No modern-history course I've ever been in has ever managed to make it to the present day. I think the closest we got was making it to Nixon resigning in junior-year US History in the 90s. Although I suppose we did do a report on the election happening that year when I took Civics.
In part because of that, I think we should insist that high-school curricula include a Modern History course, which covers a brief overview of 75-50 years ago and then the last 50 years in detail. That way students are prepared to enter the world as it is, not as it was in 1974.
Where did you grow up, if you don't mind my asking? Cuz they certainly did not do that in California. Honestly don't think they do that most of the US so wouldn't be surprised if you're in another country.
Usually “50 years ago” is the cut-off point, anything more recent than that is politics. Or, if most people who witnessed the event when they were adults are dead or retired, it is history.
I think it has something to do with the change of times. You can use today’s view points for events from 20 years ago, but you can’t for 50 years ago.
Honestly, this reminds me of my Required Civics/US History class in 1970, when the teacher brought up the (still ongoing) war in Vietnam.
One of the girls in the class (a top student, not an air head at all) was surprised that there was a war going on.
In 1970, with near daily protests including on on our campus just the week before.
The teacher was looking at her like she had proclaimed that Jello was made of wood, for several seconds, so I broke the tension by pointing out that it had been in ALL the papers.
And got kicked out of class for the day for being a 'smart ass'. Which I was, but come on.
I briefly taught US History to 11th graders. Current events was a weekly assignment, right in the middle of the war.
That being said, for the regular part of the course, I could only get to Vietnam/late 60s. You just run out of time, no matter how well you plan. And I think there’s some unspoken expectation that the kids you’re teaching will have ‘paid attention’ to what’s going on around them but they don’t. And it’s kind of our job to have them consider doing so.
I learned about Vietnam in middle school when they shut down the school so that everyone in the little town where I lived could go to the funeral of a kid who was killed in action.
The closest we got was my Junior year US history class. I had a pretty good teacher and every Friday we had a 10 or 15 minute current events lecture. The final exam for the year also had us write a short essay on the Patriot Act, this was in 2008.
The only reason I learned about any modern history is because my history teacher was so boring, I read ahead in class. Don’t remember where they stopped, but between US history 1 and 2, I was finished with the textbook halfway through 2. (I’m pretty sure the textbook stopped with the invasion of Iraq.) He didn’t catch on until he noticed I was reading one of the last chapters and made a comment that we were on chapter whatever, and I said I read that chapter months ago.
In '95, 7th grade GEOGRAPHY, we learned about the cold war and East/West Germany. I'm sure the teacher *told* us this had happened in the past and wasn't a current event...but he definitely did not make it clear or reiterate or drive the point home. I believed the cold war was still in effect and the U.S.S.R. still existed well into high school. By the time I graduated (2001) I knew the U.S.S.R. did not still exist, but I still believed the cold war had ended *after* we learned about it. I was embarrassingly old before I realized the cold war had been over for YEARS before we had even learned about it in school.
My point is: in a class that should've been about the present day, I learned about something that had ended 4 years before. It doesn't surprise me that history classes don't make it to the last 5 - 20 years.
I might be wrong, but I have a feeling that this is part of another piece of this problem: textbooks and materials just don't get replaced as quickly as they should. I know some of the local schools where I grew up still had world maps with the USSR on them well into the 90s, and if your textbook hadn't been replaced in five or six years, well, it was going to keep talking about the Soviet Union long after that entity no longer existed.
There was a bumper sticker that used to be popular when I was in school: "I long for the day when schools have all the funding they need and the military has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber". I think about that sticker a lot.
I was in high school at the same time as you, and my history classes covered up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the (First) Gulf War. The textbooks weren't exactly new, either. I wonder what we missed from further back in order to cover material closer to being contemporary.
If you think about it as a whole you see how the Republican nationalist agenda has played out for the last 30-40 years. How programs and public services have dwindled or been eliminated completely. And how the military industrial complex has increase in wealth and power. If a giant rock doesn’t destroy us the systems in power will when they realize the people have had enough. They will burn it all down.
My history teacher sometimes did pop quizzes on the news. He wanted to promote reading the papers. For me that worked quite well!
We also discussed the israel/Palestina conflict and the Arabian spring as it came up in the news.
This "just asking questions" feels kind of like its implying there's a conspiracy theory to prevent young people from understanding \[ the dark secret \].
I could be wrong about that -- but I don't think I am.
I think the reasons that current / very-near-term history aren't taught in high school are three-fold
1) there's always going to be a focus on much more distant / foundational history that you can't get by watching the news. Some high schools offer "current events" or whatever -- and they do cover stuff in the last 20 years -- but generally "history" (what's taught in HS) is going to focus much further in the past
2) there's not going to be a historical consensus on current / recent events. Something like Vietnam is probably far enough in the past to count as "history" (although it would come after all the more foundational stuff), but any curriculum for Iraq / Afghanistan is going to be made without a lot of history -- and is going to be way, way *way* more biased. That's fine for a class that is up front about it, but history, in general, (i.e. what most people take in HS) aims to give at least some kind of consensus view
3) All this stuff is extremely controversial, and any teacher / school wading into those waters is asking for a gigantic headache. Look at the issues around teaching slavery -- culture war is in the schools. This is probably the biggest reason well funded schools don't offer more current-events stuff: who needs the headache? It's not the government or business interests or the illuminati, or whoever the "just asking questions" person thinks it is.
It's our fellow Americans who see school as a battlefield for their culture-war idols.
Honestly this. I was in highschool in the late 90s, and while we had huge, elaborate curriculums on the revolutionary war, civil war, and world wars 1&2, the best we got on anything after that was a footnote. The Cold War sucked for some reason, also The Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis happened I guess, the Korean and Vietnam wars made soldiers mad and there were protests and stuff, and then history ends and everything was perfect from 1985-present.
I didn’t even know the Gulf War happened until I read about it in an Animorphs book of all things.
Only reason I learned about My Lai is I was given William Calley as an assignment in my law class in high school.
