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Serious question, what do kids in the US learn about in history?

Pre-Colonial era gets a few sentences or a couple brief days of comment. Not much talked about. Then you spend most of your time learning about the colonial era and Revolution, the forming of the US government, and some good old chest thumping about how we beat some barbaries and 'won' the war of 1812.

Depending on what the local area is like, the Antebellum period might be skipped completely and you go straight to the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Then you're in college where you actually get to start learning history instead of the same material you've been learning for the last 12 years repeated over and over again.

 LordofHats wrote:

Serious question, what do kids in the US learn about in history?

Pre-Colonial era gets a few sentences or a couple brief days of comment. Not much talked about. Then you spend most of your time learning about the colonial era and Revolution, the forming of the US government, and some good old chest thumping about how we beat some barbaries and 'won' the war of 1812.

Depending on what the local area is like, the Antebellum period might be skipped completely and you go straight to the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Then you're in college where you actually get to start learning history instead of the same material you've been learning for the last 12 years repeated over and over again.

I don't remember much of what was taught in elementary school. I remember specifically that we learned about Spanish colonization, beyond Columbus. I remember some big European events such as the 100 Year War, Black Plague, Renaissance, covered in basics.

In High School we had two classes. US History 1 and US History 2. 1 covered everything up to the 20th Century, 2 covered everything after. In my Civics class we went back and examined a lot of stuff behind the building of the Constitution, to include British influences.

I never had a single class go past 1910 (and I went to a different school every year). Our teachers always said that everyone already knew about WWI and II so they didn't bother teaching it.

The test my first college history professor ran said otherwise (80% of the students couldn't explain how the US entered WWI or why Japan attacked pearl harbor).

 LordofHats wrote:
I never had a single class go past 1910 (and I went to a different school every year). Our teachers always said that everyone already knew about WWI and II so they didn't bother teaching it.

The test my first college history professor ran said otherwise (80% of the students couldn't explain how the US entered WWI or why Japan attacked pearl harbor).

I went through two schools in Highschool, they both covered it that way. Maybe it's a Michigan thing. I had maybe 8 different elementary schools, so it's damn near impossible for me to remember specifics. Especially when I learned what, where.

Eh. You know what they (mostly me) say. American education; striving for a lack in consistency

My history education was dire, consisting of re-runs of the Blitz bombing campaign.

Everything I know about history is self taught, mostly from political biographies written by Roy Jenkins!

I'm in my final year at the moment, Scottish education system is different than the English.

In history we basically did Victorian Britain and Scotland, agricultural and industrial revolutions etc then WW1 then some WW1 then some more WW1....

Then Scottish wars of independence 1286-1328.

Although there are lots of different courses that are done, depending on the school including the American revolution and a few others.

 purplefood wrote:
I did GSCE and A level history. As far as I can recall we didn't learn anything about American history.

Lessons from American history can be summed up as the following:

1492 - Columbus got lost

1776 - You can lose 90% of the battles and still win the war if your name is George Washington

1812 - Don't mess with Canada!

1830s - Don't mess with Texas

1860s - Don't mess with General Grant

1876 - Don't take ten men into Sioux territory and expect to win a battle!

1880 -1914 - Some guy called Ted with a big stick

WW1 - Turn up late and claim a moral victory, even though you did nothing

1920-41 Al Capone and some guy called Hoover

1941-45 America makes more tanks/planes in a day than everybody else does in a year.

1960s - Drugs, Kennedy, more drugs, a music festival

1972 - Nixon, Gerald Ford's speeches win a noble prize in medicine for curing insomnia

1980s - Ronald nearly bankrupts America, but is held up as somebody who took on big government

1990s - President has an affair

and you know the rest from 2000 onwards


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 troy_tempest wrote:
My history education was dire, consisting of re-runs of the Blitz bombing campaign.

Everything I know about history is self taught, mostly from political biographies written by Roy Jenkins!

Jenkins on Churchill...a great book

 LordofHats wrote:
and some good old chest thumping about how we beat some barbaries and 'won' the war of 1812.

I think the War of 1812 is fascinating. I've mentioned it on Dakka before, but the funniest thing about it is that every side says that they won, and each for a different reason.


The Canadians say that they won because they repelled the US invasion of Canada.

The British say they won because they attacked Washington and burnt the White House.

The Americans say they won because they threw back a second British invasion, put a stop to British impressment of American sailors, and showed the world they could tangle with a 1st-rate European military power and come out alright.

