Should history be taught in schools before High School?

[jackfaire]

In Elementary School they taught me that Native Americans loved the European Settlers and welcomed them with open arms celebrating the exchange of culture and ideas.

In High School they went "oh by the way that was a lie here's what really happened"

If all we are telling kids about History is sanitized and white washed to avoid telling kids that things aren't always rosy then why bother teaching them History at all?

Why not wait until we are willing to teach them the real history? Wouldn't it be easier to teach them what really happened than to have to explain to them which parts of what we taught them were real and which parts were us just making ourselves look good?

[Greenday]

High school is way too late for that kind of thing. Kids need to be aware of history before then. My school system broke things up into three schools: K-3, 4-8, and 9-12. Fourth grade, they are old enough to learn not everything is sunshine but we don't have to beat them over the head with how much the world sucks.

[Daskinor]

This is my second biggest pet peeve with the american school systems, number one being we teach math in the most stupid way possible.

And in essence its the same problem. When children are younger we just teach events. We don't teach history as an interconnected thing, where each event has another event that influenced it. Its really hard to teach events like Thanksgiving, without talking about plagues and previous English settlements. So we gloss over the hard concepts and try to distill it down into ideas they can understand. That's how we get ideas like the Native Americans and settlers were friends because they only have a simple understating of black and white.

You can teach the American revolution in easy terms like patriotism and good vs bad, but you don't get the truth. You need to teach children concepts that define humanity as a whole. You teach the ideas and how they came to be. You teach how we became farmers, the evolution of trade, why and when we started to pay taxes, what a plague is, etc.... So when they are ready you can put those ideas together you can teach why something happened without needing to gloss over or oversimplify key events.

How this is the same problem as math, is we teach this is how something is not why it is. We teach that this person at this time did this, not why it matters. We teach if you do this mechanical method of solving a math problem, but not how the numbers are being manipulated.

[s_stabeler]

I actually think that it's more that for younger kids, the "simplifications" end up being outright lies- if kids aren't old enough to learn the truth, only mention the event in passing, and tell them the truth when they are old enough to handle it.

[jackfaire]

How this is the same problem as math, is we teach this is how something is not why it is. We teach that this person at this time did this, not why it matters. We teach if you do this mechanical method of solving a math problem, but not how the numbers are being manipulated.

Even worse than that. I had a fight with the math teacher who tried to teach me negative numbers because he refused to admit my previous math teacher had lied to me.

He kept defending the teacher that had told us 5-3 is the same as 3-5. It made it hard to get for me until I realized that the previous teacher had either lied to me or was an idiot. It was also the first time I realized that teachers were fallible.

Every time a I was taught "that thing you learned was a lie"

But I also agree not building a foundation is wrong. That Why is very important you can't go back later and add a foundation to make kids understand.

To this day I have no clue what the reason for teaching us both printing and cursive was. Why is one form of writing okay and not the other?

Why is Printing my "printed" name but signature is always cursive.

[TheHuckster]

Even worse than that. I had a fight with the math teacher who tried to teach me negative numbers because he refused to admit my previous math teacher had lied to me.

When I was in 3rd grade I had a huge fight with a friend who insisted negative numbers simply didn't exist. His teacher at least didn't say 5-3 was the same as 3-5 but she did tell him simply that "you can't do 3-5" as if it's like dividing by zero. I even showed him on a calculator 3-5 was -2 and he said the calculator was wrong. It drove me nuts.

Every time a I was taught "that thing you learned was a lie"

It's not just highschool, either. Colleges do the same stuff sometimes. I had a 500-level class that contradicted what I learned in the 100-200 levels, and the professors simply said "it was to simplify it so you didn't get confused." Yeah, well guess what? You failed at that attempt to not confuse me because I sure as hell am confused now.

Why is Printing my "printed" name but signature is always cursive.

I always figured it's because it's faster to sign it with cursive.

[MadMike]

Every time a I was taught "that thing you learned was a lie"

On a somewhat related note, I have crappy handwriting. I tried to force myself to write it the way the teacher wanted to look, and I eventually went from getting C's in Penmanship to A's and B's. Then when I got to the next grade, that teacher didn't like the way I was writing, and I was back to C's for the same penmanship. After that, I decided, "Screw it, I have crappy writing, and there's nothing I can do about it!"

Why is Printing my "printed" name but signature is always cursive.

Legally, your signature doesn't have to be cursive. You can print your name if you choose that for your signature style. I was told that it's recommended to use cursive because it's harder to forge.

[jackfaire]

Legally, your signature doesn't have to be cursive. You can print your name if you choose that for your signature style. I was told that it's recommended to use cursive because it's harder to forge.

Good to know. And actually unless the person has an example of your signature and you write your signature the exact same way every single time that's ridiculous.

I have never signed my name the same way twice. I have shit handwriting. I am an amazing typist though. Good to know about the signature thing though. I have seen people's signatures that are literally just squiggles that if someone can read they are worth 10 Einsteins.

[s_stabeler]

actually, legally, it doesn't even have to be your own name. What's illegal is signing a contract when you don't intend to be bound by the terms of the contract. (granted, if they say "um, please could you sign it with your actual name please?" provided no actual consideration has been handed over yet, most courts would side with them.)