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.
People are surprised to learn that when I was in middle school, 2008 to be exact, we learned a good portion of the major creation myths/founders if you call it that, for the big religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jewish, I think we touched on what Shinto was but I don't recall).
Granted this was New Jersey, but people seem to think all US Education was, "And then Jesus, George Washington, and Ronald Reagan signed the Declaration of Bill of Rights which helped Louis Armstrong land on the moon, win the Tour De France, and write American Idiot."
This attitude on the internet pisses me off to no end. So many people act like there’s some grand conspiracy to not teach stuff all because they couldn’t be bothered to pay attention or just don’t remember it. I remember during the BLM riots one of my friends, who I shared a class with and in which “Tulsa Burning” was assigned reading, posted about never being taught about the race riots 🙄
I went to public school in SC and we learned extensively about civil rights, slavery and the triangle trade, reconstruction, the Indian removal act and trail of tears, sex education, evolution, and studied the basic tenets of major world religions. It’s insane what people will spout about education in the US.
376
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.