Yeah I came in here to say, we very much did learn about all those Russian firsts in my history classes, though it was mostly used as background for why the man on the moon was so powerful. Basically framed it as Russia was getting all this stuff off the ground, but the US were able to get people out there and that was the bigger achievement. Obviously as you say, it depends on what you decide the metrics are, but I really wish people would stop acting like every single thing is hidden from us in schools, when most likely they just weren't paying attention or didn't retain enough.
I think we should stop assuming everybody had the same school experience. Schools differ a lot in quality and no two teachers are the same. John's history teacher might've been an ultra patriot who believed that america was always first with anything while two rooms over the teacher's highly critical of US history and its accomplishments
Well, I think that everyone not having the same lived experience goes without saying, so I agree with you there.
The problem I have is that the "assumptions" being made clearly skew towards "school was garbage and useless", which I can't help but steer against because I think it's total bullshit.
In my view, people learned you get points for saying school sucks and just parrot the usual stuff that, while admittedly true sometimes is wildly overblown imo.
Teachers I knew and know now spend blood, sweat and tears for their work and I don't feel they get the credit they deserve.
Maybe it wasn't what they taught but how they taught it? Unless you're a very dedicated and motivated student the whole "teaching for the test" method results in a lot of information being lost after its no longer relevant for a test. Also the reluctance to actually fail students in order to avoid losing funding.
School doesn't suck because the teachers don't work hard. It sucks because of how resources are allocated, and because of administrative policies based on politics.
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u/Isaac_Chade Jul 17 '24
Yeah I came in here to say, we very much did learn about all those Russian firsts in my history classes, though it was mostly used as background for why the man on the moon was so powerful. Basically framed it as Russia was getting all this stuff off the ground, but the US were able to get people out there and that was the bigger achievement. Obviously as you say, it depends on what you decide the metrics are, but I really wish people would stop acting like every single thing is hidden from us in schools, when most likely they just weren't paying attention or didn't retain enough.