i have a question for posters from outside the u.s.

[Deleted]

As a brit mostly about our fantastic empire and how we're bitter it all ended rather soon.

That and the French.

And also swedish cowardliness during WW2

[zealo]

I had the exact opposite experience o.O

I know absolutely zero about Swedish history, because it was barely touched upon. I know we had TWO lessons in 8th grade that discussed the Swedish Empire and Stormaktstiden, but that's it. No more mentions of it.

Our History class was way too broad and focused on world history to the degree that I'd say the bulk of it over four years was spent on Greek/Roman early civilization, French and Industrial revolution, and the two World Wars. And so, so, so, SO much about the World War. Countless classes over a few years of World War 2. I feel like I know more about WW2 than my own life at this point.

o.O My WW2 classes was done in about a semester and that's it. Different schools and different focuses I suppose but my perspective was all the way from first grade. I had all of those you mention as well but there was a focus on swedish early history and onwards.

[Arewn]

You'll get different information from history lessons of different places.
In Canada, my lessons were (surprise surprise) focused more on the exploits of Canada and those related to it.

Even within the US, from location to location, you'll find differences. My gf always tells me about how her history lessons suddenly changed tones on the civil war when she moved from the south to the north.

[Jakexe]

My general history classes were about the first fleet, the colonization of the east coast and all the horrible things the white man did to the aborigines.

If it wasn't for assassins creed 3 I would know very little about US history.

[Kalis]

That and the French.

You learnt about French history, or how we battered them everytime they decided to get a bit bolshie? Agincourt, Napoleon, and all that.

[lakhesis]

I had an unusually traditional British-influenced education for an Australian (e.g. my school still taught Latin, although mine was the last year level that did it - they started teaching Mandarin instead for the year after).

We did:

Primary School = A mishmash of different types of history with a strong tendency towards Australian history, but a dash of European & American. Not terribly formal.

Year 7 = Ancient History (Sumer -> Egypt -> Macedonia -> Ancient Greece -> Ancient Rome)
Year 8 = British History (from the Norman Invasion until the War of the Roses) for half the year & Geography for the other half
Year 9 = (History became an optional subject) - Australian History
Year 10 = (History optional) - American History

And I couldn't tell you how they handled year 11 & 12. I don't believe Asian history was available at any point while I was there, despite Australia's proximity to Asia. That's probably changed now tho, similar to the swap from teaching Latin to teaching Mandarin.

Naturally there's a much broader range of historical fields available at a university level.

[Deleted]

Definitely a lot about our own country and how it was shaped into what it is over the course of history; especially after the first and second world war, where a lot of political stuff went down. But we also learned a lot about other countries history and how that affected the world etc..
Classic Greece, Roman empire, Dark ages (and how we raided everybody's asses), medieval times and the spread of religion, crusades, Baroc times, renaissance times, American revolution, French revolution, industrialization, Napoleonic wars, the french prussian wars, the Prussian war on Denmark, first and second world war, the post modern times. We actually learn quite a lot of history throughout our education, and it often is ingrained into other classes outside of history classes.

[Deleted]

You learnt about French history, or how we battered them everytime they decided to get a bit bolshie? Agincourt, Napoleon, and all that.

The latter of course.

Is there any other way to go about French history?

[wowaccounttom]

The REAL question is, how many other countries tiptoe the line of lying about important events to make their own country sound better in the history lessons?

For Example, history books used in US Classrooms widely depict the US as being the majority of the reason why the Allies won against the Nazis in WWII.

(Note: I'm a US Citizen myself and while I've a love of my country like anybody else does... I can't condone outright lying so I'm really not nation bashing here).

or that they won the vietnam war...

funny just noticed...has there been a decade since the 1900s where the u.s wasnt at war with x country or with other states? :/

[zealo]

And also swedish cowardliness during WW2

We did help the finns fight the winter war by sending supplies and volunteers but I guess that its for our involvement in that war.

[Kalis]

funny just noticed...has there been a decade since the 1900s where the u.s wasnt at war with x country or with other states? :/

From a European perspective, it's more impressive that the US went for years without being at war with anybody. I don't think Britain has managed that for centuries, if ever.

