Americans of Reddit. I gotta ask, did you learn about global history and politics in school, not just American related information?
Americans of Reddit. I gotta ask, did you learn about global history and politics in school, not just American related information?
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Yes. What you actually study in school vs what people remember/claim is taught is disconnected.
There’s units on early history (Egypt/Rome/sumer/etc), native Americans, through the age of exploration, etc.
Buddy I didn’t even learn about American history post-1860 because there was some minor unpleasantness that my school didn’t want to talk about.
My school tried – public school suburb in the midwest, US. We were definitely taught the basics of world history, but we didn’t really have the time to do much of a deep dive. After a week or so on the birth of civilization and Egypt, mostly a focus on European history from the Roman Empire to WWII. I was in honors or AP classes, and I do not know what other classes taught.
Yes, of course. We did whole units on ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Maya and Inca, China, feudal Europe, Asia, global exploration, proceeding on to the Native Americans and the founding of the U.S., the World Wars, the Cold War, up to present day.
Yes. We typically take a World Geography course and a World History course in high school.
We had World History. It wasn’t as extensive or thorough as it could have been.
Most Americans learn some things about world history, however much of it is American history.
Really, the answer to this is entirely dependent on the state as education is managed by state governments and not federal ones, so there is not one universal curriculum across the US.
Yes, but mostly just as it related to US history. So we learned about European history, but it heavily focused on places like Spain, France, or England that had a role in shaping America.
Yes, but:
I am 50 and went to one of the top 100 public high schools in the country over 30 years ago; we have too much local variance to make a blanket statement on this
We pretty much got whitewashed history. The bad things were glossed over and ignored.
European history we learned quite a bit of, especially Greek and Roman. Also got a good deal of South American history, especially Ican and Mayan. A little bit of Asian history, very little Australian, almost no African.
NOTHING of 20th century history, however – and I got to AP history courses.
I went to school in the 1970s and we learned some of it but not a great deal. We mostly were concerned with the Cold War and practicing drills for being bombed with atomic bombs by the Russians. Then we were concerned about Kadaffi (I know I spelled his name wrong, I didn’t want to look it up). It’s different for the youth of America now, they learn more about than we did. Our media is strongly biased on both sides though, and propaganda flys rampantly.
Yes. Also depends on how far back you’re asking.
School 30+ years ago:
9th grade – State History
10th grade – Ancient History
11th grade – US History
12th grade – Modern World History
We have classes on it, yes. When I was in school, they were a little dry but we had to study them a bit. I don’t remember any ancient history lessons, but from the founding of America onward.
By the time my own children were in school, I felt like there was a lot less emphasis on world and American history, but more on women’s history and black heritage/history than existed in my school years.
I didn’t get GOOD education on world history or even American history until I attended university, though.
Yes, a bit. Basically the barebones you need to know about the world (ancient civilizations, beginning of civilization, some stuff about WWII in other countries), silk road, colonization across the world. I’m in a blue state with a good education system, I’m not sure about other states (your answer will largely change depending on the state/area the person is from).
We basically learned the history of the USA from 3rd-11th grade (I’m sure 12th is the same, but idk yet), minus one year of “world history”, of which half of the year was WWI/WWII (still focuses a lot on the USA, and yet we never learned about how we had Japanese internment camps, and other horrible things the USA did… strange…).
I learned more about world history from bill wurtz’s video “history of the entire world, i guess”, from my English class, and from my Spanish class (we talk about South American history)
It’s very Eurocentric/USA centric, we barely learned anything about the growth and history of Asia/Africa/South America/Australia.
History is so boring because you learn the same things over and over for 9 years in a row, with small changes and additions. (Sorry if this is poorly formatted)
Yeah, did a little of the fertile crescent, a little greece, a good bit of rome, then zapped forward to the US.
I got a lot of MISINFORMATION in 1-12. When i was older and went to college (2001) the history and geopolitical classes were almost completely opposite. Then when the internet really really took off I found out so much more after having access to other non bias academic materials and findings.
Of course.
History, yes of course. I’ve forgotten 99% of it of course. I don’t recall studying or discussing politics much though.
Yes, of course. Allll the way through school. We started even American history classes with stuff about indigenous peoples in the Americas, contrasted with what was going on in the rest of the world, then what was going on in the UK and why ppl came here. Basic history in elementary was all about the beginnings of civilization (from Lascaux to Egypt to Greece and Rome) to the damn list of popes and Chinese dynasties.
