Another aspect of history teaching is that states (at least mine) generally mandate some local history. So, a certain amount of Virginia history would likely be required for graduation. Not to minimize the ethnic cleansing that Jackson carried out, but Hitler killed like 17 million people, not counting war deaths.
Where I'm from, we were taught that Andrew Jackson forced Native Americans from their homes, causing many to die on the Trail of Tears, he trampled on the Constitution, etc. but I've never read that he killed more people than Hitler. Even a cursory scan of the article you linked doesn't find it. Do you have another source?
I think I was mistaken attributing them all to Jackson, been a while since I revisited that part of American history. While he participated in the genocide, he seemed to have directly caused far less than I remember. 20 million murdered was the number I remember but that seems to include all of Manifest Destiny, but that spanned from Jefferson to Monroe. When I mentioned Hitler, I meant specifically genocide, not the war, so 5-6million. Hitler was worse, both in concentration in time and geography. I had the numbers wrong, but I do remember high school being heavily whitewashed, and I didn’t learn about the genocide until college. Got the trail of tears and a couple of native v us wars, but things like biological weapons were omitted where I lived (then again, that may not even be accurate, smallpox was going to spread regardless of if it was intentional or not.) I also remember being taught that the natives were in small tribes with little to no real government, which is completely false, some of the First Nations spanned hundreds of miles and included millions of citizens. I was definitely taught from the point of view that America was spreading west and the natives were just there, it’s not taught like an invasion of Soverign nations. It’d be like if your history was taught that the German border just expanded through treaties and land being sold by other nations and the Poles were just kinda in the way, rather than considering Poland it’s own thing. We bought Louisiana from the French, the French didn’t recognize the Sioux and Iroquois who already claimed that land. The point was that these types of things are taught differently because they’re viewed differently. The southern states view teaching all the good things about America as pro-american and anything critical of it as anti-american. Northerns view it the opposite, where we think ignoring the bad stuff is anti-american and objectiveness is patriotic. The founding documents of the US are some of the greatest ever written, but there were a few evil stains on them. It happened, it was abhorrent, but it’s not the fault of anyone alive today, it’s important to know, and it doesn’t detract from the country being mostly a beacon of good.
Ok, so there are a lot of small differences. That I didn't know. Although, when it comes to history, I was thinking more about the choice of events rather than how those vents are presented. Even small European countries have significant differences in how they view certain historical facts. Even in a small country like Poland, every voivodship teaches certain events differently (some more conservative parts of our country still glorify Napoleon.) Although, here religion is the dividing factor. So, where would Virginia be in all of this? I came across a lot of conflicting viewpoints on the internet, - I guess it's hard to talk about where your state falls into politically. But on one hand, I saw some people disagreeing with more liberal ideas, on the other, I saw some pretty progressive proposition on how to change the education system.
From Politics of Virginia @ Wikipedia In general in the US, the big cities are all run by Democrats including mayors, police cheifs and district attorneys etc, so democrat policies hold sway there. Even in the red states (Republican-run) the large cities are usually strongly Democrat-run. For instance, Texas has been a very strong Republican state for a long time (though it seems to be wavering now?) but the citizens say Dallas, Austin and Houston aren't really part of Texas, because their politics are so totally opposite. As one big example of the differences, red (republican) states have no gun-control laws. Many of them (and increasingly more) are what's called Constitutional-Carry states, meaning people can own guns without needing to get a permit (paying money to the government). It's the second amendment to the Constitution, which says "Government shall not infringe on the right to keep and bear arms" (to keep and carry guns). I might have the wording slightly off. In blue states and cities, there are strict gun control laws, making it very difficult if not impossible for citizens to have guns. This is of course a big area of contention, as it shows two entirely opposed attitudes. And of course the attitudes are split this way on a lot of big issues. In Constitutional-Carry states, though you don't need to get a permit, you still need to pass a background check before a store will sell you a gun or I suppose ammunition.
Private schools dont follow state education. They can basically come up with their own curriculum. My HS school was primarily all black (i kid you not.... 1 white kid and he was a graduating senior). The curriculum had more black history than i got in public school k-8. (Although its regional, because i didnt know about Juneteenth until 3 years ago when i moving to a northern state FROM THE SOUTH!) My HS was also a catholic school, so every year, i had to take some sort of religious studies, pray before each class ( ), go to mass twice a month ( ), and Latin was offered as a language. Its pretty much the same for all religious private schools. An Islamic school opened up before i moved, and i'd imagine their curriculum focuses subjects relevant to the population they are teaching (Arabic, Quran, muslims in america, practice islamic observances, etc,)
Where in the south did you live, JT? Juneteenth was always celebrated in Arkansas, or at least the part we're from just over the border from Texas where the event originated.
DC not quite the "deep south" but a lot more south than where i live now... a bridge away from Canada
The wording is slightly off, but it makes a big difference in this case since it's been debated for years on what the proper interpretation and intent is. It's something like "A well regulated militia, being necessary for the common defense, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" I don't want to derail the thread or get stuff transferred to the debate forum, just pointing out how this is one of the things where how you parse the sentence can have huge implications.
It never occurs to me to think of DC as "south" and never mind the Commonwealth of Virginia looming nearby.