[Deleted]

our history in the u.s. tends to be well u.s. centric. for example when they taught me about the revolutionary war it was mostly about the u.s. v.s. britian and france blockading the army of cornwallis in 1781 i think it was...and something about spain causing problems for britian in the south and that's literally it. this is just one example but i think you get my point my question is this: do european, austrailian and other countries education focus more on their own country to the exclusion of the efforts made by other countries in various points of their history?
(btw i'll be back in a bit have an appointment to keep)

I live in Belgium and our history is teached on a more global scale, there obviously were parts in our "local" history that were important but in general we are teached about imortant evens globally.

I can assure you that every country is in some way biased to how they teach history. Some more then others and in some very fucked up and corrupt countries to a point you can dismiss everything being teached about the world.

[Super Kami Dende]

our history in the u.s. tends to be well u.s. centric. for example when they taught me about the revolutionary war it was mostly about the u.s. v.s. britian and france blockading the army of cornwallis in 1781 i think it was...and something about spain causing problems for britian in the south and that's literally it. this is just one example but i think you get my point my question is this: do european, austrailian and other countries education focus more on their own country to the exclusion of the efforts made by other countries in various points of their history?
(btw i'll be back in a bit have an appointment to keep)

I my HighSchool in Australia our History was fairly unbiased. I actually had this really awesome Teacher who sat down with me and told me the Positives that both sides had in the wars. It was strange but very educational being told how both the Allies and Axis ran and Hitler's eventual fall from a guy that had actual positive effects on a country with positives goals that somehow became paranoid and let his ideas fall into madness.

The only biased history we got was out indigenous history. Which always seemed to paint everyone but the indigenous as evil.

Though Australian history is boring as fuck, with the exception of Ned Kelly and the Bushrangers. I love Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Germanic European History the Most. I love Japanese history aswell, have done since I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Tv as a youngun back in early 1990's, but it seems these days if you like Japanese history and Culture you automatically get lumped in the Weeaboo camp.

[Noradin]

Hitler's eventual fall from a guy that had actual positive effects on a country with positives goals

Hitler was the guy who had great timing to blame all hardships on his predecessors and claim all their archivements for his own.

Thats the problem with building economics, back up people get impatient and abandon the course that helps, then attribute the good it did to the new one... kind of what Greece does right now. (This is not supposed to be a comparison of their government with the Nazi one, but of the situations before they came about!)

[Frozenbeef]

We barely learnt history, it was pretty limited to ww1-ww2, native indians etc :S But then again that was only year 7-9 as i didn't take it at gcse..

[Bolson13]

I'm from the Netherlands, and honestly I wished there had been a little more about my own country in history. Some very interesting stuff happened here, but we only learned some of the big stuff. Then again, I suppose this was just a series of unrelated and sometimes downright hostile provinces back in the day.

Overall, we learned a lot about Europe and the rest of the world. Final year we learned about the industrialization, mostly through focus on England. And we learned some of China. Before that, a lot about Russia. And naturally the world wars and major players there. And yes, also a good deal about America.

America is great at exporting its culture through, through all sorts of ways. From documentaries, to games, to movies and series. These days I know more about American history than my own. And I don't consider that a bad thing. But it does mean Europe, or at least The Netherlands, fails to make its history as compelling. Beyond world war II.

Dutch history classes were BS for me as well. I think for Dutch history we discussed the beginning of the 80 year war (hagenpreken, beeldenstorm), our link to Belgium and then the golden century for like 10 minutes.
And I specifically remember that it was mostly about fact + year, fact + year, fact + year. Not the actual meaning behind it because the test would ask "in what year was the battle of Nieuwpoort", "what year was the Dutch East India company founded", "what year was the "disasteryear". Oh and of course, slavery is bad bad bad.

I mean, we have such great history. All these countries that claim they were such great naval powers at the time it meant the most, got their asses handed to them as soon as that tiny Dutch nation popped up . And even though we were the biggest economic power around that time, and put down a large part of modern day economics, we never really decided on mercantile strategies like starting wars solely to make more money, drugging an entire country just for tea etc.. Even back then you already saw some of modern Dutch culture back in decisionmaking. I think that is more interesting stuff than "event + date".

[zealo]

I can't say we even touched a little bit on Sweden in the years between the viking raids up until the imperial days. That's a gap of like 500 years of no mention what Sweden was up to. As I said, we did touch on Stormaktstiden for a class or two, but prior to that there hadn't been a single mention of Scandinavia since the Viking stuff. Heck, I don't think we covered much of Sweden after Stormaktstiden either; the last bit I can recall that involved Sweden was our participation in WW2 and even then we were just a footnote.

