History lessons

[fomalhaut]

my intro Humanities class trumped my entire high school history education, and history is just one facet of Humanities. Spent a lot of time on Magna Graeca, Republican Rome, Pyrrhic Wars, Syracuse, etc. Though these were all just taught to be used as context to explain arts and literature of the era.

American education is infamously bad, so naturally the history is the same. I think we talked about *Greeks* 'inventing' democracy and other superficial factoid nonsense

[Zim]

My High School history classes were all over the place, but I moved and changed schools partway through. I seem to recall at least one year of "Ancient History", desperately trying to cover every major civilization up to Rome (most getting very little time). We spent longer on Rome and Greece. I'm not sure we had much of anything in the way of Medieval History, and quickly went ahead to around the Renaissance or so and then the U.S. Colonial period. From about the 17th century to the 20th was pretty well covered, although with a strong emphasis on the history of the U.S. and its wars.

I actually don't recall any terrible "facts" in High School classes. The closest was probably things that were overly simplified to fit into a curriculum, like the "Romans and Greeks invented democracy" stuff. In College, on the other hand, I had a professor who was otherwise very good when it came to her expertise (Medieval History) tell us chainmail was a Medieval european invention.

Going to school in Texas I also had to take a year of Texas History and government, one U.S. government class, and a sociology class or two that delved into history.

[xzGAB]

Here in Brazil we study a lot about history but focusing west. We divide in Brazil History and General History.

General History

Pre-History:
stone age, metal age

Anciet Civ:
Mesopotamia, Rome, Greece, Israel

Medieval:
High Middle Agre,
Low MIddle Age
Franks
Feudal System
Crusades
Renaissanse in Italy and rest of Europe

Modern:
End of Feudal
First Central Powers (examples: England Revolution, French and Louis XIV, Portugal and Spain.)
Enlightment
Grand Navigations (Portugal, Spain and American colonies)
Independence of Spanish colonies (San Martin and Bolivar)
Absolutism and French Revolution + Napoleon Period
Industrial Revolution (England and the world)

Contemporany
XIX Century (Neocolonialism of Africa and Asia: China, India)
Russian Revolution
WWI
Between Wars Period, 1929 and the crack of NY, Totalitarism
WWII
Descolonization
Cold War
Modern World: Vietnam, Israel, Cuba


Brazil History

Pre-History and Pre-Colombian people (Astec, Maia and Inca)
Brazil Colony (1500-1822)
Brazil Empire (1822-1889) and independence from Portugal
Brazil Republic (1889-...)



I would like to study a more east history. More about Persians (we almost dont study, just know about Cyrus). In fact, everything i know about east people I learned playing EB

[vartan]

I've been a student of the public education system in the United States. By the way, there isn't one 'public education system' in the States, so my previous statement is actually very inaccurate. I'm from California, so my schools had to conform to Californian standards of education and curricula. How successful my particular schools were in doing this is up for debate. Here's what I can spill, and I'm not one known for his memory:

Elementary School (sometimes called 'primary') [K-6]
--age 4 to 11 (now age 4 to 10 in most places)

History here fell under "Social Studies". It was, as in some university campuses, treated as a social science and not as part of the humanities. As such, much of anthropological work showed through in the lessons prepared for us. Although I was in elementary school for 7 years, more than I probably will be at any other educational institution, I can recall very few main points from social studies. This might tell you something! I remember learning about cave art and the first men and being fascinated by them. Then I remember learning about Christopher Columbus and how he 'discovered' America. I don't remember much on the 'classical' Mediterranean but I'm sure we had a chapter or two. There certainly was nothing of substance on the indigenous of the Americas. Remember Columbus and Hispaniola? No mention of Tainos, Arawakans, and others. The most I remember was learning about more Great Men in History (a concept; I don't recall who wrote first on this), such as all the presidents through Clinton. The texts wouldn't include 9/11 until a year after I finished elementary, if I'm not mistaken. Nothing of critical substance ever came up. No globalization, dependency theory, modernization theory, no Richard Syme, no nothing.

Middle School (sort of intermediary; 'junior high' in some places) [7-8]
--age 11 to 13 (now 10 to 13; used to be age 12 to 14)

When I went, the school only had two grades, not three. In the 7th grade we had "world history" from ice age migrations to classical age to 'dark ages' to medieval Europe to beginning Americas. 8th grade was all about US history. 'Nuff said.

