History is About Connection

I went to a history lecture last weekend.

My brother, childhood friends, and I attended Professor Ambeth Ocampo’s “History Comes Alive!” at the Ayala Museum. It’s our first time to attend post-COVID-19 pandemic (Ayala Museum did it again post-renovation and post-COVID-19 pandemic.)

The topic: Andres Bonifacio – how we view him, the revolts he led but lost, and his complicated death.

I always knew that what I knew about Philippine history from school wasn’t enough.

This lecture reinforced that insight.

Three realizations hit me hard:

1. History isn’t memorizing dates and names.
It’s about connections. Why did events occur? How did they affect real people? What were the long-term consequences?
You and I learned history by memorizing names, dates, and venues. We failed to understand the why and the how.
We’ve been learning history all wrong.

2. We’ve lost touch with our own heritage.
Professor Ocampo asks his college students to draw our national heroes.
Their drawings look identical to kindergarten sketches you see online.
If university students can’t visualize our heroes properly, what does that say about our connection to history?

3. Education matters more than ever in the A.I. age
I used to think AI would make traditional learning obsolete.
This lecture changed my mind completely.
We need to know where we came from to understand where we’re going.
Without historical context, we can’t make sense of our present or shape our future as a nation.

I appreciated history long after graduating from school.

But sitting in that lecture hall reminded me why it matters.

History isn’t just academic subject matter. It’s the foundation for understanding ourselves, our society, and our place in the world.

When did you last learn something that changed your perspective on a subject you thought you understood?