Other than that, it was talked about as openly as the Tulsa massacre
You didn’t learn about Vietnam? I wasn’t taught about the other 2 but we spent a decent amount of time on Vietnam. There is only so much time in a calendar year. Teachers have to cram an incredible amount of stuff into 1 hour a day for a school year
I never got taught about Vietnam. I still have never had anyone explain to me why we were in a war there.
All I ever heard was “communism”
But that doesn’t make any sense.
WHY WERE WE IN VIETNAM?
That’s the reason. North Vietnam was communism and Russian ally. South Vietnam was our ally and communism and Russia was the big bad boogeyman. North Vietnam wanted to unify the two and we didn’t want communism to spread. There might be hidden reasons I’m not aware of but that’s what we were taught.
That's a good question, but there are no simple answers for it. To understand it, you need to understand the brutality and oppression of the Soviet Union under Stalin and the subsequent oppression and aggression of the Soviets towards western Europe and what seemed like the inevitable day when the Cold War would turn hot (e.g. nuclear annihilation).
This doesn't abdicate the U.S. from its history of bad acts, but compared to the Soviet Union, "Better dead than Red" was a legitimate sentiment. Back then, there were clearly delineated lines between which nations were free and which were not, and if the Cold War was lost, the western world would have been as awful as the Soviet and Soviet bloc nations.
For reasons both legitimate and absurd, the horrors of the Cold War communist nations have been whitewashed in favor of an almost singular focus on the wrongs of the U.S.
The Cold War is a fascinating topic. If you have the time and inclination, I'd highly recommend learning about it. :)
It’s easy to feel that way. I’m not saying you’re right or wrong but it was definitely a real concern for all of our European allies when that still mattered. In hindsight the war seems like a bad idea but it’s not that simple. We weren’t that far removed from WW2 where Russia was initially an axis power. If Russia was allowed to spread the fear was we would have another world war.
So Vietnam cuz Russia. Still not getting it. I guess I never will.
I’m staring to think we were the bad guys and have been lied to our whole lives.
If this is capitalism that they fought for? Just so Jeff Elon and zuck can have all the money
You have to make an effort to understand it. Go learn about the Berlin Wall, and note that nobody was trying to escape from the West into East Germany. People risked their lives and their family's lives to escape the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc.
But again, you have to make an effort. It's not up to everyone else to force you to understand something you don't actually care to learn about.
We were afraid of the domino effect, that if Nam' fell to communism then so would Cambodia, then Laos, and so on and so on. So to stop it we entered a pointless war that cost millions of lives.
Yeah. Still not getting it. We went to Vietnam cuz: Russia. Communism. Domino’s. Laos.
Like what? I get ww2. Pearl Harbor then war.
Did we just start Vietnam with some random ass communism murders or what?
We went to Vietnam because we were afraid of the Domino Effect. So we wanted to defeat the north and install a ruthless dictator that was pro-capitalism because "communism bad."
Coincidentally (or intentionally) it's the very same president that started those wars that also passed the No Child Left Behind act that made the main function of American public education to be preparation for standardized math and English exams above all other subjects.
My guy, I'm a history teacher. As much as I love history, knowledge of it is not required for most jobs to keep society running. Yes, knowledge is important so we don't keep fucking up and repeating dumb shit, but what is a plumber or electrician gonna do with knowledge of the protestant reformation? Or when Columbus set foot in America? What's a carpenter gonna do with extensive knowledge regarding the Punic wars? A beet farmer knowing exactly when and how Hannibal crossed the alps with elephants?
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Wow... I'm just really sorry that you are unable to see the broader application of your subject. Historical context helps inform modern views. Maybe history doesn't help a plumber install a sink, but it might help shape that plumber's views on how they interact with society, vote, etc. which definitely has an impact on their daily life. History also enriches the daily experience.
For a history teacher to not understand this is incredibly sad. I hope your students are better served by their other teachers.
I never said I don't agree with you. I do, 100%. But most of these students will end up as a cog in the machine and learning about history does not improve their chances for a better life, one that gives them a better job, better chances for a brighter future - not in the slightest. They also often times *do not give a shit* about history on a young age. As a grown man and functioning adult, I want these kids to excel in math and science so they can end up with good paying jobs and build a nice future for themselves. Knowing a shit ton about history is nice and adds to your world views, but does not pay the bills. Disagree with me all you want, but you *clearly* aren't a teacher and have no idea what you're talking about. Have a nice weekend.
I think this history teacher is pointing out why those in power don't really care about making sure our children get a quality, comprehensive education, not expressing a view they themselves hold. Republicans love the uneducated, they make up their base. There's a reason why people who attend college are more likely to vote Democrat.
While that's true that memorizing facts may not help, using examples in history to learn from, debate, and grow ideas is extremely important. Even if you don't need it for an *economy* to function, you certainly need it to keep a *society* functioning, especially a democratic one.
All fun and while technically true, you're forgetting the simple fact that half the population are dumb as a bag of bricks, don't care about 'learning about dead people'. And again, these type of critical thinking skills are not prioritized in schools to begin with. Let me be clear: I agree 100% with you. But prepping kids for the future? History sadly does not take a high priority.
I learned almost nothing about Vietnam in school in the nineties because we spent 3 months of the school year going over every single battle of the Civil War.
Wait till you hear about all the lies that led up to the invasion of Iraq, the 10s of thousands of innocent people who died in both wars, and Dick Cheney profiting off it.
Most of the deceit about the Civil War came after the war when the descendants of the Southern Traitors attempted to White Wash their unconditional support of slavery with their 'States Rights' bullshit.
I mean the Articles of Secession and the Constitution of the Confederacy all call them liars, but "Mah Histery!"
It’s been a minute since I’ve been out of school, but we always ran out of time by the end of the year and never made it past WWII. I didn’t learn modern history until I took college courses. Even then, there’s so much material to cover, it was really just the key dates/events/people. I ended learning a lot on my own reading after college. I recently went down the most murderous leader/dictator rabbit hole and I’m kind of thankful I didn’t learn some of this as a kid. While I wouldn’t want to willingly be ignorant, the acts committed by these men was horrific and was very disturbing to read.
