Personal Narrative: Role Playing American History

I have never really considered myself a history buff, nor do I tend to indulge myself in any sort of history in my spare time. Like many others, I took this course, Role Playing American History, in order to fulfill a general education requirement, and my counselor said she has heard this course is pretty entertaining. However, I found myself truly enjoying this course for many reasons beyond being able to argue with my classmates. This course truly did help me to better learn about American history for several reasons, as well as alter the way I view history in general. First and foremost, the game itself taught me a variety of information about American history. I had absolutely no idea who Anne Hutchinson was before the fist game and now …show more content…
I actually had several history teachers that advised the class to NOT major in history if we were planning on going to college. These teachers then proceed to teach their subjects in a very boring way; lecture. These lectures were monotone and hard to follow, and you could obviously tell that these teachers were tired of not only teaching their subject, but teaching in general as well. They made it very clear that they “knew” we did not care about the subject, and that we were only in the class because we had so be. This caused me to view history as boring, and a class that I absolutely dreaded going to. However, Dr. Skillin’s role play class completely changed the way I viewed history. He made learning history fun. The class was able to role play history, and practically decide the way we wanted history to be. Once these role playing games were over, I always felt satisfaction and interest in learning how history actually unravelled. Taking this class taught me to not let the way other teachers taught a subject, affect my learning in the same subject area. Just because they have lost interest in the subject does not mean that it is not relevant. In terms of history, it can be very interesting to learn if taught correctly and is actually important to know. I now know, thanks to Dr. Skillin, that just because a class is boring this does not mean the subject is boring. Learning about …show more content…
Skillin, history can be applied to every career. The career path I have chosen to pursue is nursing. Some may think that there is no need to know history when it comes to nursing, but I do not believe this to be true. The history surrounding the medical world is an interesting one. Practices have developed tremendously in the last one hundred years alone, so just think about how they started. Back in ancient times, people depended on their gods to heal them. Also, every two in five women died when giving birth, so it was an extreme risk for women to take when getting pregnant. Even one hundred years ago, there were still several procedures that had not been developed and some that were terrible for your health; including smoking to expand your lungs and even lobotomy to treat people with mental illnesses, which was extremely unethical. However, they were not aware of how these procedures were actually bad for one’s health. It is important in the medical field to understand the history of medical procedures, and truly understand how the methods we use today have developed. Knowing the history can also help medical professionals to understand there is always room for advancement and that there is no guarantees that a procedure will