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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   22840 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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My opinion is that US schools do a really bad job of teaching the civil rights protests

Is there any topic where current US schools do a good job of teaching?

It is certainly not basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

And even when the system really tries, the effects are not great. See one historical event that TPTB consider crucially important for everyone to know, event that is taught not only in schools from the earliest age, but also in popular media and entertainment.

Despite all this effort, the result is glass about half empty. Not encouraging sign about the system's capability.

I think the public education system does a fine job at catechizing the basics of Holocaustianity; it happened, it was the worst thing ever, and the most important thing in the world is making sure it never happens again. Expecting normies to remember a number or a date is... too much. They don't remember that about anything, not even the things they care about.

As a proud techie-identifying person, I've never bothered remembering constants. You can look those up.

US schools actually do do a very fine job of teaching, comparisons are just compiled on the basis of comparing scores between poor black kids in the inner cities and the kids of the Japanese elite so the education system can pitch a bigger fit about 'inadequate resources'.

This, plus selection bias. Outside of the nordics, there are plenty of working class Euro kids who just don't go to school after 8th - 10th grade. And for the year they do attend, it's just several hours of goofing off before they can continue to goof off in their neighborhoods.

The U.S. has all kinds of truancy and mandatory education laws that vary by state and level of enforcement.

If school attendance was actually totally optional all the way through, I believe that by 9th grade or so, the U.S. would have far and away the top median scores of all nations.

Is there any topic where current US schools do a good job of teaching?

Metric system. Kids in school know what 9mm are.

One of the problems with teaching US history - it is really hard to not turn the pupils into white supremacists or just flat out patriots. Do you guys have any idea how fucking awesome USA is before Vietnam or Clinton - depending on how generous you want to be.

But can they tell if 9mm is bigger or smaller than .40 S&W and by how much?

In the better Red Tribe schools, of course. In Blue Tribe schools, maybe but not because of anything they learned in schools (maybe videogames). In underclass schools, oh yes, definitely, it's of practical importance.

I think they do a decent job of teaching older history. It's just, they start at the back and work forwards, so they run out of time with the postwar 20th century stuff at the very end of the school year. Plus all the obvious culture war angles to it.

I think they do a decent job of teaching older history. It's just, they start at the back and work forwards, so they run out of time with the postwar 20th century stuff at the very end of the school year. Plus all the obvious culture war angles to it.

I wouldn't think so, based on my schooling. Even 20 years ago my textbooks were laden with pointless anecdotes about some random black woman who knitted some socks for Brits occupying New York in 1777. And other such things.

And it was highly teacher dependent. My Middle School teacher was a stodgy old WASP lady that fought to get out of the union and legitimately loved teaching American history in a mildly pro-American way (and if you are even neutral it comes off as wildly pro-America because the country did so many insanely awesome things for 2 centuries). My APUSH teacher lamented he could only use Howard Zinn as a supplement instead of a primary textbook and was openly disdainful of America's legacy, and taught accordingly.

All the way through high school (graduated in 1985) history classes stopped at 1945.

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