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Aug. 15th, 2006 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
electriclandThis Making Light thread took off on a tangent about history as she is taught, mainly in the U.S. but also elsewhere. I consider myself a reasonably knowledgeable, well-educated, well-rounded, widely read person, but I've become increasingly aware of late that I am a history ignoramus in many ways. The thread got me thinking about my own formal history education; it goes something like this:
No courses in history until Kenya -- I think Standard 5, which I would have started when I was 9 years old. History was prehistory -- Olduvai Gorge etc. Next year we did it all over again. Then in Standard 7 we started on history with actual modern humans in it; I remember something about Arab traders on the coast, but that's about it. Left the country halfway through that year and went to the Netherlands just in time for final exams, which I took for placement purposes. Their history exam involved the Renaissance, I think, about which I knew nothing. If memory serves, they put me into EMS 1 (English Median Stream, a precursor to the International Baccalaureate). I'm sure I took history that year, but I can't think what the topic was.
Went back to Canada at the end of the school year and started Grade 9 in the fall (age 12 going on 13, at this point). Took my one required (in Ontario) history credit: Canada from Confederation to as far as we could get, which turned out to be the Depression. That was it for high school history. Also took four years of Latin, which involved occasional digressions into Roman history and was awesome. Some references to history in English classes. Possibly some in economics. Probably the usual references to discoverers of this and that in various science courses.
University: one course in the history of medicine, my final year. Loved it. Don't think I took any other history courses.
Aside from that, I've picked up what history I do know from reading (1066 and All That, historical fiction, fantasy, other fiction that alludes to historical events, random non-fiction) and travel (yay for interpretive plaques!). I don't exactly have what you'd call a coherent overview, which is unfortunate. Looking at my educational history, though, I'm not really surprised.
No courses in history until Kenya -- I think Standard 5, which I would have started when I was 9 years old. History was prehistory -- Olduvai Gorge etc. Next year we did it all over again. Then in Standard 7 we started on history with actual modern humans in it; I remember something about Arab traders on the coast, but that's about it. Left the country halfway through that year and went to the Netherlands just in time for final exams, which I took for placement purposes. Their history exam involved the Renaissance, I think, about which I knew nothing. If memory serves, they put me into EMS 1 (English Median Stream, a precursor to the International Baccalaureate). I'm sure I took history that year, but I can't think what the topic was.
Went back to Canada at the end of the school year and started Grade 9 in the fall (age 12 going on 13, at this point). Took my one required (in Ontario) history credit: Canada from Confederation to as far as we could get, which turned out to be the Depression. That was it for high school history. Also took four years of Latin, which involved occasional digressions into Roman history and was awesome. Some references to history in English classes. Possibly some in economics. Probably the usual references to discoverers of this and that in various science courses.
University: one course in the history of medicine, my final year. Loved it. Don't think I took any other history courses.
Aside from that, I've picked up what history I do know from reading (1066 and All That, historical fiction, fantasy, other fiction that alludes to historical events, random non-fiction) and travel (yay for interpretive plaques!). I don't exactly have what you'd call a coherent overview, which is unfortunate. Looking at my educational history, though, I'm not really surprised.
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Date: 2006-08-15 09:49 pm (UTC)we had way more required history in BC highschool -- though interestingly enough, I didn't get much CANADIAN history until University, when I did a full year of Canadian History - Colonialism to Pearson, basically. It was cool.
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Date: 2006-08-16 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 12:50 am (UTC)I then moved to Quebec and took Canadian history and learned that after many wars and political struggles the Lewis and Clarke expedition headed west and was never heard from again. After that it was just the history of democratic spin managing.
At least both versions of Ancient Greek and Roman history agreed although the version I got in BC was a heck of a lot more detailed than the version I got here. (Then again, I was in advanced classes in BC and remedial ones here as they don't believe in placement tests).
Years later I was amazed to discover that, even after getting 100% in world history (essentially everything between the Romans and the Cold War), I had never heard of the Moorish empire and that I didn't actually have a clue as to WHY most of the events I knew about had happened.
Right now I'm watching a 3-part miniseries about the history of economic systems in the 20th century and learning all kinds of things about world history that I actually lived through and never understood at the time.
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Date: 2006-08-16 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 02:44 pm (UTC)