[Wikipedia-l] US Education system (was NPR interview)

[Mark Williamson]

To add to that:

American history is a big deal in school here. In highschool though,
in order to graduate, you must take at least one class on world
history (iirc), and the theme for the entire year of 8th grade is
world history I think (by "world", they mean europe, asia, and africa
usually).

In some states, students need more credits in state history than they
do in "world history" in order to graduate from high school. This is
especially outrageous since many will go to college out of state, and
may never return for the rest of their lives. How helpful will a
detailed knowledge of Arkansas history be in California, let alone
Croatia??

In addition, they don't learn much about the present state of any
other country. Sure, Byzantines once ruled over much of Europe, but
who "rules over" Europe now?

With most Americans, when asked to pick out of a list of four
countries which one wasn't real, I would expect that they would get it
wrong at least half of the time. Well, actually, it depends on the
countries. If you said USA, Canada, Mexico, Laponia, most would know.

However, if you said Maldives, Brunei, Tonga, Laponia, they would very
likely choose the wrong answer (hint for those of you who don't know:
the Maldives are south of India, Brunei is in Australasia, and Tonga
is a Polynesian kingdom).

Mark

On 04/06/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Alphax wrote:
> > Christopher Mahan wrote:
> >
> >>>How do you explain to somebody that Toyota != Toyota Motor
> >>>Corporation when their level of expertise is limited to US High
> >>>School education level?
> >>>
> >
> > Is it true that in the US, students are not taught anything about other
> > countries?
> 
> No, it is not true.  It is true that US education tends to be quite
> heavy on American history, with a lesser focus on European history, and
> still less on the history of say, China or Africa.
> 
> <POV>
> If I had to criticize the way history is taught in the US, it is not
> that students are not taught _anything_ about other countries, but
> rather than they are taught about other countries in a way that tends to
> suggest that other countries are out there somewhere, but don't have a
> lot of importance for us except that sometimes they start to fight with
> each other and we have to go make them stop.
> </POV>
> 
> --Jimbo
> 
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