Is this clip an indictment of our education system?

[[DHT]Osiris]

Nothing like glorifying a revolution fought so that white people could expand the institution of slavery into new territory.

♫ a tale as old as time ♫

 

[HomerJS]

Now white people are attempting to glorify their attempted takeover of the federal government. At least the conservative ones.

 

[Jaskalas]

My first thought, why weren't you taught this in school?

My own experience with school in California, some 20+ years ago, is thus... although the history books contained somewhat modern chapters, the course / teacher never approached them. By year's end we'd end up at the start of the 20th century. I think we barely touched upon the world wars, let alone anything more recent.

I'd be more surprised if today's children were taught 9/11. Because that would run contrary to how history class "worked". Living memory was something to be avoided.

 

[Jaskalas]

Going to school in the 80's/90's, we were in the final throes of the cold war (late 80's, we still had hide-under-the-desk drills), and the legacy of Vietnam and Korea close enough behind us that it should have been relevant. Wasn't taught a lick about any of the three.

Exactly.

 

[Indus]

Au contraire, mon ami. Canadians care alot about America. We are directly impacted by everything you guys do.

Yeah I know all my canadian friends have had to get off social media due to the toxic anti-vaccine anti-science environment.. like they did know how much of Canada overlapped with fuckheadistan!

 

[Paratus]

I agree with this. What should really be studied is the massive fallout and over reaction to 9/11, not the event itself. Further, though, modern American history gets basically zero coverage in US schools, why should other countries get it?

Nearly all of my modern history I learned from History Channel, PBS, and Discovery channel. Good luck finding anything educational on two of those any more.

I'm sure the vast majority of Americans couldn't tell you what happened on April 20th, 1995, June 6th, 1944, or April 20th, 1999, etc. Further, I wouldn't be surprised if 40+% of Americans that were at least teenagers on 9/11 couldn't tell you many real details and completely omitted the Pentagon and United 93. People suck at history, and we suck at teaching it as well.

Of the top of my head :

Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing. 4/20/95 (although I think this was actually the 19th)
D-day invasion 6/6/44
Columbine Massacre 4/20/99

Completely agree though. I only remember those because I was old enough and lived through them (and in the case of OKC my future wife lived there).

The only class I even learned about WWII was AP European History. Every other history class ended American history before the 20th century. No Vietnam, no civil rights, no Nixon, etc.

We suck at teaching recent history in this county.

 

[Zorba]

Of the top of my head :

Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing. 4/20/95 (although I think this was actually the 19th)
D-day invasion 6/6/44
Columbine Massacre 4/20/99

Completely agree though. I only remember those because I was old enough and lived through them (and in the case of OKC my future wife lived there).

The only class I even learned about WWII was AP European History. Every other history class ended American history before the 20th century. No Vietnam, no civil rights, no Nixon, etc.

We suck at teaching recent history in this county.

Yup, I put the wrong date for OKC in there, should be the 19th.

The only time I got past the 20s in school was in college. Learned about Egypt more than the twentieth century.

*We did cover the Holocaust multiple times, but always in English/reading, not history for some reason. I think I got it at least in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades.

 

[Jaskalas]

Every other history class ended American history before the 20th century.

The only time I got past the 20s in school was in college. Learned about Egypt more than the twentieth century.

There you have it. Multiple accounts that match the young woman in the OP.

Based on our own experiences, we can only hope that American schools teach WW2 now.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Going to school in the 80's/90's, we were in the final throes of the cold war (late 80's, we still had hide-under-the-desk drills), and the legacy of Vietnam and Korea close enough behind us that it should have been relevant. Wasn't taught a lick about any of the three.

Yes, our educational system taught us that a little piece of plywood was a defense from a nuclear bomb.

I was assigned to do a paper on My Lai though, so at least our schools addressed that era.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Yup, I put the wrong date for OKC in there, should be the 19th.

But what ELSE happen on that date that was said to have (at least in part) triggered that event?

 

[HomerJS]

I wonder if she knows the name of that Austrian guy who invaded Poland?

 

[Zorba]

But what ELSE happen on that date that was said to have (at least in part) triggered that event?

I assume you are referring to Waco.

 

[Zorba]

I wonder if she knows the name of that Austrian guy who invaded Poland?