I did up to GCSE level history and never learnt anything about the american revolution or the american civil war. I'm fairly sure we did something about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement at some point in school though.

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
I did up to GCSE level history and never learnt anything about the american revolution or the american civil war. I'm fairly sure we did something about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement at some point in school though.

Those far left teachers pushing their ideologies onto everyone , when will they stop brainwashing the children??

I did ancient and modern history in school , I think I learned about America in regard to ww1, ww2, the depression , a teeny bit on suffragettes and the slave trade , though slave trade should have probably be renamed the Wilberforce love in.

Best thing about school history is continuing your self education in history and finding some of what you learned from school history book is directly contradicted by several sources, enough to be considered misleading or fallacious.

School history , I miss you especially the general hilarity of learning about Egyptian mastabahs and the idiot Italians cheering every time Rome was mentioned. There was a lot of cheering in ancient history.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
I did GSCE and A level history. As far as I can recall we didn't learn anything about American history.

Jenkins on Churchill...a great book

Its a close run thing between Jenkins take on Churchill, and Robert Blake's Disraeli. Both incedible men and superb biographies.

So off topic, but so true!

 Hordini wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
and some good old chest thumping about how we beat some barbaries and 'won' the war of 1812.

I think the War of 1812 is fascinating. I've mentioned it on Dakka before, but the funniest thing about it is that every side says that they won, and each for a different reason.


The Canadians say that they won because they repelled the US invasion of Canada.

The British say they won because they attacked Washington and burnt the White House.

The Americans say they won because they threw back a second British invasion, put a stop to British impressment of American sailors, and showed the world they could tangle with a 1st-rate European military power and come out alright.

Well Britain has a good claim to being the victor. The War was about one thing the US trying to conqueror British North America, impressment ended 2 weeks before the conflict began. War ended with the US blockaded its economy trashed and Britain in possession of huge swathes of US territory. The war was started by the US and Britain dictated the terms that ended it re-establishing the status que cementing the future of what would become Canada as separate entity to the USA.

Britain never had any intention of re-conquering the 13 colonies, it was seen as too big to be possible. This period is the dawn of the golden age of the Empire there was simply no need to.

The big losers were the Native Americans, Britain had plans to create a Native buffer state between them and the USA. Admittedly this played into the US motivations for starting the war the natives weren’t particularly popular at the time.

It did have a huge impact on the US military creating a more professional full time Army, rather that relying on Militia to make up most of the numbers. And gave them some big victory’s after the war had actually ended, to help lessen the wars failures.

It may be worth noting that in 1812 Britain was 9 years into the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars, and didn't want a prolonged fight with the USA to distract it from other theatres of operations.

As the above to point out, Britain won the war. I know everyone says they won, but Britain is the one who really won. We got off the hook for that because we were lucky that Britain had bigger fish to fry, and the US was still a very small fish.

But really what I mean is that in my history classes, it always came up. The US won the War of 1812 (by getting or ass handed to us and the capital burned to the ground) blah blah blah. IMO the conflicts with the Barbary States was much bigger in asserting the US' ability to enforce its own soverignty. It's not like the rest of Europe had the balls to tell the Barbary pirates where they could shove it and then actually went over and did a mediocre, but effective, job of shoving it for them.

The War of 1812 was an odd event. Things went exactly opposite of what should have happened.

1) It was widely predicted that Canada would fall quickly to the US army, but poor leadership saw that be a disaster.

2) Nobody had any delusions about beating the Royal Navy, but instead the Brits got roflstomped. Largely due to US Frigates being far superior one on one than British counterparts plus the use of hit-and-run tactics. US frigates were larger and carried 56-60 guns while British Frigates rarely had more than 38. It got to the point where standing orders were to not engage US frigates unless you had at least a 2:1 advantage.


Beating the Royal navy was a huge deal, especially at the time. True, Britain had bigger fish to fry. But it was still a great PR and morale victory. A modern equivalent would be something like Argentina managing to successfully beat off the modern US navy with very few losses.

The Barbary States conflict was probably more important from a material gain standpoint but you can't undersell what it meant to give the Royal Navy a good licking.

Internationally, "Don't mess with the US, they beat the Royal Navy" means a lot more than "Don't mess with the US, they took on the Barbary Pirates"

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Pity, but hardly suprising then that you resort to namecalling to shut down opposed opinion; its all too often the strategem of the dogmatised fanatic.

Please don't tell me you don't see the hypocricy in that sentence.