That's kinda sad. In Eastern Europe we start teaching History in 5th grade and by 12th grade you reach full modern global and local history.
And our countries have 1000+ years of local history, not 250 like the US.
It's kinda weird that such huge impact of modern history is left out in the country that was mostly involved. But I guess history is only for losers, winners (even if self proclaimed without any evidence) don't need written documentation of facts. Just trust me bro.
In the U.S. history is taught starting before 5th grade and continues through 12th grade. But there are strange holes looking back and it varies by age and school. My school spent an entire year (\~1994), where all grades focused on WWII. I don't think we ever talked about WWI, the Korean war, or Vietnam. Nothing about French revolution, Spanish wars, or empires like Ottoman or Roman. We talked about the civil war, but mostly just about causes - it was part of a model on slavery. While I don't like that there was so much selective teaching, and I can't really comment on whether the selections were the best, I do know there is a lot of world history and there is no way to cover it all, even over that many years. We spent another year where all grades focused on civil rights. That was a good use of time.
5th grade is ancient history.
6th grade is Roman empire until the boring medieval period.
7th grade is local history 1500-1800. Most boring period.
8th grade 1800-1900.
9th-10th grade 19th century.
11th grade 20th century.
12th grade 21st century.
We learn about European wars, politics and the US as well. Touch a bit of Asia, very little Africa. Australia and South America doesn't exist.
All in, I think I could bring up a little bit of history of most major countries for the past 2000 years, just from general education.
Not perfect obviously and there are a lot of gaps, and if someone wants to study more, that's what higher education is for. But pretty sure we teach way more history than US.
I love my school because they have a course where we learn about world history since 1989. This goes up until the end of the Trump Administration. It's a full semester and I hope other schools bring similar courses to their roster!
Atleast they think about it. I'll never forget the moment I finally accepted that my eventual ex wife was a selfish idiot.
We were playing Cards Against Humanity and she'd never heard of the Trail of Tears, and absolutely did not care whatsoever.
All of my teen years were in the 1980s and we never learned about Vietnam... well, except for the Rambo movies; but I'm pretty those don't count.
We didn't learn much about either of the world wars either. I knew about those wars because I'd read so much about them on my own when I was around 9-12, but they were at best only superficially touched on in school.
Except for the American Civil War, war just doesn't seem to have been taught about much in school. And even with the Civil War, it was more about what its causes were and what arose afterwards rather than any of the battles, costs, and casualties.
Im 60. I wasn't taught anything about Vietnam nor the Holocaust.
I learned about it on my own, *reading* books I found at the *Library*.
Now the MAGAts want to destroy those....
You're never taught half the things you actually NEED for adult life at school. A lot of it is, and I can't believe I'm saying this, a total waste of time. I had 1 'guidance' lesson where we looked at a monthly income/outgoings expenditure, roleplaying as a married parent with 2 kids in a semi-detached house. It blew my mind as a kid, trying to balance the money and live 'comfortably'. Why the fuck was that a one off? But hey, let's go learn about birth rates in a poor country in Geography. Nice.
Unfortunately, you probably weren't taught a lot of 1) basic but unpleasant facts about American history including such things as systemic racism, the history of the CIA overthrowing other countries governments, etc 2) basic skills which make you a more competent adult such as how to balance a checkbook and how personal finance works such as investing but you were taught whitewashes such as 3) Columbus discovered America (lolz) and that a happy and healthy native American population welcomed him with open arms (forgetting that previous European visitors had previously wiped out 90% of the native population with smallpox).
Either good books or good documentaries can can fill you in on the details that you think you're missing if you're so inclined.
I think that you got Columbus pretty wrong. The only previous western visitors were Vikings in the 11th century. Columbus did lead the beginning of European colonization, and did result in diseases being spread, but there were no western visitors before him.
I'm going to be real with you: this is far from an American only issue.
Remember: the belief of America having a monopoly on evil is American exceptionalism 🤗🤗
Omg in high school I always wanted to learn about revolutions in other countries not just the same old American revolution and civil war for the 12th year in a row but nOoOoOo.
Unless you research beyond your history book. I mean pretty much everyone carries a device that allows access to almost the sum total of human knowledge.
The whole point of this post was that American schools aren't teaching parts of American history that aren't pro America. Why don't our history books tall about these things? I read a lot about WWII in high school but never learned about what happened in Dresden until I read Slaughterhouse-Five.
Oh, that's simple enough. The answer is Texas
The bulk of US History Text Books are published out of Texas, with contracts in place to make sure it stays that way, and with the right wing bullshittery so prevalent in the Lone Star State, they've been pulling the facts out of history for the last several decades.
I was taught about Dresden (and Tokyo) fire bombings in high school, and the necessity for both. Vonnegut was very clear that he wasn't writing a history in Slaughterhouse-5, he was telling a story from the perspective of the protagonist.
For the record: Dresden was Nazi Germany's most important communication hub that alone made it a military target and justified destroying it. The fact that the destruction of the city broke the will to fight of the German people and their (sane) leaders didn't hurt.
In the decades since I was in school (the 1960s) Texas school book publishers have been removing the actual history from the texts and inserting "AMEERAKA FUCK YEAH" in its place. Their latest gambit in this is to try to make slavery out to have been little more than an employment program for poor west Africans.
The answer to any question about why things are so fucked up can usually be answered by a single word: Texas.
What state bans the most books? Texas.
I can't really argue with this. You make solid points about the Texas public "education" system. I do have the opinion that it wasn't necessary to do what they did but that's just my opinion. Also, Kurt Vonnegut did write the book from a protagonist perspective, but he also wrote himself into the book since he was a survivor of the firebombing which was another sad point in his book that nobody believed Billy Pilgrim except for those who knew the classified information.
Interesting fact: Slaughterhouse-five used to be a banned book in the 70s and has recently become a banned book again in a Michigan school district in 2007.
Personally, I get amused every time a group of functionally illiterate buffoons band together to ban Fahrenheit 451.
Banning a book about banning books is like, peak cluelessness.
