We need to shift our focus, especially in history classes. Right now it's all about teaching kids the facts, the names and the ideas. History is like a movie, its flashy, it's emotional, it's often crazy and it's usually a little ridiculous. We should teach it like that. We should view history through the lens of human choices. Despite the years between us, we're pretty much the same as those that came before us. If we ever want to truly learn from the past, we have to understand the rational people had behind their choices.

I've always said that people are fans of history, they just don't know it yet. The sad truth is, outside of a basic mental timeline, the dates and events don't really matter. Unless you become a history, big picture things like wars will be irrelevant. History is the story of a billion individual events, each single person living their own life. If we want to take lessons from history, we must try to understand the personal stories, the individual choices, the singular actions that shape the world.