have you noticed about eduacation in US?

[Latin American Socialist]

When i was little i had classes about the World history we larned about the new world and we learned about jesus, and the 20th century. During that time we never heard about che or communism. We would eventually learn about the leftwing and rightwing, but but we would only study for that for a week. I've seen that the US doesn't teach children about Fidel, Che, Communism that much. They hide Che from history books. And that is why people in US don't know anything about Che.

[DaCuBaN]

In the U£ things are somewhat similar, but being (*slightly*) more socialist than the U$ we at least covered the Cuban revolution in our history class. Only thing is to this day I'm not sure if it was part of the proper curriculum. Our history teacher in school was a great man and really just did his best to get people to think about the past.

I've got a lot of respect for the teaching profession in general, but when people actually go against the curriculum to teach what they believe is important then they gain a special place in my heart

and I'll promise not to have them shot :lol:

[Cobber]

I was at a talk/seminar a few weeks back and the American presenter gave me the impression that alot US citizens were historically illiterate. Whilst she did not point the finger at the education system, she criticised the role of the media for its biased coverage of events over time.

[robob8706]

Yea the US school system tends to rush through history, only elaborting on the moments that supposedly made America "Great", but they never talk about anything else, especially communism, only during the cold war, but they give communists a negative connotation just because of what stalin and such did. Which doesnt prove that communism is wrong, it proves that totalitarian is wrong. The US deliberatley either over looks anything anti american/capitalist, or talks about it negatively. Which I think is BS, because its teaching with a bias, especially with kids who are so easily persuaded. I think that the US should teach the facts, not the bias.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

yeah, we spent two years on the american revolution & the civil war and two days on communism

and one year on canada, ignoring latin america which was half the book and i can assure you would have been 100 times more interesting the canada ( no offense canadians )

[no_parsaran]

well canadian history has its ups as well as its downs.... myself being canadian i dont find it quite interesting either. just a question to all you americans.... have you people heard of the war of 1812? and if so what were you taught about it (if you were taught about it at all).

[BuyOurEverything]

I've gone to high school in both Canada and the US and, ironically, both sides say they won the war of 1812.

[no_parsaran]

kind of interesting dont you think? but see i know for a fact that Canada won...... if the U&#036; would have won, there would be no Canada; we would have been sucked into their greedy little territory grabbing culture. the U&#036; attacked Canada in retaliation towards smtg like; every brittish born person who lived in the U&#036; had to fulfill naval duties for the queen... the limeys picked up a few americans accidentaly and so they declared war, with the intention of getting back at the limeys and also grabbing some land. i just would like to know how the U&#036; explains their great victory over a country that was 1/30 its size... <_<

[no_parsaran]

hehe another interesting little note.... when i went to D.C last year on a history trip, we visited the whitehouse. the tour guide brought us to some library that obviously had fire damage to it and we obviously asked what had happened. she bullshitted us and told us that there was a fire in the sixties. later on the bus, one of our teachers who absolutely hates american misguided truth told us the story of how some 500 royal brittish marines came down the potomac (dont know if thats how its spelt) and literally set fire to the white house. lol they were able to see a figure of ........ (dont know the prez at the time) galloping away in a carriage.
anyone else heard of this?

[SittingBull47]

That&#39;s funny. Currently were spending 4 days on the red scare. It&#39;s enfuriating and funny...my teacher is very pro-bush, and she made her own political compass. According to her little road map, communism lies between fascism and nazism.
(It&#39;s a very conservative and ignorant area)

[MarxIsGod]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2004, 10:18 PM
hehe another interesting little note.... when i went to D.C last year on a history trip, we visited the whitehouse. the tour guide brought us to some library that obviously had fire damage to it and we obviously asked what had happened. she bullshitted us and told us that there was a fire in the sixties. later on the bus, one of our teachers who absolutely hates american misguided truth told us the story of how some 500 royal brittish marines came down the potomac (dont know if thats how its spelt) and literally set fire to the white house. lol they were able to see a figure of ........ (dont know the prez at the time) galloping away in a carriage.
anyone else heard of this?