That's real strange considering things like the Kalmar Union happened in that time period they skipped, but suppose it depends on what they deem to be important.

[Jackmoves]

We had a little bit of everything when I went to school(30 years old now). The 1600-1700s was covered quite extensively as it was a pretty eventful time period for my country Sweden, from what I remember, it was pretty much 200 years of endless wars and misery(for all countries involved), esp loads of wars against the Danes and Russians. But you also had the 30-year war(Continental war, Sweden was in on that to, protestant states vs catholic states).

The 30-year war doesn't seem to get a lot of notice in general but it was a very destructive war for Europe and especially for what is now Germany, since most of the battles took place there.

The Thirty Years' War was a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648.[15] It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, and one of the longest.

Initially a war between Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmenting Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers of Europe,[16] becoming less about religion and more a continuation of the France–Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence.[17]

The Thirty Years' War saw the devastation of entire regions, with famine and disease significantly decreasing the population of the German and Italian states, the Kingdom of Bohemia, and the Low Countries. The war also bankrupted most of the combatant powers. Both mercenaries and soldiers in armies were expected to fund themselves by looting or extorting tribute, which imposed severe hardships on the inhabitants of occupied territories.

The Thirty Years' War ended with the treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, part of the wider Peace of Westphalia.[18]

[Vladimeir]

our history in the u.s. tends to be well u.s. centric. for example when they taught me about the revolutionary war it was mostly about the u.s. v.s. britian and france blockading the army of cornwallis in 1781 i think it was...and something about spain causing problems for britian in the south and that's literally it. this is just one example but i think you get my point my question is this: do european, austrailian and other countries education focus more on their own country to the exclusion of the efforts made by other countries in various points of their history?
(btw i'll be back in a bit have an appointment to keep)

To break the US stereotype being portrayed here, most schools in my region will do American, European, World, and Western Civilization as the standard 4 classes in High School. Additionally, other classes that are not mandatory (in my school, only 3 years in High school were required for history) include International Relations and others.

Now, as growing up (middle school, elementary school), History classes tend to be centered on the history of the United States for a few reasons. One is to instill a sense of nationalistic pride which is important to teach a youth. The other is that it is important to learn about where you live and where you came from. This is best done yet young ages. It's also easier to understand events that relate directly to a youth as opposed to something they will rarely encounter again. For example, 2nd grade might learn about Paul Revere, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln because these 3 people are highly recognizable to Americans. But learning about Winston Churchill as an American 10 year old wouldn't stick as well because they aren't saturated with the imagery in their daily lives as they are with the formers.

So it only makes sense that a youth in another country would learn about their country first before branching out in their interests.

- - - Updated - - -

If you can take countless weeks to cover a World War we've already covered in previous years, then maybe you should spare a class or two for other stuff.
.

It is amazing though at how many people don't retain what they learned year after year though

Sometimes, however, an important event like WWII should take precedence, especially when what is being taught is to several hundred students (depending on the size of the school), to make sure that every student retains as much information as possible. It also not like it is the same history class over and over again. Each year should, theoretically, tackle new topics related to WWII and dive deeper and deeper into the causes and effects.

Regarding your main point, it is a shame that certain time periods or events are skipped over despite discussing other related events in that time period or event. But relative importance is relative I guess.

[breadisfunny]

or that they won the vietnam war...

funny just noticed...has there been a decade since the 1900s where the u.s wasnt at war with x country or with other states? :/

the way the vietnam war was taught to us....it was something along the lines of "and the u.s. would've won too if it hadn't been for those damn hippies protesting!" the book they read to us in school made very nasty remarks about the protests.
world war ii was taught in our schools with a very u.s. centric view and not much mention of russia.(gee i wonder why) the european nations were portrayed as weak and africa was completely ignored as was the wars in china and japan got a brief mention in my history classes.
our history classes spent a total of about half a page describing world war one. but the civil war that took up almost an entire semester.

our high schools did offer history classes that specialized in specific areas but they were only available our senior year and most people didn't take them. myself included as i had to take other classes that year.

the revolutionary war got an entire sesmester devoted to it....twice.once in elementary and once in one of my middle school classes.
actually now that i remember we spent the ENTIRE YEAR IN eighth grade SOCIAL STUDIES studying the revolutionary war and the constitution.