What did you learn in school about history and politics? - Polidicks

I learned in high school that the civil war was about states' rights and best protection is abstinence.

I went to nice-ish public schools in a blue state as a kid. It was introspective and self-critical but with no details or lots of time spent on something. The biggest problem was that, for a liberal-leaning place, I didn't learn shit about civics in a democracy. I didn't learn anything about the classics and had no idea what 'Western civ' was. I didn't learn anything about liberalism, really, other than "you can be anything" (this was before the recession). I didn't understand the evolution in America's two party system except for something about the southern strategy and the parties flipping. There's no critical thinking involved. College was the same way. I think mass education has failed in some ways, at least in this country. I only got my money's worth by talking to professors on my own, and even then I only made friends with some because we were both pretty left-wing. For the most part, teachers and professors couldn't give less of a damn and the students are even less invested.

From what I remember, It was mostly European centric. The rest of the stuff were either skipped entirely (big bummer about the Mesoamerican period) or mentioned a few times (16th Century Japan, Golden age of piracy). While we did cover plenty of history, we only learned on the surface level. Never going into full details around most of the periods, with the exception being the bloody Ottoman period. Another thing that didn't help was that during my elementary years I had a crazy teacher who was probably a misandrist. So the classes were mostly around berating us about irrelevant shit and being a pain in the ass during the oral exams. Even if you knew 99% about the stuff he was asking you, he would still lower your grade because you missed a very minor detail (That Fuck). My middle school teacher was much better, but the classes were boring as hell and didn't offer anything new since we were repeating the whole history all over again, just much faster. Thankfully I learned a lot of history through games, books, documentaries and my father and grandfather. So my grades were pretty good.

P good overall, id say I spend less of that class programming RPGs on my TI-84 than any other The history/geography program is good in France in general. Middle school is history of civilisation, high school focuses on 20th century, world wars, cold wars, US/China/URSS, social changes on a world scale. Less learning every single event of french history, more teaching ideas relevant today from the history of the world. There's also a big focus on geography, geopolitics, learning how roughly how the world economy works, learning a country's economy and demographics through history (like China, Brasil). They can't teach you everything so they teach you what's most relevant. That was S (stem focused, big waste of time and effort cause I never ended up doing anything stem related woo) high school classes though, that's like 10% of french students or smt, every "types" of high school classes has a different program and there's like 5-10 different types, cant keep up with that stuff every governements reforms it for no reason.

Not a whole lot. Most of my history has been from supplemental reading and documentaries, though spectrum cable seems to not be a fan of that and just locked all the good channels for that behind yet another paywall.

Throughout middle and high school, I learned that... World War 2 = bad America = Best country Put those two things on repeat and that's pretty much it. I wish I was joking.

I'm assuming what world history and "social studies" I got was spread too thinly over too many different topics because I barely remember anything outside of US history, which we did all of obviously. Some more practical analysis of history would be good. There are places where they'll never teach this but they should talk about US foreign intervention and especially foreign policy in the twentieth century. Teaching about the recent past in countries that are in current events would be useful.

Pre-GCSE I did basically what everyone else from UK in this thread did, though I missed out on a couple years of it due to some "Opening Minds" thing which replaced all humanities lessons for my first two years of secondary. The only actual bit I remember in specific, though, is the Romans. In GCSE History I did Medicine Through Time, American West, and the Tudors. Might have been a 4th unit or whatever you want to call it, but if there was I don't remember too well what exactly it would be.

apparently he wasnt genocidal and was a hero

We didn't cover politics(Thank fuck, woulda been fistfight central), just the basic facts of history.

I almost always read history books in my class on my own time and just ignored whatever a teacher was saying. I'm glad I did that. Teachers would skip or breeze over certain subjects in the books, like the Crusades were basically ignored by my middle school teacher (I'm left to believe it's because they were catholic). I'd also notice there's always a certain framing to justify our actions until more recent backlash would demand the frame change. Like the treatment of Natives or Manifest-Destiny, or even more recently how we justify dropping atomic bombs on Japan and Napalming the shit out of Vietnam (and Cambodia, and Laos). Hell I remember my English teacher played a documentary on Vietnam and didn't get that "Born in the USA" was a scathing insult to America over Vietnam not a fucking patriotic song.