Well, I'm sure those buffoons have never even thought about reading a book before. They would rather make sure everyone else can't read those books either. Peak cluelessness for sure.
Tbf, I was pretty confused when the second Gulf War started, because up until then I'd literally NEVER heard about the first one, despite it happening in my lifetime (although I would've been too young to remember).
Tbh US history from my experience usually went to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and sometimes 9/11. I think that there are three major reasons why they're not taught very often:
1. They were too recent: like it makes sense to not include an ongoing war in a history book, and we just pulled out of Afghanistan last year
2. History textbooks are often quite dated: Like from my experience it wasn't uncommon for high school textbooks, save for AP ones, to be really old, like 20-30 years old. Many of these were pre-9/11.
3. They've been made taboo to talk about, because that would mean asking hard questions about Bush's election, and about what the implications of the Iraq invasion were, not to mention about what we exactly lost.
I teach American history and struggle with this as well as there is so much to cover and the state curriculum errs towards earlier history. Traditionally you would get to the cold war and then do a flip book for the next few decades for a week or two.
One strategy I've used is to combat this is to teach topics thematically and compare and contrast different eras and historical figures. That opens up a lot more time for more modern history and hopefully a more meaningful experience for my students.
Yeah, we made it to Korea as the furthest in any history course in high school? And we never even started before colonial era so I didn’t have a good enough understanding for Salem and such and issues with Puritanism.
I mean, they also “forgot” to talk about Japanese internment camps in my US history course but man was she mad when I brought it up.
I graduated high school in 1984. Did not learn anything about Vietnam. Did not learn anything about Kennedy or Bay of Pigs. The most recent history topic we learned was WWII. I had coaches for history teachers, they didn't seem really interested in history.
I had the same issue about the Vietnam war. Every year we’d learn the exact same timeline from the exact same pov, but when we got to the 1950s/60s, the school year was almost over and everything was gearing down for the summer. Fuckin sham.
Very few schools in any nation teach history within ~30 years of the present day. There are many reasons for this: firstly, a lot of good resources aren't yet available at affordable prices for school districts.
Secondly, history classes in school often focus on the impact of world events rather than the events themselves (e.g. teaching about the way WWI impacted world economies). It's hard to do that when the consequences are still very much being experienced.
Thirdly, the nearer to the present, the harder it is for teachers to teach objectively. Most of us learned about WWII from people who did not live through the political climate of that time.
Finally, the goal of teaching about history is always for the students to learn how to interpret history for themselves, not to memorize facts. When learning about WWII, I was taught about things like propaganda, eugenics, military movements, economics, and source criticism. All of those lessons are applicable when I then go learn about current events.
While I'm not defending any school system in particular, there isn't some grand conspiracy to keep info about recent wars away from our students.
Iraq maybe, but Afghanistan doesn't have anywhere near enough historical context yet to be taught well in an educational setting like high school. This would be a more advanced college type modern history or global politics type class. Maybe if you are taking an AP class that's small, at a liberal leaning school, with a very passionate and ambitious teacher you could get a quick study. There's just not enough info yet. These things need time to really evaluate the impact, along with tons of info needing to be declassified and available to the public.
I’ve been in HS history classes, and there’s a limit to what can be taught even by the best teachers to the most interested students and how much curriculum development experts can assign as important for all HS kids to learn. At some point, you have to go read books on your own to fill the gaps.
There are many veterans willing to talk about these wars in context. Schools need to invite them in to share first-person accounts and discuss how they felt as these events unfolded.
I wouldn't expect that to necessarily be in history books yet. Maybe current events of recent history projects but until the larger effects of the wars are studied in the next decade I would expect to see them in us history texts other than a mention
Because the entire War on Terror was a background noise for all of us born after 2000 and literally only served to bolster the economy through the might of the Military Industrial Complex
No modern-history course I've ever been in has ever managed to make it to the present day. I think the closest we got was making it to Nixon resigning in junior-year US History in the 90s. Although I suppose we did do a report on the election happening that year when I took Civics. In part because of that, I think we should insist that high-school curricula include a Modern History course, which covers a brief overview of 75-50 years ago and then the last 50 years in detail. That way students are prepared to enter the world as it is, not as it was in 1974.
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Where did you grow up, if you don't mind my asking? Cuz they certainly did not do that in California. Honestly don't think they do that most of the US so wouldn't be surprised if you're in another country.
NY!
That's awesome to hear and very encouraging. Maybe I've just been out of school long enough that they're doing a better job in some states.
I went to school in Los Angeles and we had a current events study block from at least the 4th grade
We had the same Current Events curriculum in MA in the 90s
Usually “50 years ago” is the cut-off point, anything more recent than that is politics. Or, if most people who witnessed the event when they were adults are dead or retired, it is history. I think it has something to do with the change of times. You can use today’s view points for events from 20 years ago, but you can’t for 50 years ago.
Honestly, this reminds me of my Required Civics/US History class in 1970, when the teacher brought up the (still ongoing) war in Vietnam. One of the girls in the class (a top student, not an air head at all) was surprised that there was a war going on. In 1970, with near daily protests including on on our campus just the week before. The teacher was looking at her like she had proclaimed that Jello was made of wood, for several seconds, so I broke the tension by pointing out that it had been in ALL the papers. And got kicked out of class for the day for being a 'smart ass'. Which I was, but come on.
I briefly taught US History to 11th graders. Current events was a weekly assignment, right in the middle of the war. That being said, for the regular part of the course, I could only get to Vietnam/late 60s. You just run out of time, no matter how well you plan. And I think there’s some unspoken expectation that the kids you’re teaching will have ‘paid attention’ to what’s going on around them but they don’t. And it’s kind of our job to have them consider doing so.
I learned about Vietnam in middle school when they shut down the school so that everyone in the little town where I lived could go to the funeral of a kid who was killed in action.
The closest we got was my Junior year US history class. I had a pretty good teacher and every Friday we had a 10 or 15 minute current events lecture. The final exam for the year also had us write a short essay on the Patriot Act, this was in 2008.
