Simple question about your high school history classes

In My Humble Opinion
41

Let’s see, high school History classes, translating our grade and course names to their US equivalent:

9th: Universal History. The 20th Century wasn’t part of the curriculum (we’d had it in 8th grade’s Modern History), but anyway the teacher, who sadly got very sick mid-year and had to be replaced by a pollywog fresh out of grad school, worked under the principle of “since this isn’t going to be tested for your University Entrance Exam, we’re going to focus on learning about how to find sources, on why History is important to us today, and on enjoying learning about it.” So no, we didn’t get to talk about the 20th Century, but we got to talk about things you don’t usually get in History class, such as “what did people eat before God and that Castillian madwoman gave us tomatoes?”

10th grade: Latin included studying Ancient Roman history (I wrote a paper on the Punic Wars, for example - they weren’t even mentioned in our book, that paper wouldn’t have existed if it hadn’t been for the previous year’s teacher’s unorthodox approach). No 20th century stuff here.

11th grade: Modern Spanish History. 20th Century, yeah, we got 20th Century. It was a daily class, but on Fridays it became a study on the Spanish Constitutions, which was a review of the way our political systems have been jumping from one to the other end of the spectrum since 1812 followed by a study and discussion of each article and addendum in the current Constitution. The Consti part was taught by a different teacher, the pollywog from 9th grade was her fiancé (they got married the summer I was between 11th and 12th grade).
Intro to Philosophy wasn’t a “history” class per se, but each concept that got introduced was reviewed through history, so there was more 20th century stuff there - just not the kind with wars in it.

12th grade: History of Philosophy. I hate Sartre and Kierkegaard simply on account of unpronunceability. Yeah, we got 20th century, although again the bomb-less kind.
The teacher was the same Jesuit who’d taught the main part of Modern Spanish History. Every Friday we’d have a debate on subjects ranging from divorce (mostly we focused on “why do people need divorces, so how can the need be avoided, how can people have better marriages?” - nobody including the priest reckoned divorce should be banned) to abortion to inheritance laws to monarchy-vs-republic, most of which were pretty hot in current politics at the time - since this was in the 20th century, we debated things that were making history then and there.
The Spanish Civil War of 1936-9 was and remains a prickly subject, but we all knew it was and it got approached more in terms of “ok, let’s NOT start calling each other’s grandparents ugly names” than with the abrasive style so common in our politicians.

42

Sorry, I always forget how option-filled the American system is. All the courses I listed were required for anybody in a “college-track” High School (trade schools had different requirements). I was in the Applied Sciences track myself, but that meant getting one year of Latin instead of three for the Humanities folk, it didn’t mean no Latin; and Draftsmanship as required in 12th grade (I’d been taking it as an option since 6th grade, as had most of my Applied classmates) where the people from Life Sciences got Biology and those from the other tracks got Art History - and for some reason, yeah, these got Picasso, Miró and Dalí and the other people they used to meet for coffee.

43

We would generally have about the last two weeks to cover the entire twentieth century. Drove me batty. We had American history in fifth, seventh, and tenth grades, and world history in sixth, eighth, and ninth - and each time we would go back to pre-history to get started, and barely have time to mention World War II by the end of it.

44

I honestly don’t remember, but it has been about 40 years…

Tenth grade was some sort of history class, but the teacher was a bit of a whacko and he seemed to be more interested in sharing his life philosophy than teaching history. I want to say it covered ancient history.

I’m pretty sure I had some sort of history class in 11th grade, but for the life of me, I don’t recall. Maybe if I dig out my yearbook?

Twelfth grade was social studies, team taught with English. I remember the teacher - he was a little balding guy who’s probably dead now. I don’t think he covered any history at all.

I did take one history class in college and I remember the final covered Mercantilism (I just remember the name and nothing else) - honestly, until about 10 or 12 years ago, I just didn’t care about history at all beyond its use in trivia games. Now I find it much more interesting.

45

I thought I was the only one who went to a school where they always ran out of time to cover the more current history

46

I’m from the UK, where history is notorious for being neglected by our school system (we’re the only European country where studying history isn’t mandatory after age 14).

I’m not sure if the way history was taught was peculiar to my schools, or whether it’s done like this throughout the country, but rather than start way back in time and gradually move forward as the school year progressed, instead we would spend a couple of months studying one time period, then randomly jump to studying a different period. For example, we would spend a couple months studying the Tudor period, then jump all the way back to Ancient Egypt, then all the way forward to the Victorian era, then go back to the Vikings etc.

