ClumsyMonkey.net

Sad, very sad. But's it's not the first time i've heard such things, apparently international schools teach several things diffrently then American ones when it comes to history as well.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1008-05.htm

Every country teaches history its own way and through its own biases. It's always been this way and probably always will.

My mom went to highschool in communist Romania and learned that Lenin was a kindly father figure. Now, this is an expected thing from our point of view. But, when she moved to Canada for grade 11, she was shocked to realize that the history they were teaching here had equally ridiculous lies in it. I suppose it can't really be helped that countries are going to teach things as they see them.

^^ what she said.

I was going to say the same thing. It is only expected. Try pointing out one country whose history books say "Our system sucks, it always sucked, and will continue to suck." Just not going to happen.

I read somewhere that before Iraq was invaded, the text books praised Saddam Hussein heavily. Even the math books used variables S and H to replace X and Y for equations.

it doesn't change that fact that history books should tell the truth, and the whole truth. If our mistakes are not written down, how do we learn from them?

I liked how you compared your history texts books to Saddam's

as for Canadian history texts, i remember learning about how we've abused, cheated, killed, and misused our Native population for since our begining. We also learned about several other un-savory events in Canadian history. As long as both good and bad a talked about it's fine. Any country that feels it needs to hide the things it's done from it's children needs to take a long look at itself

Have you taken a US history class .. IN the US? You're assuming we don't talk about those sort of things.

And here we go.. talking about Canadian education and how it is superior. (Hmmm.. you think Canadian education itself may play a part in that conclusion....?)

I imagine you also had a unit on how a socialistic government is economically bunk, right? No ... you probably didn't.

Tell me how leaving out a link to some silly standards is "leaving out the truth".

Oh and I wasn't comparing the US history books to Iraq's. I was just making a side comment on something I read.

It's actually quite the opposite here. We actually get taught how great our socialist programs are. So many times I would hear about our "free" health care but very few people acknowledge at least up until grade 12 that the health care comes out of their taxes, and therefore isn't free.

I don't believe Canadian schools are superior, but I believe we have less of a gap in our public schools. What I mean by that is that the American public system (at least from what I've seen of it, and that's only from Buffalo, New York) seems to be hit or miss with its schools. Some are great with computers and everything but others seem very neglected. Our schools seem to be consistent wherever you go.

By no means do I think one is better than the other but I think Canada puts more money into its public schools whereas the USA puts more money into it's colleges. Please, correct me if I'm wrong but that's my understanding.

I AM ME wrote:it doesn't change that fact that history books should tell the truth, and the whole truth. If our mistakes are not written down, how do we learn from them?

I liked how you compared your history texts books to Saddam's

Truth according to who? Theres 2 sides to EVERY story be it some argument you had with your best friend or World War 2 or what ever.

J-Neli, I would agree with your assessment that in the US you will see some schools that are decked out and others that are run down. That is what the "No Child Left Behind" act is SUPPOSED to fix [but didn't].

From the Chris Rock movie "Head of State" :

Mayes: If your school has old books and new metal detectors, lemme hear ya say "that ain't right!"

Crowd: "THAT AIN'T RIGHT!"

Mayes: It ain't right. That shit is not right!

I know this may be old hat at this point in the conversation but take Japan for example. In a Japanese History book you'll find one paragraph about World War II. The country is down right ashamed of it, therefore the Japanese dont learn about it. The paragraph basically tells you the day Japan attacked the United States, the dates the atomic bombs were dropped and the day the war ended.

^^agrees

What's weird is that always in socials grades 4-11, its always from the candian point of view. Now that i'm in history, everything is so matter of fact from both sides that i seriously think there is little bias. come to think of it, canada hasnt even been mentioned, and we're heading into wwII...

we have an exchange student from germany in our history class, so it offers us a nice view of how wars ect are tought in different countries. he doesnt seem to have that much of a differing opinion than what the teacher is saying, but we havent really blamed anyone for anything, just explaining what happened and why different people felt certain ways about it.

i took amaerican history and i had a lot of respect for what America originally was. It wasn't trashing America or anything was just litterally American hostory good and bad.

Every history text book I've read has tried to remain unbiased. But honeslty find me something out with 0% bias in it. The text books I've read have shown the facts, the plans that were created, the way the wars were dealt with, who did what and when. Just facts.

Oh please, the textbook we used in our American History class in grade 12 was called "The Triumph Of The American Nation" and had a bunch of stars and eagles and shit on it

Mine was called 'the Republic of America' or something like that