History from other perspectives

[EricKei]

Same thing when I was in (pre-college) school. Anything after WWII was pretty much all lumped into one chapter, and unlikely to even be on the final.

[daleduke17]

Same thing when I was in (pre-college) school. Anything after WWII was pretty much all lumped into one chapter, and unlikely to even be on the final.

American History after WWII: What was yesterday's date?

[bex1218]

Here is how my history education played out:
Coupled with English lessons in Queens, New York
3rd grade was on the Revolutionary War
4th no history
5th was mostly on Aztec and Mayans
6th was on Roman and Greek history

Moved to where I am now
7th was random geography
8th was on the Civil War mostly, but only about the war itself. Then we went a bit backwards and I had to read the Greivences (sp?) on the Declaration of Independance
9th had no history lesson
10th was ancient history then we as a class chose to learn WWI and WWII
11th was WWI-modern times ('08)
12th had no history class

The college course I took had history, but the teacher was useless. Mostly gave opinions on stuff than taught.

I love learning about history. Right now I am stuck on the Tudor history (thanks to my 12th grade english teacher, hilariously enough).

[violiav]

Is centrism for history fairly common, or is it mainly in younger countries? Say, in England are there different regional histories told? Essex vs Dover, for example?
I went to elementary, middle, and high school in California; so living in Texas, I don't know why, but I am continually surprised that the kids don't know the same stuff as I did when I was their age.
In California history was: Revolutionary War, some War of 1812, the colonization of California by Spain, skip straight to Gold Rush, statehood, and Civil War.
ETA: I lived in San Diego so even state history was from a San Diego-centric point of view.

[Greenday]

I know a lot of kids in PA I went to university with had history classes that focused on their state. We didn't do that in my school.

History classes in middle school mainly focuses on the events leading up the the American Revolution and would finish with WWII. History in 8th grade started with the Magna Carta and finished with how WWII shaped the world.

In high school, the first semester of history started with the Magna Carta and finished right before WWI. My second semester, my first teacher skipped WWI (If she knew any history of wars I'd be surprise), taught a bunch of random stuff that happened in the US between the two world wars, then the teacher who took over the class taught a shit ton about WWII including the Africa campaign and Pacific Campaign. She knew her stuff.

College, I took a gen ed history course. Started before the Magna Carta, back when the Ottoman Empire was around, how that shaped Europe and the trade routes to the rest of the world. Magna Carta, US settlement in great detail, slave trade, American Revolution, Civil War, WWI, and WWII.

Never had a class go beyond WWII. I spoke to my little cousin's class when I came home from Afghanistan about my experiences. It blew my mind when some kid asked why we are fighting there. I didn't realize until that point that the kids in his class weren't alive for 9/11. 9/11 was something they've only heard about in their text books.

[violiav]

I forgot something- almost all of my history classes talked about ancient man crossing over the bearing straight to north America.

[Ginger Tea]

It's been a while, but tbh I don't think America was even meantioned once in my History classes save for being listed as an alie in both the world wars, what the Americans did came second fiddle to our POV and the Japanese (fighting primarily against the States) might not as well have been listed as enemies as unless it was fought with British soldiers, whichever battle unless frigging important, was just ignored.

[AdminAssistant]

In 5th grade we covered Arkansas history, and also took a trip to the Old State House and Capitol Building where we got to meet our Representative and Governor. Sadly, I missed Clinton by a couple of years, so I got my picture with Jim Guy Tucker...who was later kicked out of office because of the Whitewater scandal, sent to jail, and died. Oh well.

[bex1218]

It's been a while, but tbh I don't think America was even meantioned once in my History classes save for being listed as an alie in both the world wars, what the Americans did came second fiddle to our POV and the Japanese (fighting primarily against the States) might not as well have been listed as enemies as unless it was fought with British soldiers, whichever battle unless frigging important, was just ignored.

That reminds me, we actually did talk about the events leading up to WWI outside of the US in my 10th grade class (15-16). Shocker, really. It wasn't all Americanized like most people are taught.