The result of this is that some time periods were done to death (we studied the Victorians, World War II, and the Romans many times each) whilst others were not covered at all. These are all the time periods I remember studying:

  • Ancient Egypt (approx. 30th - 5th centuries BC)
  • Ancient Greece (approx. 8th - 2nd centuries BC)
  • Ancient Rome (5th century BC - 5th century AD)
  • The Anglo-Saxons (5th - 11th centuries)
  • The era of the Vikings (8th - 11th centuries)
  • The Norman conquest (1066)
  • The Tudor period (1485 - 1603)
  • The Stuart period (1603 - 1714)
  • The Victorian era (1837 - 1901)
  • World War II (1939 - 1945)

Ancient history ended up being covered well, but there are huge gaps throughout the last millennium, and nothing from the 20th century except WWII and the very end of the Victorian era.

47

I took a semester-long 20th century American history class in 11th grade, so yes. But this was the spring of 2003, and the Iraq war pretty much derailed the curriculum. I think we ended up covering everything from the 60s onward in the week before the final.

48

We covered WWII and skimmed the 50s. We learned some things on the Civil Rights movement, and touched on the Vietnam war. The 80s were never touched (this was in the late 90s)

49

I took history up t,o A-Level which had a strong 20th century element.

We covered The Russian Revolution, WW1, The Easter Rising and Irish Civil War and Independence, Weimar Germany, The Great Depression, WW2, The Rise of the Iron Curtain, The Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine, Korean War, Bay of Bigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Cold War, Kennedy Assassination, Civil Rights Struggle in the US, Vietnam War, Afghanistan in the 1980s and the Northern Irish Troubles in the 20th century bit.

We also covered the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, the Norman Invasion of Ireland, the Tudors, the English Civil War, the Plantation of Ireland and the Great Irish Famine at various other points.

Pretty good coverage, I’d say.

50

Vietnam was still going on, so I seem to remember we touched on the Korean War. We definitely covered WWII

51

To translate to Canadian History, in high school the Canadian History courses offered were in Grade 9, Grade 10 and Grade 13.

Grade 9 was Canada’s multicultural Heritage, and we dealt with different immigration waves from early settlers in New France, to I believe the Eastern Europeans after WWII. It was a thematic course and we dealt with different issues that pertained to each group. We talked about the Japanese internment camps for example, but not WWII.

Grade 10 was half civics and half post confederation history, going up to 1939, again somewhat thematic because it dealt with politcal structure and parties, including the CCF and the Social Credit movements.

Grade 13 history, oddly enough I can barely remember but we had a major essay project on Canadian Artists. so much was done in 20th century. I think the topic was basically nation building, from 1763 to WWII and incorporating culture into it.

I didn’t have a major dates and battles course in Canadian History in high school. This was the 1980s post Constitution repatriation, a lot of focus was on Canadian nationalism type topics

52

I wouldn’t say we covered it well, exactly, but we did get through the Second and into the beginning of the Cold.

53

I voted the first option. My high school sucked in many areas, but History was not one of them. It could be because it was one of my favorite subjects and so I tried harder, but the History teachers did seem to be better teachers overall.

Of course, when I was in high school, there was much less of the 20th century to cover than there is now. :smiley:

54

We covered it well, but history was my least favorite class. By the time we got to the 20th century, my brain was just completely turned off. I wish I had appreciated the subject as much as I do now; I think history is fascinating, and when I travel, history plays a big role in what I want to see.

55

Irish and European history 1870-1970 (with a bit about the US and decolonization) were covered in our highschool Leaving Certificate history curriculum. The LC has recently been updated with the rest of the 20th Century now covered.

56

UK student, took History at GCSE level (first main exams that will get you anywhere).

I remember women’s suffrage, WW1 and the Treaty of Versailles, The League of Nations, Germany in the build up to WW2, various bits on WW2 (Britain in WW2 was covered a few years back), The Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and a little bit on the end of the Cold War.

We were only tested on the stuff up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, but our history teacher wanted to ensure that we knew how the Cold War ended, so we did some class work on it. I’m not sure if the other teachers did that, but I imagine so.

Lower years did Romans, Egyptians, Tudors, The Titanic, the Norman Invasion and the early years of American colonisation.

57

I said yes because in my high school, we had an elective called Global Studies that was everything from Korea to right before the Gulf War. Junior High History was pre-Revolution to Civil War, High School History was Imperialism and Monroe Doctrine up to the end of WWII.

58

I took AP History (US) and events were covered up to what was then recent history.

Of course, when I took the class in 1978, WWII had only occurred 33 years previously, where for a high school student taking history now, the Vietnam war would be 38 year ago.

59

Indeed. The Vietnam War was Current Affairs for me.

60

We got up to WWI and stopped there in World History. Didn’t go into any real detail on that war, either, just noted that there had been such a war. In History of US and PA, we spent almost all our time on the colonial era. I don’t remember ever getting even as far as the Civil War. My teacher was obsessed with the French and Indian War and we dwelt on that until I was ready to take his genuine-to-the-period spontoon (his most prized possession) and shove it up his gorget (his second most prized possession).