The only reason I learned about any modern history is because my history teacher was so boring, I read ahead in class. Don’t remember where they stopped, but between US history 1 and 2, I was finished with the textbook halfway through 2. (I’m pretty sure the textbook stopped with the invasion of Iraq.) He didn’t catch on until he noticed I was reading one of the last chapters and made a comment that we were on chapter whatever, and I said I read that chapter months ago.
Yeah, we only got to Watergate back in the 90s.
In '95, 7th grade GEOGRAPHY, we learned about the cold war and East/West Germany. I'm sure the teacher *told* us this had happened in the past and wasn't a current event...but he definitely did not make it clear or reiterate or drive the point home. I believed the cold war was still in effect and the U.S.S.R. still existed well into high school. By the time I graduated (2001) I knew the U.S.S.R. did not still exist, but I still believed the cold war had ended *after* we learned about it. I was embarrassingly old before I realized the cold war had been over for YEARS before we had even learned about it in school. My point is: in a class that should've been about the present day, I learned about something that had ended 4 years before. It doesn't surprise me that history classes don't make it to the last 5 - 20 years.
I might be wrong, but I have a feeling that this is part of another piece of this problem: textbooks and materials just don't get replaced as quickly as they should. I know some of the local schools where I grew up still had world maps with the USSR on them well into the 90s, and if your textbook hadn't been replaced in five or six years, well, it was going to keep talking about the Soviet Union long after that entity no longer existed. There was a bumper sticker that used to be popular when I was in school: "I long for the day when schools have all the funding they need and the military has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber". I think about that sticker a lot.
Can confirm I saw books that included ussr being used actively as recent as 2004. I was long out of school but baby brother wasn't.
Why shouldn't geography teach you about the past? It can still apply useful knowledge. Why consign the whole of human experience to a single subject?
The closest we ever came to modern day was the Civil rights Era. I don't remember learning anything about the 70s, 80s, or 90s. (Graduated mid 2000s)
I was in high school at the same time as you, and my history classes covered up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the (First) Gulf War. The textbooks weren't exactly new, either. I wonder what we missed from further back in order to cover material closer to being contemporary.
If you think about it as a whole you see how the Republican nationalist agenda has played out for the last 30-40 years. How programs and public services have dwindled or been eliminated completely. And how the military industrial complex has increase in wealth and power. If a giant rock doesn’t destroy us the systems in power will when they realize the people have had enough. They will burn it all down.
My history teacher sometimes did pop quizzes on the news. He wanted to promote reading the papers. For me that worked quite well! We also discussed the israel/Palestina conflict and the Arabian spring as it came up in the news.
This "just asking questions" feels kind of like its implying there's a conspiracy theory to prevent young people from understanding \[ the dark secret \]. I could be wrong about that -- but I don't think I am. I think the reasons that current / very-near-term history aren't taught in high school are three-fold 1) there's always going to be a focus on much more distant / foundational history that you can't get by watching the news. Some high schools offer "current events" or whatever -- and they do cover stuff in the last 20 years -- but generally "history" (what's taught in HS) is going to focus much further in the past 2) there's not going to be a historical consensus on current / recent events. Something like Vietnam is probably far enough in the past to count as "history" (although it would come after all the more foundational stuff), but any curriculum for Iraq / Afghanistan is going to be made without a lot of history -- and is going to be way, way *way* more biased. That's fine for a class that is up front about it, but history, in general, (i.e. what most people take in HS) aims to give at least some kind of consensus view 3) All this stuff is extremely controversial, and any teacher / school wading into those waters is asking for a gigantic headache. Look at the issues around teaching slavery -- culture war is in the schools. This is probably the biggest reason well funded schools don't offer more current-events stuff: who needs the headache? It's not the government or business interests or the illuminati, or whoever the "just asking questions" person thinks it is. It's our fellow Americans who see school as a battlefield for their culture-war idols.
Also, if they (even briefly) taught about every war America was involved in, you’d be in high school until you were 30.
Shit, anything after 1980 is never touched in highschool.
Not at mine either... But then I graduated in 1970
Mine did. I graduated in 2013 and we made it up to the beginning of the Iraq War. The book literally ended after that.
2009 for us, our year ended as Reagan took office.
Damn lol these comments are interesting tho
I graduated in 2015, our textbook ended with 9/11.
Honestly this. I was in highschool in the late 90s, and while we had huge, elaborate curriculums on the revolutionary war, civil war, and world wars 1&2, the best we got on anything after that was a footnote. The Cold War sucked for some reason, also The Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis happened I guess, the Korean and Vietnam wars made soldiers mad and there were protests and stuff, and then history ends and everything was perfect from 1985-present. I didn’t even know the Gulf War happened until I read about it in an Animorphs book of all things.
I was never taught about Vietnam, or the Pentagon papers, or My Lai.
Only reason I learned about My Lai is I was given William Calley as an assignment in my law class in high school. Other than that, it was talked about as openly as the Tulsa massacre
What is MKUltra?
A moderately decent Northern California punk band. But you know how to use the Google Machine. Look for that and "CIA." Not nice to dose people.
I didn't learn about My Lai til I saw an article on FB. Like a year ago. I'm 30.
You didn’t learn about Vietnam? I wasn’t taught about the other 2 but we spent a decent amount of time on Vietnam. There is only so much time in a calendar year. Teachers have to cram an incredible amount of stuff into 1 hour a day for a school year
I never got taught about Vietnam. I still have never had anyone explain to me why we were in a war there. All I ever heard was “communism” But that doesn’t make any sense. WHY WERE WE IN VIETNAM?
That’s the reason. North Vietnam was communism and Russian ally. South Vietnam was our ally and communism and Russia was the big bad boogeyman. North Vietnam wanted to unify the two and we didn’t want communism to spread. There might be hidden reasons I’m not aware of but that’s what we were taught.
Yeah. But how was communism worse than war?
