On Sat, Jun 04, 2005 at 05:08:24PM +0200, Jimmy Wales wrote:
<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>
I have a great many issues with the way history is taught in US public schools, and most of them deal with the way American history is (mis)taught. Heh. A clear indicator is the fact that American history textbooks tend to have titles like "Rise of a Nation", whereas chemistry books tend to be called things like "Principles of Chemistry". To paraphrase someone else (whose name escapes me at the moment), I've never seen a chemistry textbook titled "Rise of the Atom".
I do share your difficulty with the dismissive attitude taken toward other nations' histories in public education. I just tend to believe that's a mere symptom of a pathology in the way American history is taught.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]