Most everything that’s taught as the US “defending itself” against a foreign aggressor.
Yes, there are some specific instances the US legitimately needed to defend itself. However, this narrative that the US, especially as its promoted under the guise of “respecting our troops”, is mostly false.
Most wars the US fought were imperial and fought for the ambitions of American oligarchs.
I’d actually argue the narrative that’s central to US propaganda, that “soldiers fight for our freedom” is extremely harmful to said soldiers themselves. Their service and sometimes lives are wasted on the rich, not for freedom. People should really stop joining the military until that changes.
The United States was founded on principles of liberty and equality for all.
While I was taught that in elementary school, I was also taught about the 3/5ths compromise as early as middle school. By the time high school rolled around I was being taught about reconstruction and the corrupt bargain of 1877. I guess I’m lucky I got a good education in the north because I am aware that’s not necessarily the standard nationally.
I was also taught these things in the south, living in North Florida. As part of a 1 semester Florida history class in middle school, we also went into each of the spanish conquistadors and how they murdered their way across the continent.
My AP history teacher gave us copies of Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States as a supplemental to our textbooks. She was an awful teacher overall, but I appreciated her trying to make sure we had multiple perspectives.
Then I went to an elite east-coast private college, where I almost failed US History because I called the professor out for teaching Lost Cause bullshit.
Any academic peddling lost cause bullshit is a complete joke. Just curious, were they from the south?
Of course they were.
He also characterized the 2000 election as “a perfect tie” that could’ve just as easily been decided by a coinflip instead of the more historically agreed upon view of the Supreme Court ratfucking Florida’s recount.
Yeah we talked about colonialism in my middle school.
However, it was discussed as a fact of history and we went into detail about the slave trade triangle and all that.
And we did it without politicizing it. It was facts-based rather than pushing some weird political narrative about how america is heroic, or america is evil. Fancy that… just teaching history.
Sometimes moralizing is necessary. In Canada we had one teacher go into detail on the kidnapping of indigineous children and the residential schools they were sent to where they were often beaten or raped. I’m glad that teacher did that since many of my contemporaries were not aware of that history and some remain oblivious into adulthood. There’s nothing worse for a nation than people having a false sense of pride in it (as we’re seeing in the US currently).
In Canada we had one teacher go into detail on the kidnapping of indigineous children and the residential schools they were sent to where they were often beaten or raped
That isn’t moralizing dude. That’s just telling facts.
The moralizing/politicizing part is when you tell the kids that it’s their fault and they should feel bad about it. It isn’t, and they shouldn’t.
If we didn’t have this lie, people wouldn’t be as mad when they found the parts where it is untrue.
France: the French revolution was poor people rioting. We are starting to accept that it was rich people killing each other to replace monarchy, and using poor people as a side-effect, kind of like… what we have right now, what a coincidence!
I think that’s still an oversimplification.
The revolution started after the king called the Estates General in hopes of solving the debt crisis that had come in a large part from funding the American Revolution. The Estates General was a body made up of representatives of the three estates, the aristocrats, the clergy, and everyone else. The representatives of the third estate we’re primarily new money bourgeoisie, but they were elected, unlike the other two, and could therefore claim to represent the people. After failing to come to an agreement, the representatives of the third estate broke away and formed the National Assembly.
How much the National Assembly actually represented the people is debateable, but they did have some claim to that, unlike the other groups. There were also several mass actions like the storming of the Bastille that indicated support for what the representatives were doing, at least in the early years of the revolution.
Checks and balances in the US government. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Constitutional rights being unassailable.
All these are lies. I think it can be fixed, but it won’t be easy.
That’s less a lie and more ‘teaching the ideal.’ The problem isn’t learning how the system is supposed to work. That’s how you learn to be a mechanic. You learn how an engine is supposed to work so you can spot where it’s gone wrong. The issue is more one of there are millions of people and they get 10 minutes on how it’s supposed to work and then only 3 of them go into politics and learn how it actually works/doesn’t work. Democracy requires more than a one week chapter on civics, once a year. We all have to be mechanics, or at least be prepared to try.
I think it can be fixed
I mean, good luck. The Principle-Agent Problem is a classic of sociology, particularly with respect to business. If you can solve it, there’s a Nobel in Economics waiting for you.
Democracy is an attempt at aligning in the interests of the plurality principles with their government agencies. But there’s obviously a whole lot of flaws with democracy generally speaking, even before you get into the particulars of the American system.
I do think that the Lockean Social Contract, as the foundation for any governmental system, is a more interesting and more well-thought-out concept to explore than the mythology surrounding the American three-branch system. Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent does an excellent job of breaking down how a public body can be turned against its own interests. Zinn’s People’s History gives a ton of insight into the underbelly of the American political beast and how people respond to industrial and state oppression. State and Revolution does an excellent job of describing the role of the state in society and how it can best be dismantled.