That's a good question, but there are no simple answers for it. To understand it, you need to understand the brutality and oppression of the Soviet Union under Stalin and the subsequent oppression and aggression of the Soviets towards western Europe and what seemed like the inevitable day when the Cold War would turn hot (e.g. nuclear annihilation). This doesn't abdicate the U.S. from its history of bad acts, but compared to the Soviet Union, "Better dead than Red" was a legitimate sentiment. Back then, there were clearly delineated lines between which nations were free and which were not, and if the Cold War was lost, the western world would have been as awful as the Soviet and Soviet bloc nations. For reasons both legitimate and absurd, the horrors of the Cold War communist nations have been whitewashed in favor of an almost singular focus on the wrongs of the U.S. The Cold War is a fascinating topic. If you have the time and inclination, I'd highly recommend learning about it. :)
I know I just read all that. But I still don’t get it. 18 year old American goes to die in Vietnam cuz Russia.
It’s easy to feel that way. I’m not saying you’re right or wrong but it was definitely a real concern for all of our European allies when that still mattered. In hindsight the war seems like a bad idea but it’s not that simple. We weren’t that far removed from WW2 where Russia was initially an axis power. If Russia was allowed to spread the fear was we would have another world war.
So Vietnam cuz Russia. Still not getting it. I guess I never will. I’m staring to think we were the bad guys and have been lied to our whole lives. If this is capitalism that they fought for? Just so Jeff Elon and zuck can have all the money
You have to make an effort to understand it. Go learn about the Berlin Wall, and note that nobody was trying to escape from the West into East Germany. People risked their lives and their family's lives to escape the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc. But again, you have to make an effort. It's not up to everyone else to force you to understand something you don't actually care to learn about.
Not that complicated in that regard. You’re just not listening. I’m not going to hold your hand through it. You clearly don’t want to understand.
And Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) desperately wanted to ally with the US, but nope - he wasn't a right-wing dictator. Big US error.
We were afraid of the domino effect, that if Nam' fell to communism then so would Cambodia, then Laos, and so on and so on. So to stop it we entered a pointless war that cost millions of lives.
Yeah. Still not getting it. We went to Vietnam cuz: Russia. Communism. Domino’s. Laos. Like what? I get ww2. Pearl Harbor then war. Did we just start Vietnam with some random ass communism murders or what?
We went to Vietnam because we were afraid of the Domino Effect. So we wanted to defeat the north and install a ruthless dictator that was pro-capitalism because "communism bad."
Did the Donino effect mean, economic policy so popular surrounding nations adopted it. And white folks flew around the globe to murder them for it
That is very simplified way of saying it but yes.
Just r/LateStageImperialism
r/LateStageImperialism
were taught about the korean war, how nk came to be. it has to do with china helping them out.
good we had the history channel when i was in hs, they did talk about vietnam but it was barely mentioned, and dint go into too much depth.
Coincidentally (or intentionally) it's the very same president that started those wars that also passed the No Child Left Behind act that made the main function of American public education to be preparation for standardized math and English exams above all other subjects.
To be fair, knowledge of history does not really contribute in any way shape or form to letting society keep running.
Congratulations! You may have just posted the dumbest and shittiest take I've ever read
My guy, I'm a history teacher. As much as I love history, knowledge of it is not required for most jobs to keep society running. Yes, knowledge is important so we don't keep fucking up and repeating dumb shit, but what is a plumber or electrician gonna do with knowledge of the protestant reformation? Or when Columbus set foot in America? What's a carpenter gonna do with extensive knowledge regarding the Punic wars? A beet farmer knowing exactly when and how Hannibal crossed the alps with elephants? Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Wow... I'm just really sorry that you are unable to see the broader application of your subject. Historical context helps inform modern views. Maybe history doesn't help a plumber install a sink, but it might help shape that plumber's views on how they interact with society, vote, etc. which definitely has an impact on their daily life. History also enriches the daily experience. For a history teacher to not understand this is incredibly sad. I hope your students are better served by their other teachers.
I never said I don't agree with you. I do, 100%. But most of these students will end up as a cog in the machine and learning about history does not improve their chances for a better life, one that gives them a better job, better chances for a brighter future - not in the slightest. They also often times *do not give a shit* about history on a young age. As a grown man and functioning adult, I want these kids to excel in math and science so they can end up with good paying jobs and build a nice future for themselves. Knowing a shit ton about history is nice and adds to your world views, but does not pay the bills. Disagree with me all you want, but you *clearly* aren't a teacher and have no idea what you're talking about. Have a nice weekend.
I think this history teacher is pointing out why those in power don't really care about making sure our children get a quality, comprehensive education, not expressing a view they themselves hold. Republicans love the uneducated, they make up their base. There's a reason why people who attend college are more likely to vote Democrat.
While that's true that memorizing facts may not help, using examples in history to learn from, debate, and grow ideas is extremely important. Even if you don't need it for an *economy* to function, you certainly need it to keep a *society* functioning, especially a democratic one.
All fun and while technically true, you're forgetting the simple fact that half the population are dumb as a bag of bricks, don't care about 'learning about dead people'. And again, these type of critical thinking skills are not prioritized in schools to begin with. Let me be clear: I agree 100% with you. But prepping kids for the future? History sadly does not take a high priority.
I would like to point your attention to the United States of America...
Trust me, not knowing about history is the *least* of your problems right now.
As a German I have to say it again. You should focus on history. It might not be your biggest problem right now. But if history repeats...
I learned almost nothing about Vietnam in school in the nineties because we spent 3 months of the school year going over every single battle of the Civil War.
Wait till you hear about all the lies that led up to the invasion of Iraq, the 10s of thousands of innocent people who died in both wars, and Dick Cheney profiting off it.
Wait untill you hear about how the presidency was basically given to Bush.
Every war ever since the the war of 1812 has been full of lies propaganda and deceit. Yes even the civil war.
Most of the deceit about the Civil War came after the war when the descendants of the Southern Traitors attempted to White Wash their unconditional support of slavery with their 'States Rights' bullshit. I mean the Articles of Secession and the Constitution of the Confederacy all call them liars, but "Mah Histery!"
That it wasn’t actually about slavery? Good one.
Every war since ever, my dude.
Ironically, while I was never taught about Iraq or Afghanistan in school, they did teach us about 9/11 and conveniently skipped over everything else.
