Euro's Vs Americans?, Things I don't understand

Oh, I totally agree Swanny!

We have Crappy "historical" American history films with Mel Gibson too! LOL!

I didn't get to make that point, as i had to leave work.... But thanks for getting to it!!!! I would love to know more about the REAL western trailblazers and mountain men... If you can PM some good reading I would be appreciative

Defel... I never said they were true (I am German as well) but they are certainly fitting for some *grins*.

Oh, Leo, we all knew that before! (Don't tell me we even knew that before you did! *snickers* )

Oh and alas book & filmtitles often don't.. it certainly would make life easier for me, though!

One comment on you Swanny though...

The problem with History is that the Highlanders are not recognised for what they are.. the fact is they were cheuchters, didn't want to go forward, and depended on some lowlander to use them as soldiers... They didn't really fight for their own ideas... The stereotypical highlander of history usually couldn't even read (or if he could only the prayers in the textbook), had a little croft on the land he didn't own but his laird, a cow, a few sheep, a pig and some chickens, maybe a wife and some kiddies and a weapon (or not) handed down through the family. They were poor.
You have the private armies of the lairds as well, their guards which would possess good weapons (Which made it so easy in the 19th century to just throw them off the land their ancestors had farmed for ages and leave them with nothing but their clothes, pig, cow and sheep.. to use the land for farming sheep). The uprisings were done by their lords who didn't like the current rulers..
Over romanticised or not.. it is not romanticising anymore.. it's telling things that are plainly not really true.

I talked to a friend from over the big pond a few days ago and I was shocked how much he didn't know about History, I really would like t know how the children in the US are tought... (even more so since you mentioned it too, swanny)

I can't speak for anyone else but myself and the schools I attended, but our history lessons in Elementary school consisted mainly of US history (which is certainly to be expected). Throughout middle school we'd add some Egyptian and Roman history, then move on to European history, focusing on the mainly on the major world powers like England, France and Spain. In high school we merely deepened our knowledge of the same exact subjects we had been studying since we were tiny children, maybe adding a few new things here and there.

Sadly, I feel like I haven't gotten to learn about cultures other than the ones that have influenced my own and I think I lack a proper knowledge of many of the countries in the world and an appreciation of the people in those countries because of it. I'm so glad that my university offered an Irish history course this semester so I could finally learn about something totally and comepletely new to me, no matter how depressing the subject matter was most of the time!

Luckily, I have decided to become a middle school history and English teacher, so perhaps I can remedy some of these downfalls once I have a classroom of my own.

This is one of those books I have somehow missed reading. Taking this as the boost I need to make it a priority. After I recover from reading a really long Native America historical novel where not a good white man existed. (just seeing if you really do read everything Richard )

Hey Swanny,

Are you familiar with Mark Baker's book Sons of a Trackless Forest? He goes into the "Natural Man" mythos pretty in depth. He spends a whole chapter skewering James Fennimore Cooper's "Natty Bumpo" character. It is a long read, something like 750 pages, but worth it to improve ones outlook on the 18th century frontier and the place European man found in it.

John Mack Faragher's bio of Boone is also worth a read, as are Ted Belue's books, especially "The Long Hunt: Death of the Buffalo East of the Mississippi" and his edited version of Draper's bio of Boone.

Just my tuppence.

Andy

Andy,
I may have to read this one, as one of my gx-grandfathers Thomas Strong
see http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~d...longhunter.html
was likely a longhunter, along with some of his brothers and brothers-in-law.
Thanks!

Cailiosa:

Being teacher is one job I certainly don't fancy *grins*

Anyways: do you get taught about the major world shaking events? I mean things like the French Revolution (which triggered off alot of other major events), the first & second world war and the time running up to it? It's all so relevant and making us what we are in my opinion.

In Germany you will have History compulsory for 6 years at least. They will start talking about the pre-civilised times then about egypt, greece and rome, then we will come to German Medieval History but it (at least in my school) had always references to major events in other parts of the world.. then we start talking about Britain and the East India Company and the start of colonialism (that was about in the 3rd year). Back to Britain and what has going on there, Stuart Kings & the Coventanters, Roundheads &Cromwell, the Magna Charta (I'm not quite sure here if it was before or after Cromwell though =o ) Then France and Louis XIV., Absolutism and Mercantilism, running up to Louis XVI and the french revolution and the stuff after this, including Napoleon. Then we jump to America and life there until we covered American History until the late 19th century. Back to Europe and the assorted Revolutions there (after the napoleonic wars), oh and of course the Industrial Revolution. Then, in the last two years we start focusing on Germany's role in the 2 World Wars, then how the Germany of today was built up.

In Germany you do 3 additional years to be eligible to go to University (that's what I did) and I took the Advanced History course. If you don't do that and don't take History as a normal course you will have to take a History Crash-Course in the last year.

You must be a mind-reader, Andylucy. That was precisely the tome I was thinking of as I composed my post. I've camped (historically authentic) with the author (Mark Baker) and found him quite entertaining company. He's quite a complicated fellow, a real nice guy in person. Salt-o'-the-earth.