High School (secondary) [9-12]
--age 13 to 18 (formerly age 14 to 18)

9th grade = no history. 10th grade = formerly world history (this is what I had); now european history (a pity, IMO). 11th grade = US history (yay, more of this). 12th grade = no formal history but you can put government and even economics in the same category (if you're into the social sciences). The world history I took used an infamous book that was very much hated by all of us mini-scholars. One word: SPODEK. Teachers of the world, do not use this book when teaching AP World History in the United States; think about the children! US history and later government were similar for me. I was never fond of US history. I learned about how the country works and how it got the way it did, but I never learned about major/minor subversions or interventions by the USA overseas. I didn't learn about any genocides (same with world history), especially of natives. I didn't learn why the Spanish incorporated the natives while the United States-ians drove ours out. And economics never discussed why the US seems to be building up debt as opposed to eradicating it. Y U NO TEACH THIS??

Postscript: I study at a UC now, so if you have any knowledge or notion of what that entails, you know the contrast to the above. Basically, as one of my professors put it, if liberal professors in all the States were to be imprisoned at once, there would be no classes left at the UCs.

[athanaric]

Vartan, you think that curriculum is bad? I call you privileged. Compare it with what German students have to go through:
Grades 1-3: Um I don't recall - probably mostly fair tales.
Grades 4-7: A superficial outline of the Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Germanic cultures.
Grade 8: National Socialism. Also, the French Revolution.
Grades 9-11: Some more modern stuff, such as Industrialization, more of the French Revolution, and National Socialism.
Grade 12: Mostly National Socialism.
Grade 13: Well, you'd never guess...
Graduation topic: ...

And that was one of the better schools, with mostly non-liberal (in the American sense) teachers and a fairly "balanced" schedule. Most of the interesting topics were covered in the foreign language lessons anyway, though again with a heavy dose of "white guilt" and whatnot.
Most Gymnasia just teach National Socialist History in real time. They don't even make an effort to teach the kids the foundations of our culture and civilization, which are far more important than the 20th-century perversions thereof. Let alone an overview over other cultures. This is partly because the ones studying to become teachers are often the dumbest of history students (with a few notable exceptions), who're just interested in modern history.

[strategos roma]

Wow... I always thought that the study of history in Europe( not US, never had any delusions about history there) would be more advanced and in-depth. Apparently not...

[CorporalJigsore]

I find the history curriculum in Finland somewhat biased, but not too bad.

Roughly it goes like this:

Primary: Rough outline ranging from stone age to the defeat of Napoleon
Lower Secondary: Continuing from Napoleon to modern day
Upper Secondary: The two aforementioned combined and taught with slightly more detail

So quite much "everything" is covered, but the allocation of time used is very unbalanced. For example the period from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the French Revolution is taught focusing on social changes, even major events such as the Ottoman wars or the Spanish domination of what is nowadays the Netherlands are not even mentioned.

As a trade we get ridiculous amounts of Finnish history starting from becoming an "autonomous" part of Russia in 1809. (Hell, some books even go so far to compare 15th-18th century Sweden with Poland-Lithuania or Austria-Hungary... )
And not to forget the slow rising of Finnish identity and post-WWII brown-nosing the Soviets described in tedious detail. Gotta love over-zealous nationalism!

[vartan]

Wow... I always thought that the study of history in Europe( not US, never had any delusions about history there) would be more advanced and in-depth. Apparently not...

Don't count on it. I would look at the curricula in higher education and not bother with the secondary. What can you expect?

[GenosseGeneral]

Germany, Lower Saxony, G8:

Grades 1-4: History is not an own subject. We dealt once with medieval ages, but very superficial (it was more about folding castles from cardboard).
Grade 5: Egypt, Greece. The only thing I can recall now (6 years later) from it, is not much. Something about poleis and democracy and we had to learn the Greek alphabet. We had an old teacher who also taught art, I guess that is why she gave our marks mostly for nice folders and learning things by heart, not for thinking. That was simply not part of it.
Grade 6: Rome. If I recall correctly, we dealt mostly with Rome. This was the time when they tried to introduce us carefully into a more "professional" level, like working with sources, and even a bit critical thinking, though the largest part of the class did not understand the point of it. (I recall one occasion when we dealt with the difference between the triggers and the reasons for the punic wars.) We learned quite a lot about Roman history, although we did not care so much for reasons for e.g. the development of the principat.
Grade 7: After skipping the dark ages, we started dealing with the Middle Ages. Nothing to complain about. Here we clearly focused more on general patterns than on single events/states/whatever, for example on what made the cities attractive at that time or serfdom. Not to much depth, though.
Grade 8: We dealt quite a lot with the person of Martin Luther, his ideas and the peasant risings in the 16th century. Also Mercantilism, Absolutism, French Revolution, but I guess some of this was also in year 9.
Grade 9: Age of Restauration (sp?), Industrialization, Imperialism, WWI. We had a good teacher who taught us to think.
Grade 10: Weimar Republic and only a bit(!!!) of National Socialism, and more about the beginning. Yes, we visited the KZ Neuengamme, read the Wannsee-Protokoll but WWII was a thing hardly dealt with (one or two lessons). Our teacher seemed to recognize the overcoverage of the topic in other subjects and the general public.
Grade 11: Division of Germany, Reunification and the GDR first half of the year, currently we are dealing with the Renaissance, this time on a much deeper level. Focus are early capitalism, humanism and art (why ever).
Grade 12: First semester will be something about the United States' economy in the late 19th century, 2nd semester will be repetition.