[daleduke17]

It's been a while, but tbh I don't think America was even meantioned once in my History classes save for being listed as an alie in both the world wars, what the Americans did came second fiddle to our POV and the Japanese (fighting primarily against the States) might not as well have been listed as enemies as unless it was fought with British soldiers, whichever battle unless frigging important, was just ignored.

Out of curiosity, how was D-Day taught to you?

[Ginger Tea]

Honestly can't remember what the schools taught, but don't get my post wrong, we were aware of American soldiers fighting, but we focused on Tommies effort against the Jerries.

I in no way meant to imply that what America did wasn't important and D-Day as stated was frigging important, it's the asia pacific aspects of the war I know sod all about save from hollywoodified history.

If there were any American only fights in Europe, they were listed as Allied forces bla bla bla and as we were also Allied forces, well unless specificly emphasised by the teacher any and all accounts of Allied forces were autocorrected to mean us not US.

[daleduke17]

Honestly can't remember what the schools taught, but don't get my post wrong, we were aware of American soldiers fighting, but we focused on Tommies effort against the Jerries.

I in no way meant to imply that what America did wasn't important and D-Day as stated was frigging important, it's the asia pacific aspects of the war I know sod all about save from hollywoodified history.

If there were any American only fights in Europe, they were listed as Allied forces bla bla bla and as we were also Allied forces, well unless specificly emphasised by the teacher any and all accounts of Allied forces were autocorrected to mean us not US.

I was just curious, I wasn't trying to be sarcastic. Just wondering how it was handled in history there.

I know very little of the Pacific Theatre battles outside of Pearl Harbor, Midway and Iwo Jima. (Hiroshima and Nagasaki not included).

[Ginger Tea]

Most of our WWII lessons were when I was in primary school around 10ish, we had bits here and there throughout secondary school (perhaps cos I changed school I sat it twice?).
Perhaps they thought if they got something full of explosions early people would get hooked and want to know more about history in general, we had a lesson here and there on something which was always out of sync with a fortnightly magazine called discovery which I did enjoy reading, even if it wasn't comprehensive.

The whole start of WWI I found out about way later during a BBC documentory or a bought in Discovery/History Channel show on one of the comercial stations, I can't recall if it was before or after I had heard of the band Franz Ferdinand.

We've been at war with the french god knows how many times, yet aside from the Norman conquest (which was pre france AFAIK) I have no idea how many times we lost as we were never taught about 'those' wars, you will notice the lack of capitalization there, I've started to say the Normans hated the french as much as we do that they 'invaded' our country to get away from them and we said "we'll point out our king by putting an arrow over his head."

Sod what really happened in those days, unless the tardis is around, history to me is rarely touched upon although I have started to watch the bbc's Nazi's a warning from history on bbc Iplayer though yeolde roman numerals I think were saying 1990's although I'm not sure, was always crap at those so can never date a BBC program before the MM's

Edit:
All war movies made at the time were propaganda, yet I wonder how many German/Italian movies of the time survived, although I might get hazy on which are post war movies, I can name quite a few British war movies, American ones might be post war as they were mostly John Wayne ones I saw, yet my knowlege of German cinema of the time is scant, basically it goes Metropolis and other Fritz Lang movies, nothing then Lola Rent (Run Lola Run).

[AdminAssistant]

There are a number of excellent German films on WWII, the Holocaust, and the post-war period...my favorites are Mephisto and The Lives of Others. Not German, but honorable mention goes to Conspiracy, about the Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution was approved.

ETA: Forgot to mention Goodbye, Lenin about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

[Ginger Tea]

Are they made during the war though?
My concern is in light of his book burnings, did we do the same with the films showing the Nazi's as the good guys to blitz torn Germans before things went south, for example the movie shown at the end of Inglorious Bastards (although that one wasn't real obv.).

Granted alot would be anti Semetic, but I'm sure there would be quite alot like our movies where it was just average soldiers fighting in the trenches and winning small victories killing many a Tommy or American.