For anyone who thinks our country isn't completely berkeleyed

I think a valid point is that to learn from history, i.e. things that happened in the past, you have to at least know about them. Or, to learn from past mistakes, you have to know what they were. The old phrase "those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it" has teeth.

So yeah, our educational system is lacking - and in more than just history. Hate to be an Old Fart, but back in the day when we larned readin', ritin, and rithmatic, and actually were taught history, we could pretty much do anything. Today, I've met some pretty intelligent and savvy kids, but I've met a whole lot more who can't do basic math without a calculator, can't write a complete English sentence, and haven't a clue about important events in our history. Scary.

Wally wrote:

poopshovel wrote: Sorry. Thread title should've read "Jesus tapdancing christ; you shiny happy people will argue about ANYTHING."

We certainly will not.

That's not an argument, that's just the automatic gainsaying of anything he says.

Don't worry if people don't know anything about history, nobody learns from it anyway

my point about bringing the civil war up was that it took place about as long before WW2 as WW2 took place before today. there were still a few veterans (and freed slaves) of that war that could tell you about it in the 1940's, just like there are a few veterans (and holocaust survivors) of WW2 left that can tell us about it today..

unfortunately, there are no web sites left over from the 1940's that show how much they knew about the Civil War...

In reply to novaderrik:

I actually agree with this.....as time passes, so does history. The whole saying of "Those who don't learn the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat it" should always be accompanied with "Those who dwell in the past shall never escape it"

The latter is why there isn't an "in depth" teaching of events.....there isn't enough time as is, nor is there enough reason to learn every horrific detail of humanity since the birth of humanity.

Is it spring yet? Can we stop this E36 M3 now and go back to racing and building E36 M3?

berkeley it's going to be a looong winter if you all are gonna do this over and over again.

In reply to Jim Pettengill:

Or as I saw someone else on here post:

Those who learn history are doomed to watch everyone else repeat it.

In reply to Poopshovel:

Everyone has an agenda and is willing to bend the truth to make their point. Sorry if I pointed out the fact that the lady that wrote a book on the Holocaust, and is trying to make the Holocaust mandatory in schools, may have edited the video in a manner that would show her cause in favorable light.

Jim Pettengill wrote: I think a valid point is that to learn from history, i.e. things that happened in the past, you have to at least know about them. Or, to learn from past mistakes, you have to know what they were. The old phrase "those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it" has teeth. So yeah, our educational system is lacking - and in more than just history. Hate to be an Old Fart, but back in the day when we larned readin', ritin, and rithmatic, and actually were taught history, we could pretty much do anything. Today, I've met some pretty intelligent and savvy kids, but I've met a whole lot more who can't do basic math without a calculator, can't write a complete English sentence, and haven't a clue about important events in our history. Scary.

Just remember, it is not the children controlling the content of modern education. When adults complain about the quality of public education, and wonder who is at fault, perhaps they should look at their own generation. Myself included, we should look in the mirror to see who is to blame.

turboswede wrote: Is it spring yet? Can we stop this E36 M3 now and go back to racing and building E36 M3? berkeley it's going to be a looong winter if you all are gonna do this over and over again.

...said the guy sitting in front of his computer, desperately looking for some kind of e-fight. Oh the ironing.

I thought this was something we, as generally above-average intelligence dudes & chicks could agree on; that our education system and parenting are abysmal for a "1st-world" country. You've proven me wrong. Congrats!

Mitchell wrote:

Jim Pettengill wrote: I think a valid point is that to learn from history, i.e. things that happened in the past, you have to at least know about them. Or, to learn from past mistakes, you have to know what they were. The old phrase "those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it" has teeth. So yeah, our educational system is lacking - and in more than just history. Hate to be an Old Fart, but back in the day when we larned readin', ritin, and rithmatic, and actually were taught history, we could pretty much do anything. Today, I've met some pretty intelligent and savvy kids, but I've met a whole lot more who can't do basic math without a calculator, can't write a complete English sentence, and haven't a clue about important events in our history. Scary.

Just remember, it is not the children controlling the content of modern education. When adults complain about the quality of public education, and wonder who is at fault, perhaps they should look at their own generation. Myself included, we should look in the mirror to see who is to blame.

i blame parents that don't take the time to teach their kids that what their have rammed into their skulls to pass mandatory tests that are tied to state and federal funding might not be the actual factual 100% accurate telling of how things actually happened..

Wow... we covered all the major wars in my backwards public school system. History was a lot of fun.

I had an excellent history teacher my senior year of high school. The class focused on 20th century history of Central and South America. It was the first time that history was not presented as a hunky-dory yawnfest where everything is black and white right and wrong.

Although, in my English class, we also read Black Rain. I highly recommend it to anyone curious about post-bombing Japan from a civilian's perspective. It is fiction, but there is often truth in fiction.

DoctorBlade wrote: Wow... we covered all the major wars in my backwards public school system. History was a lot of fun.

Seriously. I am the product of one of the worst (THE worst?) Public education systems in the country, but I know where the berkeley Normandy is, and who the E36 M3 FDR and Winston Churchill were, and where/what the christ Auschwitz was, otherwise, I'd expect Grandpa Gluff to crawl his ass out of the grave and whoop my berkeleying monkey ass, as well as my parents' and teachers'.

If your 20-something year old kid doesn't know what CENTURY WWII occurred in, he doesn't need to be going to college on my dime, he needs to be sucking my E36 M3 out of my septic tank, and sure as E36 M3 shouldn't have the "right" to vote.