I probably learned more about America than the average American tbh.

history wise, starting in primary school we pretty much only learnt about the early days of australia. this was in the late 90s/early 2000s though so they sorta let the genocide stuff slide under the curriculum. i don't remember hearing about that stuff until highschool. in high school we mostly learnt about the vietnam war and post ww2 australia. and i remember learning about how our government creates laws including visits to the state's parliament house. it was fairly comprehensive but only went over the procedure it didn't elaborate on how the government operates outside of the house and senate. all of the information on history and politics that i've retained is from my own research, however it was learning about stuff in school that sparked my curiosity and got me to research and branch out in the first place.

A Level history was incredibly reductionist and biased politics wise. Looking back over some of the work we did on ideologies and totalitarianism, the bulk of it amounted to muh horseshoe theory. Beyond that we did British Empire (also a whitewash) and Tudor/Elizabethan history. My younger brother does a Politics A level at the moment and it looks like it suffers a similar problem. They seem to try teach you as much as possible - but a lot of it ends of being so reductive that you later find out it's incorrect. Degree level economics education over here is renowned for being really myopic too.

I don't think I learnt much until 6th Form, and a lot of it outside the classroom. I was labelled a special student and given all sorts of leeway, which I constantly took advantage of to not have to try as hard as others. I was still often in the shit though. I'd say since then I've got better at playing the game, which I'd argue is potentially the most valuable skill for modern life. I feel like in school the subject matter is much less important than how to pass that exam and navigate the world, and transfering that skill to the broader world is probably the most valuable thing a lot of us got out of school. Shame I was dreadful at it whilst at school. I learnt a fair bit about WW1 from doing coursework on WW1 media in English Lit, I learnt all I know about computing from A Level Computing and somehow have yet to surpus that at degree level. I learnt a fair bit about economics and how politics works from Economics, but that was less the module itself and more the teacher I had. Who himself often acted like a slimy politician, from what I've heard behind the scenes, plus he's actually now set to be the headmaster of a new school that he was on the comittee for funding. All this after apparently crippling the finances of the school he used to work at, and starving its library of funding.

sorry, I fail all my history papers because they are not in English. From what I remember most of it is Colonialism and Japanese occupation in Malaya territory, origin of Islam, some bullshit fairy tale about local superheroes and uuuh constitutional monarchy I guess? Absolutely fuckall past middle east. I learn most from video games and wikipedia. I swear I don't even know anything about WW1 until I'm past 20.

In Primary school we did squad except for learning about the 1916 Rising and Ireland during the 16th century. In secondary school, we learnt about how an historian finds things out, sources, primary and secondary, then we moved onto stone age up till the 1920s, basically skipped WW1 except for the basics and through to WW2, in senior cycle it's cold war, vietnam, interwar Britain and then 9/11. for politics our history teacher is so blatantly anti trump and liberal its actually become grating.

Politics? Zero, complete zero. Maybe a few things about how democracy works, what's parlament and presidential system, though very shallowly. Nothing about the parties, other political systems, economies, medias, elections, political ideologies and such. A little theory, nothing more. History? Basically summarized history of Poland, a little about Prussia, German and Italian unification, a mere mention of GB, American Civil war and war of Independence, litte to no about the Mexican war. No mention of Russian expansion in the east and north-west, nothing really about Spain other than the New World discovery (no mention of Iberian Wedding and Union), a few about Rome, mostly the most important battles, but never explained, how they got so big. Nothing about incorporation of Bohemia to Austria, literally nothing about Benelux, nothing about Scandinavia apart from our short-lasting Polish-Swedish Union, little about WWI, even about our regions, quite a few about WWII, though again- shallow. Our history classes were really focused about polish history. The most important events in Europe were mentioned, but we basically learned nothing about Africa or Asia (apart from learning that Japan opened to the world and PRC took over China, I guess). Same with South America. With North Anerica, only US is really talked about.