All in all, I am mostly content with it, though I would have wished FAR more depth such as economy, world order, etc. in all those eras, yet I understand that there is far too less time for this. But I always sad, sometimes even shocking how little some of my classmates just KNOW about most times. Only Nazis and KZs seem to last. o.O I also dislike the skipping of many aspects (Alexander was iirc never even mentioned; I never even heard of the hellenistic monarchies in the east before Rome TW Vanilla).

And that was one of the better schools, with mostly non-liberal (in the American sense) teachers and a fairly "balanced" schedule. Most of the interesting topics were covered in the foreign language lessons anyway, though again with a heavy dose of "white guilt" and whatnot.

Oh yes. It is a common joke along us, that any novel we read at school will either deal with mobbing or discrimination/ the holocaust.

Most Gymnasia just teach National Socialist History in real time. They don't even make an effort to teach the kids the foundations of our culture and civilization, which are far more important than the 20th-century perversions thereof. Let alone an overview over other cultures. This is partly because the ones studying to become teachers are often the dumbest of history students (with a few notable exceptions), who're just interested in modern history.

We seem to quite good teachers (mostly) who are actually interested in their topics, not the kind which became teacher because they did not know what else to do after they got their Abitur with main subjects German and arts/ history and geography, whatever.

[lonewolf371]

9th grade = no history. 10th grade = formerly world history (this is what I had); now european history (a pity, IMO). 11th grade = US history (yay, more of this). 12th grade = no formal history but you can put government and even economics in the same category (if you're into the social sciences). The world history I took used an infamous book that was very much hated by all of us mini-scholars. One word: SPODEK. Teachers of the world, do not use this book when teaching AP World History in the United States; think about the children! US history and later government were similar for me. I was never fond of US history. I learned about how the country works and how it got the way it did, but I never learned about major/minor subversions or interventions by the USA overseas. I didn't learn about any genocides (same with world history), especially of natives. I didn't learn why the Spanish incorporated the natives while the United States-ians drove ours out. And economics never discussed why the US seems to be building up debt as opposed to eradicating it. Y U NO TEACH THIS??

Postscript: I study at a UC now, so if you have any knowledge or notion of what that entails, you know the contrast to the above. Basically, as one of my professors put it, if liberal professors in all the States were to be imprisoned at once, there would be no classes left at the UCs.

Actually probably the best history class I ever took was a early US History class in college. Part of that was likely because that was where the professor's scholarly work was focused.

My US History professor in high school was disappointing. He was very fond of Native Americans and rock and roll, so we spent a huge chunk of the course covering pre-Columbian America and the cultural changes of the 1960s. WW1 and WW2 and their impacts on the US were hardly touched, and I can't even remember anything around the Civil War or its lead-up.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Private School - U.S.

6th grade - One semester of prehistory, Egypt, India, China, One Semester of Greece and Rome
7th grade - From the Fall of Rome to 1492
8th grade - U.S. History from 1492 to present; combined with a lot of state history (big focus on Native Americans, U.S. Civil War, Civil Rights era)
(also in 8th grade, one year required of Latin, where they get some Roman history, but not much - more mythology than history)
9th grade - Geography for one semester; American Govt. for one semester
10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade - Lots of variation due to some students taking Advanced Placement (AP) courses and some not. AP and non-AP courses in European History, American History, Vietnam, and a couple of others. Also, third year Latin students have a big focus on Roman history for the year. Also, senior Ancient Greek students have a big focus on Greek history up to 272 BC (;-)).