But the endless debate around whether US Government works as described or intended really loses the forest of social economy for the ideological tent post trees. Fetishization of the US system only contributes to its rot and our own downfall.
You mean Chomsky, the pedo-ally?
The very same.
Working hard will get you rewarded. When really you get dunked on with more work.
Many countries, like America, had actual economic mobility. There was a time where working hard could improve your economic status.
My family lost everything. Twice. Once to over-leveraging before a mortgage collapse in 83, and secondly to a house fire. We lived in an absolute fleabag of a moldy motel, a stereotype like you’d see on-screen, for about 10 months. The mold was so bad we had tiny mushrooms.
We got back, both times, to a stable home life in a mortgage and a fresh start. Dad paid off his home before retirement, by working his absolute ass off.
That’s just not feasible now, just one generation later.
Anyway, there was a time when hard work did get you something; so treat that as a historical thing and not a falsehood.
economic mobility
Ahh, so that’s how the economy fell off a cliff. It all makes sense now…
treat that as a historical thing and not a falsehood.
but it is a falsehood as it’s not longer correct. I agree there was a time it was true, but that time has passed and we should not be teaching it.
What do you think “historical thing” means?
for people who are workaholics that is a reward.
until you are burnt out from overwork and can’t move positions because you are “too valuable in your current role”
so just quit. if you’re that good of a worker you’ll easily get another job, probably with better pay.
Not everyone has the luxury of quiting a job on a dime like that and constant rejections when looking for a new job while being dogpiled at work will not help someone’s mental state.
but you have the luxury of being miserable and overworked, OK.
No, you have the misfortune.
i love fedi, everyone goes ‘no but u’
reminds me of 4th grade.
clearly fedi is full of very mature superintelligent linux users, who resort to grade school insults when you don’t agree with them.
I think it’s true, but I’m very few places. In the Marines, I was able to turn hard work into promotions, and now I’m regular life, I turn hard work into extra money, but only because I work for myself. So basically it only works in socialism or if you’re at the top of the ladder.
That homework isn’t discriminatory. Not all kids have lives that allow them to do it. If you can’t cover all the bases in whole ass 8 hours I’m there a day that’s on you, not me. This is only true k - 12, college level courses are voluntary so having some homework could be considered ok.
You do have a valid argument. There are lots of children that don’t have an environment that allows them to do homework or study.
I don’t think this means we should get rid of homework. Homework is essentially practicing what was learned in the classroom. Learning is a constant process, it doesn’t automatically happen after being exposed to a topic during the course of an 8 hour day. Learning anything requires practice. (The neurons that fire together wire together.)
If little Billy did the homework and got a bunch of stuff wrong, that helps the teacher identify and diagnose the skill issue, (in theory.) If little Billy didn’t do his homework at all, the teacher has no idea Billy could be struggling to learn the material until after he has been tested. It’s a tool to help students practice, and a tool to help teachers assess and diagnose. It shouldn’t be used as part of the rubric that determines what a child’s grade for the material is at the end of the term.
My grandmother was a school teacher. She was very clear about homework: kids should not have any. Kids are kids, they simply are not designed to sit still and work on school work all day.
She expected there to be learning time, play time, sports or activity time, family time, and bed time. There is something useful to be learned in all phases of a persons day, its just different.
If a child was struggling, she would stay after school and work with them, or spend more time during the day with them. At worst they may have to finish up something assigned in class they didnt finish in time, but thats it.
But this assigning homework for homeworks sake, she really did not like that idea at all.
She knew if Little Billy didnt know what was going on, not due to homework, but due to classwork and interaction at school.
No, discrimination is discrimination, school is as many hours as a full time job, if an education system can’t teach kids what they need to know in that amount of time it’s failing. Discrimination is wrong.
So give them the time to do the practice work at school, in the classroom? Why in any of that does it have to be done at home?
Or clubs for that matter, which are what primarily determines your college and scholarship opportunities in my state.
Lies of omission count? I was in my 40s before I ever heard of the Tulsa Massacre.
Same! And I grew up in the Midwest/south. I first heard of it from the show The Watchmen and really thought it was part of the fictional narrative until I got curious and looked it up. Terrible, and also terrible that it stayed so hidden.
I grew up in California and they didn’t teach it.
Listening to authority with no critical thinking will make your life easier.
They don’t even teach that in the army, dude.
Isn’t that the exact type of viewpoint the army wants in their soldiers? What are you talking about?
They went over handling bad orders in basic training man.
Seems like a lot of soldiers still obey bad orders.
Look man, saying that the army wants a complete lack of critical thought in its soldiers is an entirely different conversation from ‘do soldiers even have critical thinking skills’. You gotta pick one before we can communicate together.
I was talking about lies that schools teach.
I’m trying to engage in conversation with you in order to figure out how that was connected to my original statement about the lies that are frequently taught in schools.
