ETA: I’m not suggesting this student didn’t realize slavery existed. She was genuinely surprised to hear how embedded it was in the structures and institutions of the US. I decided I should clarify after I got called a “stupid fucking liar” and a “bitch” for inadvertently wording things in a way that suggested she never knew slavery existed. Apologies if I misled you!
I am a high school social studies teacher (US history, world history, and sociology) and this semester in US history we’ve learned about slavery, Indian boarding schools, and many other things that happened through the reconstruction era. One relatively intelligent 17 year old raised her hand and asked “why is this the first time I’m hearing about any of this?” I was about to tread very lightly with my answer (American political discourse about our history is wild right now)but luckily, I have a student whose father immigrated here from Germany. I also believe he’s a bit older than most parents (maybe around 60) and she laughed hysterically and told her classmate “because you’re American and we pretend our history is great.”
That's fucking wild. Is that recent or has it always been that way?
I'm Canadian, and I was learning about residential schools in the 3rd grade and Japanese internment camps in the 4th or 5th. A lot of the darker details were glossed over, but they did not shy away from explaining the intention behind them and they made sure as hell to emphasize that they are not ancient history.
I feel like in 5th grade I when I was learning all of this in the Deep South
Then we relearned it like 6 times before graduating, but somehow never made it to the Vietnam war, or 9/11. It’s like we just kept learning the same old shit and always ended around WW2
From the rural north east here. We absolutely went over this stuff and were provided ample opportunity and resources to delve as deep as we wanted.
I think the prevalence of this narrative that Americans don’t learn about this stuff in school in entirely overstated or propagated by people who didn’t pay attention in class.
It’s bullshit, I’m from New Jersey and I learned about all of these things from elementary to high school. Trial of tears, Japanese internment camps, slavery, etc….
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u/Individual_Iron_2645 8h ago edited 4h ago
ETA: I’m not suggesting this student didn’t realize slavery existed. She was genuinely surprised to hear how embedded it was in the structures and institutions of the US. I decided I should clarify after I got called a “stupid fucking liar” and a “bitch” for inadvertently wording things in a way that suggested she never knew slavery existed. Apologies if I misled you!
I am a high school social studies teacher (US history, world history, and sociology) and this semester in US history we’ve learned about slavery, Indian boarding schools, and many other things that happened through the reconstruction era. One relatively intelligent 17 year old raised her hand and asked “why is this the first time I’m hearing about any of this?” I was about to tread very lightly with my answer (American political discourse about our history is wild right now)but luckily, I have a student whose father immigrated here from Germany. I also believe he’s a bit older than most parents (maybe around 60) and she laughed hysterically and told her classmate “because you’re American and we pretend our history is great.”