In reply to poopshovel:

We know not the sample size nor how much editing was done.....they very well could have questioned thousands before getting what they want. Or naturally, it could be staged to drum up business for her book......as in trying to make it mandatory for all schools.....that'd be a huge pay day afterall.

yamaha wrote: In reply to poopshovel: We know not the sample size nor how much editing was done.....they very well could have questioned thousands before getting what they want. Or naturally, it could be staged to drum up business for her book......as in trying to make it mandatory for all schools.....that'd be a huge pay day afterall.

don't question it... just watch it and agree with it..

Are you guys kidding me?? That was all the history you got up through HS?? I guess the curriculum has changed since I went.

Then again, my father was in the Air Force and I spent grades 6 through 11 in Germany and the UK, so maybe I it was a little more front and center for me. Especially when my Boy Scout troop outings were to places like Bastogne where we got to see thousands of white crosses marking the graves of American soldiers that died young. And Checkpoint Charlie where we could look over the Wall and see the political and physical fallout of the war-- the Russians hadn't bothered rebuilding East Berlin from the WW2 bombings because, well, they found it hard to give a E36 M3.

I didn't get the opportunity to visit Dachau until I was in college. Too bad we can't make that part of mandatory education.

Man. Apt thread title is apt.

In reply to Basil Exposition:

I am a younger member of this board considering I'm 27, and we learned quite a bit about most history.....which is why I am beginning to believe this is suspicious. After review, I question the lady's credentials. Can we hire Chris Hansen to show up and ask her "Ihre papiere bitte"?

novaderrik wrote: don't question it... just watch it and agree with it..

Why not do both?

It sure looked like a ginned-up and heavily edited video made to prove a point - and maybe put some cash in someone's pockets.

Then again, there was an astonishing lack of knowledge shown by kids who were allegedly taught something in their history classes. Some of that can be attributed to class content, but I'll let some of those mouth-breathers train with poopies' poop before letting them near mine.

I went to a high school in a state that apparently it is required to teach about the Holocaust. If the questions that that woman was asking were a test, today I probably would get about a 98%. But good Lord was she annoying.

She has a great point, and the fact is that the Holocaust has affected the US greatly. But why don't we study the Armenian, Assyrian, or Greek Genocides? Why is the Rwandan genocide limited to a movie? Or the killing fields in Cambodia?

The simple answer is that we don't have time. History is huge. Some stuff is going to get left out. I could probably go in and ace most high school history tests right now on the Civil War and WWII. Other than that, I'd likely be lucky to pass. Maybe these kids know everything there is to know about WWI. I don't, I know very little about it. Same with Vietnam, and my dad could have been in it!

I think the important thing is to make sure that we, and the students, are always learning. Don't stop, and we'll be okay.

poopshovel wrote:

DoctorBlade wrote: Wow... we covered all the major wars in my backwards public school system. History was a lot of fun.

Seriously. I am the product of one of the worst (THE worst?) Public education systems in the country, but I know where the berkeley Normandy is, and who the E36 M3 FDR and Winston Churchill were, and where/what the christ Auschwitz was, otherwise, I'd expect Grandpa Gluff to crawl his ass out of the grave and whoop my berkeleying monkey ass, as well as my parents' and teachers'. If your 20-something year old kid doesn't know what CENTURY WWII occurred in, he doesn't need to be going to college on my dime, he needs to be sucking my E36 M3 out of my septic tank, and sure as E36 M3 shouldn't have the "right" to vote.

I dont want that kid anywhere near my septic tank...

Basil Exposition wrote: Are you guys kidding me?? That was all the history you got up through HS?? I guess the curriculum has changed since I went. Then again, my father was in the Air Force and I spent grades 6 through 11 in Germany and the UK, so maybe I it was a little more front and center for me. Especially when my Boy Scout troop outings were to places like Bastogne where we got to see thousands of white crosses marking the graves of American soldiers that died young. And Checkpoint Charlie where we could look over the Wall and see the political and physical fallout of the war-- the Russians hadn't bothered rebuilding East Berlin from the WW2 bombings because, well, they found it hard to give a E36 M3. I didn't get the opportunity to visit Dachau until I was in college. Too bad we can't make that part of mandatory education. Man. Apt thread title is apt.

i didn't learn E36 M3 about history in school... WW1 might as well have not happened at all, WW2 was the one where we beat Hitler and nuked the Japanese.. MASH took place in some place called Korea, and Vietnam resulted in crazy vets... that's pretty much what we learned of the wars of the 20th century in my school...

i did get to have fun when the Soviet Union fell apart and the wall came down- i was watching all that stuff unfold live on tv every day, and my history teacher literally had no idea that our 5 year old textbook weren't totally up to date. i asked him questions every day just to make him look stupid.. of course, he was one of the football coaches and only had a teaching job because you had to be a teacher to coach, but still..

In reply to mtn:

I learned a good bit about it, but mainly from back when the history channel wasn't full of reality TV....hell, I will bet you that the current generation in High School knows more about WW2, the holocaust, and other needless garbage than they do about the Korean War...... That honestly has more importance today than what happened in the 30's & 40's.....

yamaha wrote: In reply to mtn: I learned a good bit about it, but mainly from back when the history channel wasn't full of reality TV....hell, I will bet you that the current generation in High School knows more about WW2, the holocaust, and other needless garbage than they do about the Korean War...... That honestly has more importance today than what happened in the 30's & 40's.....

they also know more about how aliens influenced the ancient world..

poopshovel wrote: If your 20-something year old kid doesn't know what CENTURY WWII occurred in, he doesn't need to be going to college on my dime, he needs to be sucking my E36 M3 out of my septic tank...

Bwahahaha.

poopshovel wrote: Sorry. Thread title should've read "Jesus tapdancing christ; you shiny happy people will argue about ANYTHING."

You started it.