Which historical events do you think will remain as a part of most schools’ history lessons in the future? The reason I ask this is because future generations of children will have more history behind them than current and past generations do. There were more events for me to learn about than my parents and my grandparents did. World War II hadn’t happened yet when my grandparents were in school, and my parents didn’t learn about Vietnam, the Moon landing or even the fact that Hawaii is a state when they studied history.
As time goes on there will be more and more significant historical events for children to study about, such as September 11, at least two disastrous Space Shuttle missions to date, etc. Do you think some events will lose their importance and be given less attention in future history classes than they do now? Which events do you think these will be, and which ones will likely remain historically significant for generations to come?
I’ve written this post mostly in the context of U.S. history, but please feel free to comment on events outside of or impertinent to the U.S. as well.
You know, interestingly enough my friend and I were just having a conversation that kind of fits into this topic. The American schools seem to overlook a lot of events that happen in U.S. History, and even more in world history.
For instance, my friend and I were discussing what we learned about in high school. To both of our dismay, we discovered we learned little to nothing about WWI. We also learned nothing about the Korean war or Veitnam. We spent one entire quarter studying WWII, though.
So moving on to World History…hmmmm…yep, we spent an entire quarter studying WWII. Not a mention of WWI. We also learned nothing about the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars…nor the Inquisition…WHAT THE HELL? Where is William the Conqueror in my history? What about the Mongol Hordes and the Viking Raids?
Is there nothing worth learning about in these peoples opinion besides Christopher Columbus, George Washington and Adolph Hitler?
Does no one care who Thomas Beckett was?
So in conclusion…I can only assume that the future generation of children will learn about WWII in all year in history, about Hitlers mathematicians in algebra 101, and Duetschland Uber alis in band.