Then we also had world history, world geography, alll the way through school. Current events/social studies always involved the whole world. ‘North Korea is… because the Korean war and then the rise of…’ My 3rd grade project was on Chile (everyone had to pick a country out of a hat and do lots of research and give a big report about its history, governance, culture, imports/exports, etc.). My h.s. we did world geography, economic theory and global economics, AP world, APUSH…
I couldn’t tell you, because I was reading all sorts of history outside of class, so I don’t recall what I learned in class. We probably covered some, but I do recall there was no real comparative government or international civics material (in Oklahoma)
Yeah for sure but not extremely into the weeds
We take AP euro history or AP US history for deeper looks into history. AP euro was notoriously the hardest AP class at my hs lol. AP US history was notoriously the easiest. There is SO much European history lol
I was lucky enough to have several teachers step away from curriculum and expand on several non American centric issues. Most of us were not as lucky. It shaped who I am, and my politics. Ironically, the very teacher who helped his students not dive into Islamophobia after 9/11 is now a super MAGA freak that hates all brown people. Dude trashed the kkk calling them a religious extremist group, now is openly a racist. It’s proof that even the educated can be stupid.
Yea
It’s going to vary wildly depending on the state, city, school and student. In my public high school in the midwest we were all required to take Civics and US History (or AP US History). For electives after those, I chose to take AP European History, AP World History, and a world religions class. My brother didn’t take any of these classes so I’m not sure what his history classes covered.
But in elementary school and middle school generally kids study the birth of civilization, and ancient Egypt, I’m sure we studied ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, but I honestly don’t remember how much we dove into it. My school district also had very in-depth units on WW1 and WW2 and the Holocaust starting in elementary school. I know we had to do geography in middle school.
Generally, our required history classes focused mostly on American History. I remember learning a lot about Native North Americans and Central American History in elementary school and middle school.
This was just my experience. Someone that graduated the same year as me even in the same city but went to private school or a different public school district and they would have a different experience.
School in the Midwest had curriculum teaching about the holocaust (we wrote poems did projects specific to the topic) vs SE state I live in…does not teach about the holocaust other than a mention when learning about World War II
Yes. I was taught history as a whole (with a section on American history), then in high school, we had 2 history classes (one or both may have been elective), one was world history and the other was American history.
As others have said, it was state/community dependent. I’ll add that if you/your parents requested it—or you were an AP (advanced placement) student, you could opt for “harder” (i.e., more comprehensive) classes. In my case, the trade off was between history/science and home ec/phys ed/driver ed.
If you paid attention, yes.
Yes, but it really wasn’t that good
If I remember correctly my highschool had 2 years of US History and a year of World History (You might have been allowed to substitute World with Ancient or Medieval or something I don’t remember)
I do remember learning about ancient history in Middle School school.
But as someone else pointed out what you learn depends on what state you’re in.
Curriculum is almost entirely planned and approved at the state level, so there will be major differences between them. USA is just about as big as all of Europe. The differences between the states are practically as big as Europe has between countries.
In California, in sixth grade we learn about ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Greece, and Rome.
Grade seven is medieval to more modern: The fall of the Roman Empire, civilizations across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The spread of major religions, the feudal system, the Renaissance, and the beginnings of global exploration.
By tenth grade we have learned about world wars, the Cold War, industrialization.
But again states vary greatly. Some states rank very low in education and their culture doesn’t seem to push it much. There are high illiteracy rates in certain areas. These are usually the places in the middle of the country that don’t have a lot of influence from larger cities.
Mostly in relation to ancient history and then stuff like World War II. I was surprised a few months ago when my mom told me that when she was in school she learned all about British rule in India. She was in school in the 60s and early 70s, so I assume it was taught much differently than we see it now.
Mostly though even world history was in the scope of how it led to the US, or how the US influenced it.
In the 80s and 90s, I only learned American history and American perspectives on world events such as WWII. To learn anything beyond that required me to read the newspaper
To what extent?
I mean we learned a lot about ancient civilizations and broader strokes stuff in elementary/middle/high school, but I would say it falls off a lot when it comes to more modern situations.
The Magna Carta is getting a lot more attention than Margaret Thatcher, and there’s only so much you can learn in limited spans. Mansa Musa, for example, isn’t getting mentioned, despite his historic significance. A lot of it ties direct to Eurasian history, which is tied back to the general theme of elements that contributed to the modern American state of affairs.
In the 70s, we had an entire year of World History, going back to before the beginning of civilization. It was a pretty broad survey. Another year of western history, meaning European history.
You can get more in college, but it’s probably an elective.
It’s a big world, and it’s hard to cover it all.
Yes, but not very much of it until high school. High school was when we started to learn a bit more about world history and cultures and international relations and stuff like that. Elementary and middle were fairly US history and government centered, with the exception of learning a bit of ancient and medieval history in middle school.
Worth noting though that the school district I went to is considered one of the better (read: upper middle class) ones. Quality of schooling will differ with an area’s average income generally.
