Why do students have to take history classes? Why should people have to worry about things that seem irrelevant because they happened thousands of years ago? I am here to tell you that studying history is important, but not for the cliché reason that you have heard all your life: "we have to study the past so that we don't make the same mistakes all over again" and "history repeats itself." While those reasons are important, students have more practical and important reasons for studying history. Social Studies provides students the opportunity to learn and foster the skills needed to be a successful, thoughtful, and virtuous citizen in our global society. Such skills include analyzing primary and secondary sources, assessing the bias behind a document or an individual, the ability to interpret events and understand causality, the ability to discuss controversial topics respectfully, and understanding the wider concept of the global, interconnected world that we live in. Studying history requires all these skills and gives students a political, social, and economic framework of how society has gotten to the point that we are at today!