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To my knowledge, a countries education tends to focus on the country itself. American education teaches a lot about the US but little about the history of spec

by zaarn 8y ago

To my knowledge, a countries education tends to focus on the country itself. American education teaches a lot about the US but little about the history of specific European countries and in turn EU countries teach little about American history ( IIRC during my education we covered the entirety of the US history in half a year and then went back to more local history ) It's always quite amazing to realize that other countries mostly have just as much of a rich history as your own.

mattmanser 8y ago
This wasn't true in the UK when I was at school 20 years ago. Admittedly, the 'general' history we did in the first 3 years of secondary school (11-14) we covered mostly western history, but it covered Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, etc. We did some English history (Boudicca, Alfred, is all I can remember now). In the optional GCSE History I did (14-16) we did little English history as far as I remember and covered inter-war Germany + rise of Hitler, Vietnam war, Chinese Communist Revolution, formation of Israel, Cuban Missile Crisis and probably some more I've now forgotten. EDIT: I actually now remember we did cover Cromwell + English Civil war as well as William the Orange and the Suez crisis, probably at least one of those in GCSE. Slightly modified to reflect this. A lot of those do directly impact the UK, although when we covered China, it was still fairly weak compared to its present position in the world.
- amaccuish 8y ago
  Left school 4 years ago now. At primary, it's mostly kings and queen's, magna carta etc. Secondary it's mainly WWI/II (including "roaring 20s US" and Weimar). For sixth form it's the USSR, America, and I think China (I didn't do A-level history). (This was the AQA course anyway) Weirdly we learnt almost nothing about the British Empire, which I think is sad because some people have a rose-tinted view of it. You can't begin to form an actual opinion until you know the history, the good and the bad etc.
  - mattmanser 8y ago
    If the exam boards still work the same way, different boards have different historical subjects, and I think they might even have a range of historical subjects that the teacher can be pick from, so not every school is the same. I've learnt a lot of my English history from Bernard Cornwell historical fiction books.
rezeroed 8y ago
Focus of education can be split even further than country. My step brothers and I went to different schools, and I remember being surprised to discover my history lessons focused on the historical relevance of one city, theirs on the history of another. Public vs private schools.
mariusmg 8y ago
> IIRC during my education we covered the entirety of the US history in half a year And whats wrong with this ? It shouldn't take multiple years to teach the history of a country who's been around for ~250 years now.
- zaarn 8y ago
  The US has a much longer history than 250 years. Our education covered everything starting from ancient civilizations. Most of modern US state history was squished in at the end.
  - Radim 8y ago
    Is it common to refer to ancient American civilizations as "US history"? Here in Europe, US is understood to mean United States, the country (declaration of independence and all that jazz). America(s) is a separate concept.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Yes. It's the history of the territory that's the present day US.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      I would consider it part of US history, it's simply what was there before the US as today was established. European history doesn't start where the last government was established either, it goes back all the way, regardless of who happened to think it was their country at the time. The state inherits history.
      - howard941 8y ago
        Well said. Would only add that US history, well-taught, cannot help but entrain classical Greek and Roman history and culture.
        8y ago
Radim 8y ago
Understandable, but also somewhat proportional? There's 250 years of US history vs thousands of years for many European countries. Of course you need more time to cover that. On topic: Iran is an absolutely stunning country. Second to none with respect to its nature, people and history. What happened there with the Arab conquests (and especially since the Islamic Golden Age), their sad and unsuccessful struggles for independence, is a crying shame. But still one of the proudest, most beautiful regions of the world.
- joshvm 8y ago
  Aside from the fact that Columbus sailed over in 1492... This only serves to highlight the problem even more - 250 years represents what you might call "modern" America, i.e. the post-Columbian era. Native American history is tens of thousands of years old and we learn very little at school (in Europe) aside from the stereotypes that the film industry and other cariacatures afford. I think we learned a bit about Columbus in the UK (I assume Spain does a better job)? We never learned about South America at all, save that it was something to do with why we kept looting Spanish ships. Neither did we learn about the Middle East which seems bizarre, given its role in early civilisation. Europeans are (largely) either descendants of one of the ancient empires or were significantly affected by them through conquest. The native Americans (in both hemispheres) were on the receiving end of European conquest and had their culture decimated or plundered. There's also a lot of very visible (and impressive) Roman, Egyptian and Greek culture lying around to visit, not to mention extensive written histories of all three. While there are similar sites in the Americas, there are fewer and they're often less visible or are quite inaccessible.
  - e12e 8y ago
    While there's certainly a gap in the teaching of other cultures in most (all?) modern education, do note that (here from Wikipedia): "History (...) is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events." To the best of my knowledge, there's a limited written record from the North America prior to the invasion (" discovery") - apart from in Norse sagas chronicling the viking arrival around 1000 AD (and while the sagas are an important source, they're hardly known for their reliability, in part because of the often long gap between events and when the sagas were first written down). Both south and north American indigenous civilizations were AFAIK largely without a written record.