Tons of global history but not as much modern era history, which kind of makes sense because it has to work its way through curriculum committees.
The American k-12 curriculum is honestly very good. It’s the implementation of it that is failing. I left k-12 teaching because of the low pay, long hours, lack of respect, shitty checked-out parents, misbehaving students, etc. I simply wasn’t able to do my job.
Now I teach university where I can tell parents to pound sand, and don’t have to put up with bad students.
If memory serves correctly, at the high school level, we study World History and American History. These amount to surveys with occasional shallow dives into some key chapters. Ancient civilizations, the Revolutionary War, American Civil War, and the two world wars are covered, as are other conflicts, but only superficially.
These happened to be my favorite subjects when in high school. I also took Canadian History when I was briefly living in Montreal. I went on to study history and political science in college. That’s when the really interesting deep dives occur.
Yes. We learn way more about world history than we do about US-specific history. We have some version of history every grade from 1st to 12th. Under most curriculums, only 1-2 years are spent on solely US history, and of course a good portion of that also relates to world history.
I learned a small bit in Public School, more in my college classes, but history is written by the winners and what they teach of history is selective.
In the US most states, in high school, you are required to take at least one year of world history which covers a lot of ground, a ton is forgotten, and has a very strong eurocentric bias.
Yes. In New York, at least, when you’re in high school, there are certain courses that are required and you need to earn a certain number of credits in each course.
Specifically, for history/social studies, our requirements were/are:
What that looked like for us was:
9th and 10th Grade: Global History
11th Grade: US History
12th Grade: Participation and Government for half the year and Economics for the other half.
Yes, in World History, World Civilizations, AP World, and AP European history. It was still somewhat America centric in that things were compared to here and fairly nationalistic – depending on the teacher. I had an interest in history though, so I think the only required of those was World history Sophmore or Junior year and World Civilizations due to the program I was in. Everyone has to take at least one World History class and it is not current day.
Yes, of course.
Yes. 100%. I remember doing Chinese history, European history, etc. But each region was a few months every few years, with USA taking up more than 50% of the overall school career curriculum.
Another problem is that for all we learn it’s mostly ancient history. Ming Dynasty was more than a month long in 11th grade history. I’m sure a scholar can explain how certain Chinese events of today are tied to the history of the Ming dynasty, but as an adult, they don’t help the average American understand modern Chinese politics and culture.
At the same time, it’s not like we can spend tons of time learning about Xi Jiping and his policies, since they are still ongoing and we won’t know their full effects for another 10-20 years (other than knowing they aren’t good for the overall Chinese and global world). The most that can be expected is to have a few minutes of class a day discuss current events, and (if the teacher really knows history) have a 10-15 min discussion of how any current crises came into being. Most crises are brewing for a few years (sometimes decades) before they are fully acknowledged as a problem and a good historian would be able to walk a class through the why’s and how’s of a situation. However, most teachers at a high school aren’t at that level of historian, so that’s a big ask.
Grow up on the East Coast in Georgia. Some of our world history is France, especially the napoleon era. Some Great Britain and a little of its empire. Then skim over everything else and talk about ww2, mostly ww2. We don’t mention Vietnam or the gulf wars.
lol yes, definitely.
For me…. Elementary school was mostly regional history and geography. This includes Native American culture, natural resources by states and random terms lol. Fifth grade was early immigration and some critical thinking.
6th grade was Mesopotamia, migration and more basic terms that set the ground work for further scope.
7th and 8th grade was American History.
7th grade was pre Revolutionary war, Revolutionary war, Post revolutionary war. And some government.
8th grade was Industrial revolution through current day. (my teacher skipped most of the Civil War era/1800’s. Yikes.)
9th and 10th grade was world history, politics, religion, and some other stuff that I’m forgetting.
11th grade was American…??? Something? I think politics. That year was a rough one.
12th grade we did Economics and Government.
Some classes (like Advanced Placement) did other stuff and there were electives you could take for credit, as well.
Yes. I went to a private school for K-8, and that was much more advanced, but my 9-12 was public and we had world history classes. And it was required so every student had to take it. Now, what they gained and retained from that class, I can’t say. I also took high honors classes that went into further detail. This was in the early 2000s. My daughter is in highschool now and is taking a class on the the Middle Ages and took Early Civilizations last semester.
We were definitely taught. People are just stupid and didn’t pay attention and don’t continue their education beyond their schooling.
I took American, and World History, and another class called “Problems if Democracy,” also known as P.O.D. by students.
I think it depends on the school. Some of us Americans got to learn a lot. Others, not so much.
I sure did. But that was twenty years ago. I have zero faith that what I learned is still taught in US schools.