Also I’m not a man.
Oh. Hey Velma. Sorry about the misgendering. Won’t happen again.
*edit
My critical reading skills went out the window today.
You can read the previous stuff, but corsicanpuppy was saying the not even the army, which is more famous than public schools for dlsiking free thought, taught that listening to authority without giving it any critical thought was the way to go, much less public schools.
They still teach the bullshit Thanksgiving story in most schools in the US.
Pictures of the civil rights movement are in black and white even though color photography existed for decades. They’re only in black and white to make kids think it was longer ago than it was.
Thanks to everyone pointing out that teaching racism was more expensive if it was in color. Thanks for missing the point.
Edit: There are color photos of the civil rights movements, but my middle school textbooks chose to only use the black and white ones of people getting shot with fire hoses and beaten with billy clubs. Every other page of this hard bound textbook had color pictures in it, so saying it would cost more is a straw man argument. Strange coincidence. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/20/fact-check-most-civil-rights-era-images-werent-made-color/3210472001/
I first realized that in high school. Where it was showing civil rights photos from the 60s-70s in black and white, and acted like racism was OVER.
What they teach: humans only have five senses (touch, smell, etc) What is true: humans have ~20-30 senses (including time, balance, and many more)
5 senses
4 states of matter
fossil fuel (oil is made from dead dinosaurs)
the American Dream
China is evil
Communism is bad
We were taught 5 states (solid/liquid/gas/plasma/condensate (BEC and superconductors)), which has always felt like a decent enough explanation for 3rd graders. If you barely understand how to read a phase change diagram, you don’t really need the confusing duality of being told “hey so this is totally wrong if you’re a chemist, but fundementally true if you’re an engineer” when you’re still iffy on concepts like “vacuum boiling is not witchcraft”.
I’m clearly a bit older (prior to plasma categorized) and was taught 4.
Huh, that’s really interesting. I’d have expected it was prior to condensate being introduced, not plasma, since plasma can be easily demonstrated in the classroom but condensates have really only been easily demonstrable for at most two decades. Very curious - do you remember if you had a standardized curriculum, and if so which one it was?
I also found it weird, I was taught 3 in school, but Plasma was already being considered a different state, just wasn’t taught in schools. Condensate had only just been experimentally created and I didn’t even knew about them until this thread.
Yeah, I graduated high school in 2005, and it was three phases of matter, but there’s also plasma, but we aren’t going to talk about it.
Honestly I think it was just three now that you mention it and the other reply. Have no clue the curriculum, it was in the 70s.
“Communism is when the government does stuff.”
I remember my first description of communism from a teacher in 5th grade.
“The government can force you to work in any field they decide. If they need dentists, they might just force you go to dentists school for 4 years. If after that, they decide they need plumbers, they will send you to plumber school and you will be a plumber. You don’t get to choose. If you don’t like it, they will send you to Siberia, which is a bad place.”
In theory, they could have done something like that, but outside of wartime conscription, why would you?
For basic practical reasons, a communist government is still broken into a million organisations, which operate and hire just like anywhere else.
In the future we will spend days pining for Siberia to escape the heat waves.
Yeah they don’t teach this in social studies and any school in America.
They actually teach what socialism is and what communism is. That’s where I learned it.
And why I know the difference between the two and what the definitions are both of these things.
In German schools, horseshoe theory is pretty much taught as a fact.
In light of German history, I guess that’s to be expected.
It’s not indisputable fact, even if a lot of people agree with it.
that we have 5 senses
This is only relevant if you went to school after M Night Shyamalan blew up
In Germany, a lot of the times it’s taught that we barely did colonialism. Like, “colonialism was bad but it was mostly other countries”. Meanwhile, in reality, German colonialism saw the first mayor genocide of the 21st century.
Those poor mayors.
Oh god, sometimes I feel like my English is pretty good and then stuff like this happens… :D
Columbus discovered America.
At least this is what I was taught when I was in elementary school back in the '90s.
I have no idea if it’s changed thus far.
Columbus was the first European to explore Cuban isles. Lief Erickson explored Newfoundland about 400 years before I believe.
Indigenous people discovered and settled the Americas >20,000 years ago.
And animals knew about it before that, if we don’t want to be specist.
It was the old world civilisations discovering the new world for the second time, and for the first time that lead to wider contact. (Columbus himself died before it was found to be a whole continent)
It’s especially funny since dude never even touched USA, but USA is racist/genocidal enough to worship dude anyway.
I fucking hate Columbus day.
Let’s pop open the diaraies of his crew mates and him and do a read a loud, then! Let’s talk about it.
I passionately hate Christopher Columbus and the worship of him.
I also despise the fact that it’s a national holiday here in the States. I’m not even sure precisely what it is that we’re celebrating.
I mean if we’re going to commemorate explorers why not Marco Polo or Ponce de Leon or Lief Erikson.