I wonder when the last time she was actually in a real school building and not practicing tennis 4+ hours a day.

 

[pmv]

Of the top of my head :

Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing. 4/20/95 (although I think this was actually the 19th)
D-day invasion 6/6/44
Columbine Massacre 4/20/99

Completely agree though. I only remember those because I was old enough and lived through them (and in the case of OKC my future wife lived there).

The only class I even learned about WWII was AP European History. Every other history class ended American history before the 20th century. No Vietnam, no civil rights, no Nixon, etc.

We suck at teaching recent history in this county.

History at school seemed to consist almost exclusively of WW1, Stalin and Hitler. Plus a brief bit about Vietnam and Biafra. I think Gandhi and MLK got a mention. That was just the exam syllabus back then. I mean there's a near-infinite amount of history to choose from. The problem is people (like Bin Laden and Dubya) keep making more of the stuff, Lord knows why, when most of it's so horrible.

I only recently learned anything about purely British history (the Romans, Boudicca, the Anglo-Saxons etc) by listening to podcasts about it.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

History at school seemed to consist almost exclusively of WW1, Stalin and Hitler. Plus a brief bit about Vietnam and Biafra. I think Gandhi and MLK got a mention. That was just the exam syllabus back then. I mean there's a near-infinite amount of history to choose from. The problem is people (like Bin Laden and Dubya) keep making more of the stuff, Lord knows why, when most of it's so horrible.

I only recently learned anything about purely British history (the Romans, Boudicca, the Anglo-Saxons etc) by listening to podcasts about it.

For us, we got an inordinate amount of history related to the American Revolution, and Civil War. Like hundreds of dates, locations, and names memorized for no apparent reason. Mind you, there's virtually no content included in there as to why there was a war. I learned more about the American Revolution from watching Hamilton the first time than I did from half my history classes.

 

[Jaskalas]

I only recently learned anything about purely British history (the Romans, Boudicca, the Anglo-Saxons etc) by listening to podcasts about it.

I would recommend the Kings and Generals youtube channel. Some good stuff to be found there.

 

[pmv]

I would recommend the Kings and Generals youtube channel. Some good stuff to be found there.

I tend to listen to podcasts (on a music player not a smartphone) while out-and-about, rather than watching youtube, but I'll make a note of that one.

The funny thing is, that I'd never previously known anything at all about the ancient history of the British Isles, and it seemed remarkable how much the fights between the native Celtic Britons and the Romans seemed to echo the various anti-colonial struggles _against_ the British.

All the same tropes were present and correct -- divide-and-rule tactics, the occupiers flipping between 'hearts and minds' and brutal repression depending on who was in charge at any given time, and the indiginous population sometimes resisting and sometimes collaborating for the benefits it could bring, plus the occasional outbreak of incredibly brutal and merciless rage from the oppressed and subjugated - Boudicca's massacres of Roman civilians being not so different to the Black Hole of Calcutta or the Mau Mau killings of colonial settlers, or the extreme violence in the Haiti slave revolt (admittedly that one being against the French).

It's as if the British Empire was a case of the British doing to everyone else what the Romans had done to them.

 

[Zorba]

For us, we got an inordinate amount of history related to the American Revolution, and Civil War. Like hundreds of dates, locations, and names memorized for no apparent reason. Mind you, there's virtually no content included in there as to why there was a war. I learned more about the American Revolution from watching Hamilton the first time than I did from half my history classes.

Yeah, and the Revolution is taught almost exclusively as a fable.

 

[pmv]

I wonder when the last time she was actually in a real school building and not practicing tennis 4+ hours a day.

Well, that's the thing, really - pretty clearly she's someone who has been focused largely on the tennis court, not the school class-room. Plus she's Canadian (of Ecuadorian descent, apparently) so it seems a bit "US-centric" to insist she must be familiar with every bad thing that ever happened in the US.

On reflection the OP's point seems unfairly parochial, and typical of the US idea that the whole world has to be aware of, and fascinated with, everything that happens in that country. Just because 911 involved Americans dying, doesn't make it more important than every other horrible mass-casualty event in the world. Does the OP know we are just coming up to the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, for example? (granted, 39th is not really the sort of round-number anniversaries go by - but point is, loads of bad things happened in September, why demand everyone remember the US ones specifically?).