Last Week Tonight - Teaching American History

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In light of the protests around George Floyd and Trump's attempt to hold his Tulsa campaign rally on Juneteenth, Last Week Tonight looks at how the ways teaching American history in schools has purposely sugar-coated if not purposely misled students on its more pernicious aspects, particularly slavery and institutional racism.

Source

American

Comments

[bellwetherr]

american education is dangerous in how manipulative it is

[i_megaera]

The older I get, the more convinced I am that American History classes are just one long propaganda campaign.

[bellwetherr]

and of course i know that victors write history and that all countries have similar issues but man, it really just fucks me up to know how gaslit we were by our educators

[i_megaera]

It's just so insidious. The suppression of anything that shows the US government in a bad light just seems to be intended to foster a belief that the US government is infallible and increase blind faith in its policies.

[benihime99]

Back when I studied oversea I had several arguments with us citizen about wwii and the space program... the basic stuff they didn't know or were mistaken about was astonoshing

[benihime99]

That being said, every history book is biased. In every country
It's just more blatant in certain country
But let s not forget, the people in power chose how history is written everywhere

[rahnekat1]

I didn't learn about Japanese Internment until college. I'm now a middle school teacher who's often in trouble with parents for telling kids about the sorts of things mentioned in this episode. Worth it though. Kids have a really strong sense of justice; they just need to be taught what injustices there are first.

[teamdowney]

We did, but in Washington State history, which was a required course in high school for Washington State kids. But only because one of the largest interment camps in the US was at the Puyallup fair grounds.

[alesh101]

I had to learn about Japanese internment on a road trip across Colorado with a friend. She pointed out one of the old camp ruins. I'd never heard of any such thing; it definitely wasn't aught in the South where I grew up, nor was it mentioned in the Colorado History class had to take for my major in college.

We had the camps here in the state, how could that be neglected completely?

[la_loony]

Fuck the parents and go you for doing your job and properly educating your students! I hope when they get older they will remember you well and fondly for not holding back with your teaching.

[georgeslymaniv]

I will never forget how in my Asian Studies class we had a round table discussion (there were like 15 students) about whether it was the right decision to drop the bomb on Japan twice. I thought it was a no brainer - of course not. We had discussed the Dresden bombing in English class while reading Slaughthouse Five and the class unanimously said that was wrong because it was a civilian target. I was shocked when the majority said it was right

[shinychopstick]

We had a lot of complicated discussions about the atomic bombings and its effects in my modern Japanese history/modern Korean history university courses but I'm thankful that it was led by capable historians and tackled the subject of colonialism, and was also empathetic toward those impacted on every side. It's disappointing that U.S. history can't even get past the first step of unpacking all of this.

[la_loony]

Wow that's horible. I'm pretty sure no one in my class was that awful to say the bombings where the right descision. But I'm from Germany, so when we were at the point of learning more in depth about everything that happened after the surrender of the Germans we came out of being shown the full scope of the Holocaust so dropping not one but two bombs that whipe out whole cities couldn't sound right to anyone.
I'm surprised you discussed the Dresden bombings, wouldn't have thought that's talked about much outside of Germany and probably the UK. It's my hometown, so when we learned about it it was so chilling cause you knew all the places that were targeted and could still see the damages on a lot of the old baroque buildings in some form (like they rebuild one church while I was growing up and used as many of the old stones as they could and they sick out so much between the lighter new ones). It's a tricky subject here though, because right wing politicians etc. instrumentalize it a lot.

The main reason? "It kept them from killing

[djbbgoose]

i was taught in middle school that the Civil War was a "state's rights" issue more than slavery

[lurkurheartout]

are you from a southern state? Because revisionist history is taught like actual fact in Southern/Conservative states.

[djbbgoose]

Texas, this was during the Texas history year of social studies

[jessickah]

Yes, my state taught it in that way as well! They always painted Lincoln as an individual who wanted equality and freedom for all. In college, it was a different story. Lincoln didnt necessary want to free the slaves. He only freed slaves in rebelling states. It was a military strategy.

It's all I can think about when I see the Lincoln Project pop up.