In this chapter, Osborne argues that the greatest reason for teaching history is that it can help students learn to think for themselves about important issues. Although other subjects can do this, history’s advantage is that it directs the student’s thinking to issues. Since the study of history requires understanding both society and the individual, it allows students to put their lives in perspective and “provides a way of cutting through the fog of assumptions, myths and downright lies which can so easily blind us to reality and either anesthetize or paralyze our will” (57).

Osborne argues that although social sciences can fulfill many of the same roles as history, history has three advantages in the schools. The first is that history is a story that can interest even the uninterested. The second is that history deals with the exotic and distant past, which interests young students. And the third is that it is able to combine elements of other disciplines. In order to fill this role, history has to be more than the facts, it has to be an interpretation and taught as such. He further argues that in order for history to function effectively in schools, it has to be taught using a child-centred method, focusing on the lives of regular people.