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So where might the average American learn about a significant 20th century event like this? One might think, having been significant in terms of number of death

So where might the average American learn about a significant 20th century event like this? One might think, having been significant in terms of number of deaths or role in public health, that it would be covered in say, high school social studies or history class. But I suspect it gets at most a brief mention as a "Thing that happened in 1918." Much of what gets taught in public high schools is really with a theme of Manifest Destiny: the pioneers came and conquered, threw off the yolk of foreign royalty, sought to create freedom from sea to shining sea. Under that theme, the flu isn't something that could be beaten or conquered. It isn't some foreign menace that we can beat back with bombs. So, it doesn't get any coverage, it's really that simple.

dkarl 8y ago
Much of what gets taught in public high schools is really with a theme of Manifest Destiny: the pioneers came and conquered, threw off the yolk of foreign royalty, sought to create freedom from sea to shining sea I think that's what people remember when they think back to their own history classes, because that's all they were prepared to assimilate and remember when they were teenagers. This comes up often when somebody learns about something horribly imperialist the United States did, or something horribly racist or otherwise corrupt that happened here. Their first reaction is, "Why didn't they teach us THAT in high school? It would have made history class so much more interesting and personally meaningful to me!" Of course they WERE taught that in high school, and odds are they had a nice idealistic teacher who did their best to help them personally connect with it, but it didn't make any impression on them because they were teenagers and didn't give a shit. tl;dr They did teach you that and you were bored out of your skull and forgot it as fast as you could.
- poulsbohemian 8y ago
  I disagree - my daughter is at this age now and I’ve reviewed the materials they cover. My mother was also a junior high history teacher for about fourty years, so I saw a lot of history textbooks. So while a datapoint of one, especially after reading books like “lies my teachers told me”, I’m pretty well convinced my data is not an outlier

dkarl 8y ago

Much of what gets taught in public high schools is really with a theme of Manifest Destiny: the pioneers came and conquered, threw off the yolk of foreign royalty, sought to create freedom from sea to shining sea I think that's what people remember when they think back to their own history classes, because that's all they were prepared to assimilate and remember when they were teenagers. This comes up often when somebody learns about something horribly imperialist the United States did, or something horribly racist or otherwise corrupt that happened here. Their first reaction is, "Why didn't they teach us THAT in high school? It would have made history class so much more interesting and personally meaningful to me!" Of course they WERE taught that in high school, and odds are they had a nice idealistic teacher who did their best to help them personally connect with it, but it didn't make any impression on them because they were teenagers and didn't give a shit. tl;dr They did teach you that and you were bored out of your skull and forgot it as fast as you could.

poulsbohemian 8y ago
I disagree - my daughter is at this age now and I’ve reviewed the materials they cover. My mother was also a junior high history teacher for about fourty years, so I saw a lot of history textbooks. So while a datapoint of one, especially after reading books like “lies my teachers told me”, I’m pretty well convinced my data is not an outlier