Yes, the Brits burned the "White House" during the War of 1812 and it was actually not called the White House until after the War of 1812 because it became white because it was whitewashed to cover up the damage that the fire had done to the exterior of the building. There&#39;s also a famous story about how Dolly Madison, wife of then president James Madison, ran back into the burning building to save important historical papers, including (i believe) at least one copy of the Declaration of Independence. Beyond the sheer fact that 99% of U.S. high school graduates know next to nothing about history (including the history of their own country&#33;), the entire U.S. education system is in desperate need of both funding and a leader who really cares about our kids education and not just someone who uses kids as a way to get (re)elected. Don&#39;t blame the teachers for teaching there own views. While I am saddened to find that the "educated" people teaching our country&#39;s youth refuse to let the kids form their own opinions, teachers have to put up with so much crap (unless they teach at a private school or in a really rich community) including being underpaid, not having the resources (books, equipment, etc.) that they need to be able to teach. American schools are in miserable conditions. With the exception of the beakers, test tubes, and chemicals, most of the stuff in my chemistry class is from the 1970s or earlier&#33;&#33; The textbooks for most classes have been in need of replacement for about 5 years or more, and the classrooms could use, to say the very least, a new paintjob.

[no_parsaran]

still curious... what do they say was the outcome of the war? who won?

[praxis1966]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2004, 10:13 PM
kind of interesting dont you think? but see i know for a fact that Canada won......if the U&#036; would have won, there would be no Canada; we would have been sucked into their greedy little territory grabbing culture. the U&#036; attacked Canada in retaliation towards smtg like; every brittish born person who lived in the U&#036; had to fulfill naval duties for the queen... the limeys picked up a few americans accidentaly and so they declared war, with the intention of getting back at the limeys and also grabbing some land. i just would like to know how the U&#036; explains their great victory over a country that was 1/30 its size...

I&#39;ve gone to high school in both Canada and the US and, ironically, both sides say they won the war of 1812.

I don&#39;t know where you two went to school but both are oversimplifying things immensly, if not bordering on being wholly innaccurate. It is true that British conscription of American citizens was one of the debated issues, but the fact of the matter is that it was primarily a dispute over the Northwest Territories and the border with Canada. I didn&#39;t go to any school that claimed that the U&#036; won, however. I was taught that things pretty much returned to an ante bellum status, as neither side was able to retain any territorial gains.

EDIT: By the way, it would have been physically impossible for Canada to win since they didn&#39;t gain independence from Brittain until 1867.

[praxis1966]

And while we&#39;re at it, I guess I&#39;ll have to address the comment made about the U&#036; being unable to defeat a country 1/30 its size. At the time Brittain was one of the world&#39;s superpowers, with a navy vastly superior to every other country on Earth, with only the French and Spanish as it&#39;s rivals.

The U&#036; at the outbreak of the War of 1812 actually had a smaller population than Brittain and had far and away less industry. The economy was, in fact, largely agrarian up until the 1880s and 1890s. Think about it. In the early part of the 1800s, Kentucky and Tennessee were still considered part of "the West" as they were largely untamed and sparsely populated at best.

[BuyOurEverything]

praxis: I was simply saying that both Canada and the US claim they won the war of 1812. I realize the reality it much more complicated.

[praxis1966]

I understand that. What I was trying to illustrate is that both are wrong and that I was educated in the U&#036; and none of my teachers ever claimed that the U&#036; won. But once again, I will reiterate my earlier point that the War of 1812 was fought between the U&#036; and Brittain, not the U&#036; and Canada. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or seriously misguided.

[Marxist in Nebraska]

When the pathetic state of American history classes is brought up, I always think of a line I read from James Loewen in his excellent book Lies My Teacher Told Me. I cannot think of the line verbatim, so I will paraphrase.