Politics? Not much. Most of it came in the shape of studying political philosophers during Philosophy class. But my Philosophy & Science teacher was not the best and I really did not study much, so I don't really remember about it. My fault, really. History: pretty much everything that has to do with the western world, with a focus on Europe, and a focus within a focus for my country. It helps that most of the classes were interconnected to some extent: you start studying Dante in literature in conjunction with the Middle Ages in History, and generally speaking the two classes go side-by-side for a bit before History speeds up while Literature lingers more on older authors. History started from prehistory with a general explanation of how life was at the time, creation myths from multiple cultures, discovery of agriculture and invention of writing from the Sumers. The Sumers themselves, of course, and then the entire number of cultures and empires of the Mesopotamian region, like the Akkads and the Babylonians, etc. The focus then goes to the Egyptians and all the nifty stuff they did, the distinction between Higher Egypt and Lower Egypt, all the different succession of pharaohs, creation of the pyramids, general culture and stuff. Not long after you move to the island of Crete, its language and history, the arrival of the mysterious "Sea People", as well as other cultures along the mediterranean. You then move from this proto-greek stuff to proper Greece and then to Magna Graecia and other ancient italian cultures, and generally primitive Europe. Then you move to feudalism and the middle ages and then it's a fairly general overview, bouncing back and forth between countries, mainly France, England, Germany and Italy and Spain, depending on which one was doing what in that specific period: usually France and Englad fucked with each other, and Spain was the focus during the whole Crusades and Reconquista, Germany during the whole Martin Luther debacle, etc etc. The discovery of American and the aftermath of that also took its time, and we even did a bit of American History although stopping at the unification. We never even got to the civil war, because that didn't really involve Europe I guess? The Renaissance period focuses mostly on Italy and the rich landscape of different governments and city states that filled the country at the time. Bada bing bada boom and it's time for the Italian Reunification, which happened 157 years ago, and that pretty much fucked up the country for the remaining years. Then there is other stuff I can't remember before jumping into World War 1, spending little time on its aftermath before moving to World War 2. At some point we also studied a little bit oriental history, like the Opium Trade and the Boxer Rebellion, and of course the final fight between the Americans and the Japanese during world war 2. IN PARALLEL TO THIS You had Italian Literature that went over Italian authors and the history surrounding them. Dante had its own class. He's just that special. You had Latin Literature that went over ancient latin authors and the history surrounding them. You had English Literature that did an overview of English literature. We started with Beowulf and other old english stuff. We traced English history and studied a couple authors from every important period. Not that big on a focus on Shakespeare, to say the truth, I think my teacher was more of a Dickens Gal. I think the most modern author we studied was George Orwell. Of course every time we studied an author we also studied some of the historical context about him.

I learnt that Russia has a really shitty history No offence to the Russian members

My history education was a fucking mess since I moved around so much. In all of my school years, from pre-k to grade 12, I learned world history twice, the history of new york twice, and the american revolution literally every other year of school. I had to educate myself to get a good god damned understanding of history.

My secondary school history teacher told me Hitler hated Jews because he went to the "Jew street" in Berlin to sell his paintings and they wouldn't buy any.

Grew up in the American South, so as others have said, history focused mostly on European, then American up to the World Wars, and very little Asian. African history was barely touched on, except in the context of slavery. Oh, and of course, I was taught that the Civil War was about State's Rights, which I wasn't prompted to fully question until much later, unfortunately. Vietnam was only sketchily covered, and I barely even knew what the Korean Was was until, again, much later. So basically it was the History of the Divine White American Race, naturally.

We were taught very little in terms of international history, and it was mostly focused on British shenanigans. Russian history was much more detailed (and it took 6 years instead of measly 1.5 for world history), and, big fucking surprise, most of the horrific shit done by communists was either downplayed or overlooked entirely. It really is. We're a country-sized version of fucking Mr Bones' Wild Ride, and nobody is getting off.

High school history for me wasn't half as thorough as it should've been. We learned about the revolutionary war and some of the events that led up to it, but nothing terribly in-depth all things considered. We then skipped over basically everything regarding actually forming the US afterwards. We covered the civil war but, again, it was nothing terribly in-depth and focused largely on the slave trade. After that we completely glossed over WWI and went to WWII instead which was one of the more in-depth ones compared to the rest. I learned far more on my own than my history classes unfortunately.