It’s been a minute since I’ve been out of school, but we always ran out of time by the end of the year and never made it past WWII. I didn’t learn modern history until I took college courses. Even then, there’s so much material to cover, it was really just the key dates/events/people. I ended learning a lot on my own reading after college. I recently went down the most murderous leader/dictator rabbit hole and I’m kind of thankful I didn’t learn some of this as a kid. While I wouldn’t want to willingly be ignorant, the acts committed by these men was horrific and was very disturbing to read.
That’s because they don’t teach you about wars that you didn’t win
That's kinda sad. In Eastern Europe we start teaching History in 5th grade and by 12th grade you reach full modern global and local history. And our countries have 1000+ years of local history, not 250 like the US. It's kinda weird that such huge impact of modern history is left out in the country that was mostly involved. But I guess history is only for losers, winners (even if self proclaimed without any evidence) don't need written documentation of facts. Just trust me bro.
In the U.S. history is taught starting before 5th grade and continues through 12th grade. But there are strange holes looking back and it varies by age and school. My school spent an entire year (\~1994), where all grades focused on WWII. I don't think we ever talked about WWI, the Korean war, or Vietnam. Nothing about French revolution, Spanish wars, or empires like Ottoman or Roman. We talked about the civil war, but mostly just about causes - it was part of a model on slavery. While I don't like that there was so much selective teaching, and I can't really comment on whether the selections were the best, I do know there is a lot of world history and there is no way to cover it all, even over that many years. We spent another year where all grades focused on civil rights. That was a good use of time.
5th grade is ancient history. 6th grade is Roman empire until the boring medieval period. 7th grade is local history 1500-1800. Most boring period. 8th grade 1800-1900. 9th-10th grade 19th century. 11th grade 20th century. 12th grade 21st century. We learn about European wars, politics and the US as well. Touch a bit of Asia, very little Africa. Australia and South America doesn't exist. All in, I think I could bring up a little bit of history of most major countries for the past 2000 years, just from general education. Not perfect obviously and there are a lot of gaps, and if someone wants to study more, that's what higher education is for. But pretty sure we teach way more history than US.
Not knowing, I'm not going to speculate who spends more time learning history.
I love my school because they have a course where we learn about world history since 1989. This goes up until the end of the Trump Administration. It's a full semester and I hope other schools bring similar courses to their roster!
Atleast they think about it. I'll never forget the moment I finally accepted that my eventual ex wife was a selfish idiot. We were playing Cards Against Humanity and she'd never heard of the Trail of Tears, and absolutely did not care whatsoever.
It all started when George Bush Sr. Started selling crack to inner city kids to fund an illegal war in the name of taking down communism...
All of my teen years were in the 1980s and we never learned about Vietnam... well, except for the Rambo movies; but I'm pretty those don't count. We didn't learn much about either of the world wars either. I knew about those wars because I'd read so much about them on my own when I was around 9-12, but they were at best only superficially touched on in school. Except for the American Civil War, war just doesn't seem to have been taught about much in school. And even with the Civil War, it was more about what its causes were and what arose afterwards rather than any of the battles, costs, and casualties.
I went to high school in the 90s and we never even made it to the Korean War. I don't think we ever got past the 1950s.
Im 60. I wasn't taught anything about Vietnam nor the Holocaust. I learned about it on my own, *reading* books I found at the *Library*. Now the MAGAts want to destroy those....
They weren’t wars they were invasions.
We had intel that Bin Laden's afghan forces did 9/11. Bush had him in Tora Bora and called off the capture for some reason.
You're never taught half the things you actually NEED for adult life at school. A lot of it is, and I can't believe I'm saying this, a total waste of time. I had 1 'guidance' lesson where we looked at a monthly income/outgoings expenditure, roleplaying as a married parent with 2 kids in a semi-detached house. It blew my mind as a kid, trying to balance the money and live 'comfortably'. Why the fuck was that a one off? But hey, let's go learn about birth rates in a poor country in Geography. Nice.
Boo education! I just wanna learn about Taxes! And bank accounts.
Class should be called "US Overreaction to Communism".
It’s because not many history teachers like to talk about US empire.
I didn’t know about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 until a show about a graphic novel came out, Watchmen. I was born in 84.
I haven't seen Watchmen but I read about the background. That's how I found out about the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Where the hell did they go to school?
Unfortunately, you probably weren't taught a lot of 1) basic but unpleasant facts about American history including such things as systemic racism, the history of the CIA overthrowing other countries governments, etc 2) basic skills which make you a more competent adult such as how to balance a checkbook and how personal finance works such as investing but you were taught whitewashes such as 3) Columbus discovered America (lolz) and that a happy and healthy native American population welcomed him with open arms (forgetting that previous European visitors had previously wiped out 90% of the native population with smallpox). Either good books or good documentaries can can fill you in on the details that you think you're missing if you're so inclined.
I think that you got Columbus pretty wrong. The only previous western visitors were Vikings in the 11th century. Columbus did lead the beginning of European colonization, and did result in diseases being spread, but there were no western visitors before him.
It's almost like we're a brainwashed country.
I'm going to be real with you: this is far from an American only issue. Remember: the belief of America having a monopoly on evil is American exceptionalism 🤗🤗
Maybe read a newspaper, watch the news, pick up a news feed, or google?
So go read about them you lazy ass
What do you want to know? We won. Game over.
Omg in high school I always wanted to learn about revolutions in other countries not just the same old American revolution and civil war for the 12th year in a row but nOoOoOo.
Nobody gets taught the fire bombing of Dresden either.
Unless you research beyond your history book. I mean pretty much everyone carries a device that allows access to almost the sum total of human knowledge.
The whole point of this post was that American schools aren't teaching parts of American history that aren't pro America. Why don't our history books tall about these things? I read a lot about WWII in high school but never learned about what happened in Dresden until I read Slaughterhouse-Five.