by zaarn 8y ago

mattmanser 8y ago

This wasn't true in the UK when I was at school 20 years ago. Admittedly, the 'general' history we did in the first 3 years of secondary school (11-14) we covered mostly western history, but it covered Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, etc. We did some English history (Boudicca, Alfred, is all I can remember now). In the optional GCSE History I did (14-16) we did little English history as far as I remember and covered inter-war Germany + rise of Hitler, Vietnam war, Chinese Communist Revolution, formation of Israel, Cuban Missile Crisis and probably some more I've now forgotten. EDIT: I actually now remember we did cover Cromwell + English Civil war as well as William the Orange and the Suez crisis, probably at least one of those in GCSE. Slightly modified to reflect this. A lot of those do directly impact the UK, although when we covered China, it was still fairly weak compared to its present position in the world.

amaccuish 8y ago
Left school 4 years ago now. At primary, it's mostly kings and queen's, magna carta etc. Secondary it's mainly WWI/II (including "roaring 20s US" and Weimar). For sixth form it's the USSR, America, and I think China (I didn't do A-level history). (This was the AQA course anyway) Weirdly we learnt almost nothing about the British Empire, which I think is sad because some people have a rose-tinted view of it. You can't begin to form an actual opinion until you know the history, the good and the bad etc.
- mattmanser 8y ago
  If the exam boards still work the same way, different boards have different historical subjects, and I think they might even have a range of historical subjects that the teacher can be pick from, so not every school is the same. I've learnt a lot of my English history from Bernard Cornwell historical fiction books.

rezeroed 8y ago

Focus of education can be split even further than country. My step brothers and I went to different schools, and I remember being surprised to discover my history lessons focused on the historical relevance of one city, theirs on the history of another. Public vs private schools.

mariusmg 8y ago

> IIRC during my education we covered the entirety of the US history in half a year And whats wrong with this ? It shouldn't take multiple years to teach the history of a country who's been around for ~250 years now.

zaarn 8y ago
The US has a much longer history than 250 years. Our education covered everything starting from ancient civilizations. Most of modern US state history was squished in at the end.
- Radim 8y ago
  Is it common to refer to ancient American civilizations as "US history"? Here in Europe, US is understood to mean United States, the country (declaration of independence and all that jazz). America(s) is a separate concept.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Yes. It's the history of the territory that's the present day US.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    I would consider it part of US history, it's simply what was there before the US as today was established. European history doesn't start where the last government was established either, it goes back all the way, regardless of who happened to think it was their country at the time. The state inherits history.
    - howard941 8y ago
      Well said. Would only add that US history, well-taught, cannot help but entrain classical Greek and Roman history and culture.
      - 8y ago

Radim 8y ago

Understandable, but also somewhat proportional? There's 250 years of US history vs thousands of years for many European countries. Of course you need more time to cover that. On topic: Iran is an absolutely stunning country. Second to none with respect to its nature, people and history. What happened there with the Arab conquests (and especially since the Islamic Golden Age), their sad and unsuccessful struggles for independence, is a crying shame. But still one of the proudest, most beautiful regions of the world.

joshvm 8y ago
Aside from the fact that Columbus sailed over in 1492... This only serves to highlight the problem even more - 250 years represents what you might call "modern" America, i.e. the post-Columbian era. Native American history is tens of thousands of years old and we learn very little at school (in Europe) aside from the stereotypes that the film industry and other cariacatures afford. I think we learned a bit about Columbus in the UK (I assume Spain does a better job)? We never learned about South America at all, save that it was something to do with why we kept looting Spanish ships. Neither did we learn about the Middle East which seems bizarre, given its role in early civilisation. Europeans are (largely) either descendants of one of the ancient empires or were significantly affected by them through conquest. The native Americans (in both hemispheres) were on the receiving end of European conquest and had their culture decimated or plundered. There's also a lot of very visible (and impressive) Roman, Egyptian and Greek culture lying around to visit, not to mention extensive written histories of all three. While there are similar sites in the Americas, there are fewer and they're often less visible or are quite inaccessible.
- e12e 8y ago
  While there's certainly a gap in the teaching of other cultures in most (all?) modern education, do note that (here from Wikipedia): "History (...) is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events." To the best of my knowledge, there's a limited written record from the North America prior to the invasion (" discovery") - apart from in Norse sagas chronicling the viking arrival around 1000 AD (and while the sagas are an important source, they're hardly known for their reliability, in part because of the often long gap between events and when the sagas were first written down). Both south and north American indigenous civilizations were AFAIK largely without a written record.