And it's a classic example of the potential importance of a single comma. At least in modern English, and many say that then as well, the presence of this comma makes A well-regulated militia unambiguously the subject of any sentence to follow -- yet that commitment is not fulfilled, and so the sentence becomes ungrammatical and at best half-sensical. If we accept that the right is instead the subject, we must basically discard everything earlier as irrelevant. That is (in essence) what modern, arms-permissive interpretations have done. But if we make the sentence sensical / grammatical by deleting the comma after militia (as an earlier draft was written), it works perfectly well as a whole, and motivates citizens' right to arms with the need for a well-regulated militia. My point is not to advocate one side or the other of the constitutional issue(s) but to advocate meticulous punctuation. All men may be created equal (as noted in a different document, of course), but all commas are not. That sentence contains one of the most consequential comma errors in all of history, and it is essentially a copyist's error that would have been corrected had it not been committed in India ink. I find its equivalent in nearly every critique-group submission I read. If there's one thing our teachers have succeeded in confusing most of us about, it is the comma.
In colonial times, the use of the comma wasn't as codified as it is (supposed to be) today. When the Bill of Rights was drafted, copies were sent to the legislatures of all the states for ratification. I have read (but can't find the source) that these copies were not all the same -- some had a comma where others did not. Rigourous analyses of the American second amendment have concluded that the "well regulated militia" phrase is a prefatory clause that does not alter the meaning of the main body of the sentence. The subject is "the right to keep and bear arms." This view was incorporated in the Supreme Court decision in the Heller case and is, therefore, the official, legal view.
While there's no doubt that a spirited argument about the 2A does kind of embody many facets of American life, I'd just remind everyone that this here is research not the debate room so whether you would prefer to be buried with your guns on, or whether you would prefer to talk about it, this isn't really the place
I'm not arguing for any side in the second amendment debate. I'm pointing out that the comma which has been the subject of much debate was apparently not consistent in all the original copies of the Bill of Rights, and linguistic analyses (which should be of interest to us as writers) have generally agreed that the militia clause is a non-binding, prefatory clause that does not affect, alter, or limit the basic sentence. A number of years ago I did a stint as chair of my home town's planning and zoning commission. While I was chair, we drafted a new section for the zoning code. Because the zoning board of appeals (a separate body from the planning and zoning commission) had a history of granting variances that went counter to the intent of the regulations (which they were -- and are -- not supposed to do), I drafted the proposed new regulation with a prefatory clause intended to serve as a wake-up call to the ZBA. Our professional planning consultant tried to talk me out of including the prefatory clause. I don't recall exactly what his reasoning was -- something about "We don't do that any more," IIRC. I insisted, the regulation was adopted with the prefatory clause ... and the ZBA blithely continued to ignore the intent of the regulations. But having the prefatory clause in there did help any residents who wished to sue the ZBA for exceeding their statutory authority, by making it easier for a judge to figure out what the regulation was intended to accomplish. [/digression] Back to the topic: The United States is so big and has so many distinct regions that there are many regional aspects and influences that one might call "American" yet someone from another region might never have heard of. Examples: Rodeos. Chili cook-offs. The argument over whether Chicago pizza is or isn't better than New York pizza. The locally famous Philadelphia cheesesteak [one word] sandwich. The fact (or myth) that in Pennsylvania hunting is so popular that schools close on the first day of hunting season because they know all the male students will be out hunting anyway. The clam chowder wars: which is best, New England clam chowder, Manhattan clam chowder, Rhode Island clam chowder, or Stony Creek clam chowder? Most Americans (I think) like ketchup on French fries (if they like anything at all); in Rhode Island, they almost universally prefer vinegar. In the northeast, a horse show probably involves dressage; in much of the west it probably involves barrel racing. What do you call those long sandwiches: sub, hoagie, or hero [a.k.a. gyro]? It depends on where you are. The bottom line is that there is no one, single, homogenized "America." We have too many states, too many regions, too many accents and dialects for much of anything to be universally applicable to all Americans in all parts of the country.
But really America is pretty homogeneous considering how big it is. Culturally there is more similarity than there is difference. The South is the closest to being its own thing, but it’s still America. I think there’s more difference on either side of the rural/urban divide than there is regionally, to be honest.
I am aware. I live in these states. But I will say though, that incidents occur in other countries, but the death toll is lesser due to the fact that the person uses a knife or some other type of weapon that cannot kill as easily.
Actually, we aren't very homogenous. We are a very big melting pot. And yes, the South is kinda its own... mess. But also, may I point to California? It has far more rules and regulations that only apply within the state. New Yprk is similar as well. And yes, there is a difference in Rural Vs. City that should not be ignored. But I think rural differences occur as well, because someone in rural New Mexico is different than Florida.
THIS. We are VERY diverse in terms of language, slang, people from different places, and food. We are NOT all the same. And yes, I don't want a 2A debate. I am merely pointing out things one might need to know about American Life.
While visiting the Canadians Rockies twenty years ago, we fell into conversation with a couple from a medium sized city in Alberta. The gentleman observed that he'd often noticed how much more Canadians in his the part of country had in common with Americans in the corresponding part of America than either had with countrymen in the eastern parts of either country.
One surmises that similar ancestral personality traits and life circumstances led to similar migrations in both countries.
Homogeneous was a poor choice of words. I do think that Americans tend to be more similar than different, considering the size of the country. That was the operative phrase of my previous post, especially in the context of the thread in which frequent comparisons were made between the US and Europe. From Paris to Moscow as the crow flies it is something like 1500 miles. From LA to Charleston it's 2200 miles; Seattle to Boston, 3000. But you're right, America is a very diverse country.