Loewen singled history class out as a unique part of the curriculum. As he put it, one takes math classes to learn algebra and English classes to improve one&#39;s grammar. History class is not taught to make one more knowledgable about history, but rather to make one more "patriotic."

The War of 1812 has arisen as a controversial topic on this thread. I have adopted Loewen&#39;s view of that war. Here is what I can remember offhand:

The hawkish elements of American society were in the western border of the populated country, which at the time was Kentucky and Tennessee as praxis1966 noted. Most Americans on the East Coast were not interested in war with Britain.

This much already serves to debunk what I was always taught about that war in history class, which was that the only reason for the war was the matter of impressment (forced conscription of American sailors into the British navy). If this was the only reason for the war, then the driving force toward war in the U.S. should have been the merchants on the East Coast suffering material losses due to impressment, etc. The fact that the region had almost no interest in war brings up serious doubts that the only reason used in history class was even a minor reason in reality.

Military budgets for the U.S. during the first few decades were comparable in percentages to Cold War budgets, because the wars of genocide against the Natives were incredibly expensive. The early wars were very bloody on both sides, because the British were arming the tribes along the national borders of the United States. With British weapons, the Native people could put up a substantial fight against the American expansionists.

The expansionists were to be found primarily in the western-most part of the country. They deeply resented Britain for making their encroachments on Indian Territory so costly. This is the faction of the American people that drove the government into war with Britain.

The British were arming the Natives primarily to use them as a buffer between the rapidly expanding United States and the empire&#39;s existing colonies in North America (especially Canada). The U.S. and Britain fought basically to a stalemate in the war. The losses made the war unattractive to both sides, and they struck a deal.

Britain agreed to abandon its tribal allies along the U.S.&#39;s border, in exchange for a promise that the U.S. would never invade and absorb Canada into its growing territories.

It is not terribly easy to generalize who "won" or "lost" the War of 1812. The British government was successful, in that the Canadian colonies remained securely in the empire. The government of the United States, to an extent, flexed impressive muscles by fighting the most powerful nation on Earth to a draw.

"Manifest Destiny" was a big winner. The massive and costly Indian Wars of the previous decades became mop-up operations against vastly out-gunned peoples. The United States would stretch ocean to ocean within 35 years, and at a significantly lower cost than if the British had continued to arm the opposition.

The indigenous peoples of North America were the biggest losers. The border tribes suffered massive human losses, in addition to the only ally strong enough to keep their struggle against the U.S. a two-way fight. The tribes further west were soon to feel the wrath of the emerging American empire as well.

Many working class British and American soldiers lost life and limb for a war to enrich a ruling class with no intention of spreading the wealth. They were ultimately losers as well.

[pandora]

We need more socialist history teachers willing to take a chance and teach the kids, perhaps people from this site will consider this possibility for straight work.

[Take the Power back]

My U&#036; history book mentions Minor C. Keith, founder of United Fruit. This would be normal, except it also mentions how his company helped bring about "banana republics" and would create tension in latin america later on. Not everything is censored for things which are against the taught thought process.

[Touchstone]

I don&#39;t know about you guys, but my history book has 1 WHOLE PAGE DEVOTED TO CHE&#33; I thought that was better than none. My teacher is a very left-wing, socialist. He&#39;s pretty neat. Anyway, We spent a week on Communism and Socialism.

[DaCuBaN]

It is not terribly easy to generalize who "won" or "lost" the War of 1812. The British government was successful, in that the Canadian colonies remained securely in the empire. The government of the United States, to an extent, flexed impressive muscles by fighting the most powerful nation on Earth to a draw.


well being a &#39;limey&#39; I must say that an away draw is a highly succesful result in my book. ;) :D

[katie mccready]

god i thought usa was beter for education than england we lern all that stuff in sociology you cant take it untill year 10 but theres a good 2 years of learning enything from politics, crime, famly and its use in society, methogolagy where you learn about pressur grupes and theres lots of other things too i just cant think at the moment.