I had a decent civics class in High school, did a lot of different history classes there too (I took Ancient Greek so I got Greek history mixed in, I took AP US and Euro, Modern History, Counter-cultural history for the US, and a few others). In college I've took a variety as well, more globally oriented - a History of War class from the Spanish Conquest to now, Latin American history, Maritime History classes, and a bunch of others. In elementry/middle school the usual "columbus -> taxes -> revolt -> FREEDOM -> free slaves -> kick hitler's ass -> now" sorta time-line.

I learned that you can go to detention and be suspended for not standing up and reciting the pledge of allegiance. Not like it bothered me or anything, I used to skip school a ton and eventually they just let me sit there in silence because they knew I'd be getting what I wanted either way.

What did I learn in school about history and politics? Nothing lol. Out teacher wasn't able to teach us anything, so instead we were watching some shitty movies. I had to actually learn the history by myself, so I could pass the exams to end the school.

I remember mine pretty clearly GCSE History papers from what I gathered from myself and others (around 2013-2014) were on the politics and the onset of World War 1, the onset of World War 2, Civil Rights movements in the US from 1950-1980 and the US/Western side of the Cold War I always have been a bit of a history nut and especially love 1800-2000 era of history, mostly political and military history, but I always thought it was fairly dumbed down and only really there to serve the purpose of writing essays for college/uni rather than spark interest in the actual historical context of the lessons. Obviously there's only so much detail you can go into when teaching 15-16 year olds history in lesson to keep it varied and interesting, but when like 80% of the lesson was just about "Note this down and you'll pass it" rather than "this will be a good thing to look into for more information". Like when I was doing my GCSE's History was an optional class, so therefore you'd expect those that chose it to be at least interested in learning about it, not just have an easy screw to pass the class Another thing I get a lot, especially when I used to speak to a bunch of american friends on teamspeak around the same time, is why our history classes doesn't touch too much on British/European history, and instead focuses more on US history. Don't get me wrong, US politics and society has been a major influence in western culture since World War 2, but I feel that some aspects about British society and history are never touched on which should be common knowledge, stuff like the English Civil War, The commonwealth of Nations, the Empire aspect of our Kingdom, both the positives and the negatives. Maybe it was just my school around that time? Being at university and speaking to others about what they studies makes me feel like it was commonplace across all boards in regards to our learning curriculum, maybe our schools just aren't teaching us for the purpose of teaching, but rather to shove its students out for the sole purpose of finding a job?

I'll list everything I can remember covering in my state school for history. Keep in mind that I took both Ancient and Modern History, so my experience is pretty comprehensive. All my teachers went quite in depth with everything. Archaeology (dating methods, and renowned archaeologists and their discoveries) Early history (stone, copper, bronze, iron ages, etc.) Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, South American civilisations (Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, etc.) Pretty General Medieval History (Dark Ages, Norman Conquest, The Black Death, etc.) French Revolution (sorta skipped past the American revolution since it wasn't that important and learned a bit about the other numerous revolutions throughout Europe) I think we covered the Napoleonic Wars (but I don't remember much about it other than some famous battles and figures) Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions Boxer Rebellion and Opium Wars American policy of Manifest Destiny Russian Revolutions (Bloody Sunday massacre, 1905 revolution, Duma, February Revolution, Kerensky government, October Revolution, Russian Civil War) First World War Interwar (Treaty of Versailles and others, League of Nations, and the Weimar Republic, Great Depression and Dust Bowl, 2nd Italo-Ethiopian War, the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy) Second World War Soviet History Cold War (Soviet Union, Domino Effect and ANZUS treaty, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cambodia, Indonesian Communist Killings and genocide in East Timor, Arms race, Space Race, Cuban Missile Crisis) Civil Rights Movement and Women's Suffrage Australian History (terra nullius, convict settlement and British colonisation, Bushrangers (Ned Kelly), Eureka Stockade and union movement, Federation, Second Boer War, the Stolen Generation, White Australia Policy, 1975 Constitutional Crisis, Mabo) Japanese History