It is not hypocritical at all. First comes the attempt to drown out opinion with accusation, then comes the pointing out that doing so points a stronger finger at the accuser than the accused.

When it comes to warfare, America has never won a war on its own.


This is what I've been told, so if anyone can think of one, then let me know.

War of the Pacific. Few wars are fought by lone states. China, Britain, and Australia were there too, but it's pretty hard to argue America wasn't the driving force behind the victory. Talking about whose military has the biggest junk in terms of who helped who is kind of pointless.

 welshhoppo wrote:
When it comes to warfare, America has never won a war on its own.


This is what I've been told, so if anyone can think of one, then let me know.

This has what to do with the price of cheese in venice?

For GCSE history we did various medieval bits and bobs, then onto 'naam, the slave trade and WW1. The main part of our GCSEs were History of Medicine (which was global) and Hitler's germany.

In the A-Levels I'm doing there's Civil Rights Movement, Stalin's Russia and China through the ages.

I would also say that teachers being left wing isn't inherently a bad thing, considering the gak they put up with, from both students and the Govt.

 djones520 wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
When it comes to warfare, America has never won a war on its own.


This is what I've been told, so if anyone can think of one, then let me know.

This has what to do with the price of cheese in venice?

Well if Venice didn't have to fork out for warfare, the cheese might well be cheaper.


And I wouldn't really class the War in the Pacific as being a war. It's more of a case of America vs Japan. So you had China and Russia helping out at the same time.

 welshhoppo wrote:
and I wouldn't really class the War in the Pacific as being a war.

Say whut?

Lots of people died man, like fighting each other. And we dropped fething nukes on their heads!

War it definitely was.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
When it comes to warfare, America has never won a war on its own.


This is what I've been told, so if anyone can think of one, then let me know.

This has what to do with the price of cheese in venice?

Well if Venice didn't have to fork out for warfare, the cheese might well be cheaper.


And I wouldn't really class the War in the Pacific as being a war. It's more of a case of America vs Japan. So you had China and Russia helping out at the same time.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
and I wouldn't really class the War in the Pacific as being a war.

Say whut?

Lots of people died man, like fighting each other. And we dropped fething nukes on their heads!

War it definitely was.

Well I'd say its more of a theatre of war rather than being an actually fully fledged war. Japan had (some) help from the Nazis and America had (some) help from the Allies.

It was a war entirely within itself. Just because were were fighting another war at the same time in Europe doesn't change that.

 djones520 wrote:
It was a war entirely within itself. Just because were were fighting another war at the same time in Europe doesn't change that.

But it wasn't about America. Japan was at war with the Chinese before WWII even began. Once the US stopped supplying them with oil, they needed to attack America in order to get a good supply from the Pacific. The Pacific Theatre might seem to be a singular event, but it was closely entwined with the rest of World War Two.

It was still a war.

The pacific and European conflicts were actually very different too.

Europe was a land based conflict with a small sea component while the Pacific war was largely navel(with a huge air component) and amphibious warfare.

The wars also ended separately.

 Grey Templar wrote:
It was still a war.

The pacific and European conflicts were actually very different too.

Europe was a land based conflict with a small sea component while the Pacific war was largely navel(with a huge air component) and amphibious warfare.

The wars also ended separately.

The European Theatre also had a large amount of naval and air warfare. The Battle for the Atlantic involved hundreds of thousands of people and millions of tonnes of vessels were sunk. We horribly destroyed several of Germany's cities (often for no good reason, something that I believe we should be punished for, Dresden didn't deserve what it got.) And the largest amphibious operation in World War Two happened in France.


By the way, don't think that I'm trying to downplay the significance of the Pacific War. It was a horrible affair that should never have happened and happened because of issues on both sides of the conflict. But I don't think it is independent enough to count it as a separate conflict to the rest of World War Two. All the countries involved in one were involved in the other, some took a more physical method, others shared information. But it was all one war, if Germany had not invaded Russia Japan may never have attacked America. If America wasn't attacked, Germany might not have declared war on America. If the Japanese hadn't captured Singapore so early, we might have helped in the larger battles of that theatre. War is a bloody tangled mess, and World War Two is one of the worst ones ever.

Japan would have eventually attacked America even if the Nazis never happened. Japan was on an expansionist streak for a while, they only hooked up with the Germans because of common foes.

America was attacked because we were the only real threat to the Japanese expansion in the pacific. At best the conflict would have been delayed but it would have happened eventually.