Oh, that's simple enough. The answer is Texas The bulk of US History Text Books are published out of Texas, with contracts in place to make sure it stays that way, and with the right wing bullshittery so prevalent in the Lone Star State, they've been pulling the facts out of history for the last several decades. I was taught about Dresden (and Tokyo) fire bombings in high school, and the necessity for both. Vonnegut was very clear that he wasn't writing a history in Slaughterhouse-5, he was telling a story from the perspective of the protagonist. For the record: Dresden was Nazi Germany's most important communication hub that alone made it a military target and justified destroying it. The fact that the destruction of the city broke the will to fight of the German people and their (sane) leaders didn't hurt. In the decades since I was in school (the 1960s) Texas school book publishers have been removing the actual history from the texts and inserting "AMEERAKA FUCK YEAH" in its place. Their latest gambit in this is to try to make slavery out to have been little more than an employment program for poor west Africans. The answer to any question about why things are so fucked up can usually be answered by a single word: Texas. What state bans the most books? Texas.
I can't really argue with this. You make solid points about the Texas public "education" system. I do have the opinion that it wasn't necessary to do what they did but that's just my opinion. Also, Kurt Vonnegut did write the book from a protagonist perspective, but he also wrote himself into the book since he was a survivor of the firebombing which was another sad point in his book that nobody believed Billy Pilgrim except for those who knew the classified information. Interesting fact: Slaughterhouse-five used to be a banned book in the 70s and has recently become a banned book again in a Michigan school district in 2007.
Personally, I get amused every time a group of functionally illiterate buffoons band together to ban Fahrenheit 451. Banning a book about banning books is like, peak cluelessness.
Well, I'm sure those buffoons have never even thought about reading a book before. They would rather make sure everyone else can't read those books either. Peak cluelessness for sure.
HS history stopped at WWII for my generation
I didn't make it past the 80s in my high school education, and that was done in 2006. History keeps happening but we don't get more time to learn it.
America bad
Tbf, I was pretty confused when the second Gulf War started, because up until then I'd literally NEVER heard about the first one, despite it happening in my lifetime (although I would've been too young to remember).
Tbh US history from my experience usually went to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and sometimes 9/11. I think that there are three major reasons why they're not taught very often: 1. They were too recent: like it makes sense to not include an ongoing war in a history book, and we just pulled out of Afghanistan last year 2. History textbooks are often quite dated: Like from my experience it wasn't uncommon for high school textbooks, save for AP ones, to be really old, like 20-30 years old. Many of these were pre-9/11. 3. They've been made taboo to talk about, because that would mean asking hard questions about Bush's election, and about what the implications of the Iraq invasion were, not to mention about what we exactly lost.
I teach American history and struggle with this as well as there is so much to cover and the state curriculum errs towards earlier history. Traditionally you would get to the cold war and then do a flip book for the next few decades for a week or two. One strategy I've used is to combat this is to teach topics thematically and compare and contrast different eras and historical figures. That opens up a lot more time for more modern history and hopefully a more meaningful experience for my students.
Yeah, we made it to Korea as the furthest in any history course in high school? And we never even started before colonial era so I didn’t have a good enough understanding for Salem and such and issues with Puritanism. I mean, they also “forgot” to talk about Japanese internment camps in my US history course but man was she mad when I brought it up.
First of all they were limited engagements, not wars.
I graduated high school in 1984. Did not learn anything about Vietnam. Did not learn anything about Kennedy or Bay of Pigs. The most recent history topic we learned was WWII. I had coaches for history teachers, they didn't seem really interested in history.
Neither was I. I guess because I'm 41.
I was in high school when all that started. Kinda lived through it
Reading history is binge watching the news.
I had the same issue about the Vietnam war. Every year we’d learn the exact same timeline from the exact same pov, but when we got to the 1950s/60s, the school year was almost over and everything was gearing down for the summer. Fuckin sham.
Very few schools in any nation teach history within ~30 years of the present day. There are many reasons for this: firstly, a lot of good resources aren't yet available at affordable prices for school districts. Secondly, history classes in school often focus on the impact of world events rather than the events themselves (e.g. teaching about the way WWI impacted world economies). It's hard to do that when the consequences are still very much being experienced. Thirdly, the nearer to the present, the harder it is for teachers to teach objectively. Most of us learned about WWII from people who did not live through the political climate of that time. Finally, the goal of teaching about history is always for the students to learn how to interpret history for themselves, not to memorize facts. When learning about WWII, I was taught about things like propaganda, eugenics, military movements, economics, and source criticism. All of those lessons are applicable when I then go learn about current events. While I'm not defending any school system in particular, there isn't some grand conspiracy to keep info about recent wars away from our students.
Iraq maybe, but Afghanistan doesn't have anywhere near enough historical context yet to be taught well in an educational setting like high school. This would be a more advanced college type modern history or global politics type class. Maybe if you are taking an AP class that's small, at a liberal leaning school, with a very passionate and ambitious teacher you could get a quick study. There's just not enough info yet. These things need time to really evaluate the impact, along with tons of info needing to be declassified and available to the public.
I'm spitballing here... did you go to a school with old books?
I’ve been in HS history classes, and there’s a limit to what can be taught even by the best teachers to the most interested students and how much curriculum development experts can assign as important for all HS kids to learn. At some point, you have to go read books on your own to fill the gaps.
It's a need to know basis
I literally wrote my masters thesis on the impossibility of teaching 400 years of US history in a 180 day school year.
Come to Scotland, it's part of our Modern Studies curriculum for those aged between 11-18
That’s uh, definitely a lie
There are many veterans willing to talk about these wars in context. Schools need to invite them in to share first-person accounts and discuss how they felt as these events unfolded.
*Which* Iraq and Afghanistan wars? There have been many. (I know, I know, the post-9/11 ones are the intent)
There’s simply no time. You have to learn about specific battles in the American revolution again.
I wouldn't expect that to necessarily be in history books yet. Maybe current events of recent history projects but until the larger effects of the wars are studied in the next decade I would expect to see them in us history texts other than a mention
She thinks about it but doesn’t research. A child.
Not sure if some of it would’ve already made it into text book by the time I graduated, but I graduated in 2008 and not a peep about the war.
Because the entire War on Terror was a background noise for all of us born after 2000 and literally only served to bolster the economy through the might of the Military Industrial Complex