For my own studies, I find his appendexes (how the heck does one spell "a - pen - da- sees, anyhow???) most valuable, as they are taken straight from the Baynton, Wharton and Morgan papers in the archives of the University of Wisconsin (if I remember the location correctly). They provide a very good overview of material culture in North American frontiers ca 1760 - 63. It's very hard to find such a complete and reliable list elsewhere.

Ted Belue also does a very nice job, especially in interpreting the Draper manuscripts. I'd like to meet him some day.

A bit futher back, the historian Elliott Coues was quite adept at his art as an editor and interpretor of historical journals, including those of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and those of Alexander Henry (the Younger) and David Thompson. Washington Irving did a nicely balanced job in his Astoria as well. It was published early enough that it was probably known to a fair number of the American free-trappers ca 1830 - 1840.

My primary interest lies in the fur-trade of the Great Lakes and northwest (defined as north and west of Lake Superior) ca 1760 - 1821, btw. I have quite a lot of primary source material pertaining to that time and place either on hand or available to me at the University of Alaska Fairbanks library. If you'd like an overview I have a page on my website that provides one. About the Historical North West Company

In the U.S. the public school curriculum in any given region is determined by State and/or local levels of government, so it varies widely from State to State and in some cases even from county to county. Alaska History is not a required course of study in Alaska's public schools as an example

All too often "history" is taught by a football (American football) coach who doesn't give a damn about anything other than touchdowns and his win-loss record. A child can only handle a few years of forced rote-memorization of dates and the names of very dead presidents before s/he becomes totally bored and burned-out. Social history is only rarely addressed, and then it is usually approached in the elementary schools (grades 1 - 6).

Actually, that may be for the best. I regularly volunteer in the schools up here and I've found that the fourth graders (age 11 and 12 years) ask the very best questions.

Please remember that of course there are exceptional history teachers, and some who are merely competent history teachers, who nonetheless do their very best to make up for the failings of those who name "Coach".

I read an interesting book a few years ago that may be of interest in this topic. Lies my Teacher Told Me I believe was the title. If not exact it's very close. I don't recall the author, but it was a rather scathing, scholarly examination of the revisionist manner in which U.S. history is addressed in the public schools.

Hey guys, before we completely trash the American school systems there is also a great deal of good teaching going on as well. Sometimes you have to be the one to take the classes above what is required, but I had some very good history classes. And my children have teachers that expose them to all sorts of historical material in elementary school and push the envelope with current events when they get to middle school in order to learn to think for themselves and ask questions, not just learn by rote what is comfortable. I have no complaints with the way my children are being taught. And if you disagree, come have a conversation with my kids, the first grader will blow you away. My fifth grader just finished a project on the Depression/WWII and Holocaust. No information was barred for her use. She was encouraged to find and share all she could, even pictures I wondered about sharing in a public school. We know of our educational shortcomings so I think we sometimes tend to glamorize other places and bash our own.

It seems we tend to fall into the trap of looking at the American experience as The Great Shining Example of Democracy or as Bumbling Clueless Colonists. When in fact we are, of course, somewhere in-between. Just like European countries aren't perfection personified, neither are we. But I think the majority of people in both places are trying to make it the best it can be.

Could the educational system be better in teaching history? Everything can be made better. But for me it comes down more to what I teach my child. I'm not counting on the schools to do it. My kids are taught not only to think outside the box, but question why there is a box there in the first place.

well... never said it's trash =) *grins* I tell you there is tons of things to be made better in Germany as well *laughs* my school experience isn't that long ago and only because I'm a history buff nobody else has to be as extreme as I am *laughs* I should have went and studied History... *sighs*

No, but I meant General stuff. That friend I was talking with is a bit younger than me and just doing his Military service.. We started talking about WW2 and he tried to tell me about it.. But all the reasons for it, he just got it so completely wrong and he told me that he was taught it that way.. I mean it wasn't Hitler's primary goal to kill of all jews... (it was more like a sideline, still an atrocity, but it wasn't a primary thing).
History, of course is always written by the victorious.. but getting it so wrong!

(I was hammered in everything that my teachers could teach us.. my primary interest is WW1 but I do know alot about WW2 and the time before it, because it is important for all to know, so that nothing like it will ever happen again ~ there is that Russian saying though: History is bound to repeat itself as long mankind doesn't understand..)

You can find unfriendly and humorless people everywhere in the world.

Sláinte!

My American history teacher was the "basketball" coach in my senior year of high school. ( Along time ago! ) He was very boring and it was hard for me to keep awake in his class. I could have cared less for history then, but now I love it.

maggiemahone1

People get out of school what they put into it.

Part of my novel takes place during WWI and so, I did a lot of on-line research. I have quite a few interesting websites I came across in the process. I could pass along the links if you're intrested. (and don't already have everything out there bookmarked) I love the way the internet doesn't filter the history. Even though some of the material was pretty uncomfortable. One site that gave an Irish perspective of WWI was especially interesting.

hehe.. well I will take your list of links gladly and sort through them.

If there is something I really like about my education is that I am actually able to filter the real information out of things and leave all rhetoric and phrases behind so I can draw my own conclusions. People aren't taught how to do it anymore today =/

general question in between *puzzled face*

what's the point in calling something football when they hold the ball in their hands? always wondered but never asked =)