometheus in Frankenstein for example
of dr. Frankenstein wants to build he's
permit us the wrong approach is to build
the Prometheus from the toe to the head
to start from every little nerve from
the front from the toe and to build this
thing from the ground up without a
skeleton so that's the wrong approach
that's gonna take a lot longer you're
not gonna know what goes where and all
you have is this collection of scattered
information with how much cohesion but
instead dr. Frankenstein has a layout
that stays the skeletal structures first
dr. Frankenstein has to get the skeleton
right before he can attach the nurse
attach to organs and finally attach to
finer details of the skin of the muscle
groups and finally construct the
Prometheus right
similarly with history you need a
backbone before you can put put up all
of my new shop first you need the
skeleton the skeletal structure first
before you can put in all to random
little details so how can we apply this
practically so practically if you would
to read history the first time that you
read a historic history textbook you
read it like a novel okay read a history
textbook like a novel the first time
that you were approached
so this is the importance of pre reading
before classes pre read through the
entire chapter without taking notes
without worrying about the little
details without worrying about the dates
but instead pick up pick up a general
trend line pick up this entire school
Edo structure that you're in that you're
gonna later gonna use so when you go to
class when you listen to your teachers
lectures now you can begin the process
of attaching organs to your prometheus
you can begin the process of attaching
little information to your backbone
structure which you've already laid out
in your pre reading so after the lecture
then you can start to construct your
notes and then taking notes at this
point it's just effortless because you
know what goes where what's happening
what things are significant while others
are not instead of coming in contact
with a bunch of information not knowing
what goes where what is more important
than the other and what is worth
memorizing and what is not so this
backbone right here is really gonna
serve you well so yep that's what I have
to say about history very short not
exactly that short but a very brief
introduction into historical reading
happy New Year and happy holidays this
is the Creek enquiry signing off right now
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
Works with YouTube, Coursera, Udemy and more educational platforms
Get Instant Transcripts: Just Edit the Domain in Your Address Bar!
YouTube
←
→
↻
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
YoutubeToText
←
→
↻
https://youtubetotext.net/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc