What were you taught in school about your country's history

[justnotcricket]

Generally, we got the same spiel every year that covered the Treaty of Waitangi, missionaries, the Maori/Land wars and Gallipoli. Then in high school they shoehorn in endless units about New Zealand's 'search for security', in which they basically reinforce the idea that NZ is simultaneously the best and friendliest country anywhere, and the one with the biggest inferiority complex - which is actually not too far from the way we tend tho think about our country. It's interesting - I've had really awesome history teachers, but the curriculum somehow manages to totally put you off your own history, despite the fact that there are some really interesting bits that warrant decent study. Who knows - we're only working off about 200 years worth (because they don't teach nearly enough pre-colonial history). Maybe we just need to accumulate more!

 

[Pandalisk]

Well I'm just finishing up my school years and I am sick to the stomach of Irish history, it's the only history I've studied all year and it's starting to drive me nuts.

What he said, the second we got away from Irish history and into WW2 i was relieved

Irish history is pretty much a testament on how much we got our asses kicked of the years by foreigners and other Irish

What those two guys said. The Irish education system seems to have a fascination with the Iirhs history. Sure, it is intresting, but a good bit of it just says "we got out asses kicked, we fought back, we got our asses handed to us" repeat that a few times, and thats the baisic jist untill the 1900's.
Thats when we got our independence and oh god I'm giving you all a history lesson now, I apologise

Ah but in truth our race is a sneaky one see we dont do what the other countries do and start world wars by "Invading" no no, were much smarter than that, We "Em-migrate"

Ah yes, as the great Tommy Tiernan said, the Irish want to invade the world as much as any other country, but we're sneaky about it. We dont send in people, with guns and foreign accents, oh no!
Only 2 Irish people go into a country, with nothing but a phone book, and a sleeping bag. We walk up the the tallest guy in the village and say "Oh no, don't mind us! Sure we're only Irish! We're great craic!"
And then we walk of into a small cottage, and then two weeks later....47 Of us walks out!!

He is truley a god

Those Americans with there "freedom" is only they knew that they were under our thumb! even Obama is Irish! we own your country you fools! and you thought us weaklings on our little island! muahahah

The Island of britain was made to keep The Brits from terrorising the European mainland, The island Of Ireland was made to keep the Irish from terrorising the brits, we are the greater evil muhaha!

 

[Resistance205]

Well I'm just finishing up my school years and I am sick to the stomach of Irish history, it's the only history I've studied all year and it's starting to drive me nuts.

What he said, the second we got away from Irish history and into WW2 i was relieved

Irish history is pretty much a testament on how much we got our asses kicked of the years by foreigners and other Irish

What those two guys said. The Irish education system seems to have a fascination with the Iirhs history. Sure, it is intresting, but a good bit of it just says "we got out asses kicked, we fought back, we got our asses handed to us" repeat that a few times, and thats the baisic jist untill the 1900's.
Thats when we got our independence and oh god I'm giving you all a history lesson now, I apologise

Ah but in truth our race is a sneaky one see we dont do what the other countries do and start world wars by "Invading" no no, were much smarter than that, We "Em-migrate"

Ah yes, as the great Tommy Tiernan said, the Irish want to invade the world as much as any other country, but we're sneaky about it. We dont send in people, with guns and foreign accents, oh no!
Only 2 Irish people go into a country, with nothing but a phone book, and a sleeping bag. We walk up the the tallest guy in the village and say "Oh no, don't mind us! Sure we're only Irish! We're great craic!"
And then we walk of into a small cottage, and then two weeks later....47 Of us walks out!!

He is truley a god

Those Americans with there "freedom" is only they knew that they were under our thumb! even Obama is Irish! we own your country you fools! and you thought us weaklings on our little island! muahahah

The Island of britain was made to keep The Brits from terrorising the European mainland, The island Of Ireland was made to keep the Irish from terrorising the brits, we are the greater evil muhaha!

Exactly! Thats why the Brits tried to keep us under their control for so long! They knew we were the real threat! Thats the real reason they invaded other countries, so they could have an army large enough to defeat us!
Mwa ha ha!! It failed miserably! We will soon be in control!

 

[Pandalisk]

Well I'm just finishing up my school years and I am sick to the stomach of Irish history, it's the only history I've studied all year and it's starting to drive me nuts.

What he said, the second we got away from Irish history and into WW2 i was relieved

Irish history is pretty much a testament on how much we got our asses kicked of the years by foreigners and other Irish

What those two guys said. The Irish education system seems to have a fascination with the Iirhs history. Sure, it is intresting, but a good bit of it just says "we got out asses kicked, we fought back, we got our asses handed to us" repeat that a few times, and thats the baisic jist untill the 1900's.
Thats when we got our independence and oh god I'm giving you all a history lesson now, I apologise

Ah but in truth our race is a sneaky one see we dont do what the other countries do and start world wars by "Invading" no no, were much smarter than that, We "Em-migrate"

Ah yes, as the great Tommy Tiernan said, the Irish want to invade the world as much as any other country, but we're sneaky about it. We dont send in people, with guns and foreign accents, oh no!
Only 2 Irish people go into a country, with nothing but a phone book, and a sleeping bag. We walk up the the tallest guy in the village and say "Oh no, don't mind us! Sure we're only Irish! We're great craic!"
And then we walk of into a small cottage, and then two weeks later....47 Of us walks out!!

He is truley a god

Those Americans with there "freedom" is only they knew that they were under our thumb! even Obama is Irish! we own your country you fools! and you thought us weaklings on our little island! muahahah

The Island of britain was made to keep The Brits from terrorising the European mainland, The island Of Ireland was made to keep the Irish from terrorising the brits, we are the greater evil muhaha!

Exactly! Thats why the Brits tried to keep us under their control for so long! They knew we were the real threat! Thats the real reason they invaded other countries, so they could have an army large enough to defeat us!
Mwa ha ha!! It failed miserably! We will soon be in control!

getting out arses kick for a century? nay we were putting the other countries into a false sense of security!, Famine? No! it was a lie to give us a reason to "Emmigrate" two days from now the world will be ours! look to the west for the coming storm!

Civil war? no we were just drunk! that was a regular bar brawl!

 

[Resistance205]

Well I'm just finishing up my school years and I am sick to the stomach of Irish history, it's the only history I've studied all year and it's starting to drive me nuts.

What he said, the second we got away from Irish history and into WW2 i was relieved

Irish history is pretty much a testament on how much we got our asses kicked of the years by foreigners and other Irish

What those two guys said. The Irish education system seems to have a fascination with the Iirhs history. Sure, it is intresting, but a good bit of it just says "we got out asses kicked, we fought back, we got our asses handed to us" repeat that a few times, and thats the baisic jist untill the 1900's.
Thats when we got our independence and oh god I'm giving you all a history lesson now, I apologise

Ah but in truth our race is a sneaky one see we dont do what the other countries do and start world wars by "Invading" no no, were much smarter than that, We "Em-migrate"

Ah yes, as the great Tommy Tiernan said, the Irish want to invade the world as much as any other country, but we're sneaky about it. We dont send in people, with guns and foreign accents, oh no!
Only 2 Irish people go into a country, with nothing but a phone book, and a sleeping bag. We walk up the the tallest guy in the village and say "Oh no, don't mind us! Sure we're only Irish! We're great craic!"
And then we walk of into a small cottage, and then two weeks later....47 Of us walks out!!

He is truley a god

Those Americans with there "freedom" is only they knew that they were under our thumb! even Obama is Irish! we own your country you fools! and you thought us weaklings on our little island! muahahah

The Island of britain was made to keep The Brits from terrorising the European mainland, The island Of Ireland was made to keep the Irish from terrorising the brits, we are the greater evil muhaha!

Exactly! Thats why the Brits tried to keep us under their control for so long! They knew we were the real threat! Thats the real reason they invaded other countries, so they could have an army large enough to defeat us!
Mwa ha ha!! It failed miserably! We will soon be in control!

getting out arses kick for a century? nay we were putting the other countries into a false sense of security!, Famine? No! it was a lie to give us a reason to "Emmigrate" two days from now the world will be ours! look to the west for the coming storm!

Civil war? no we were just drunk! that was a regular bar brawl!

Pfft! I laugh at how little other countries know about us, that civil war was nothing! We were just pissed drunk!
The only reason DeValera left Ireland to go to America for so long, was to secreatly bring back our main weapon, the thing that makes us great and uniqe..the booze.
No! He didn't go for help, nor did he go for anything else, but simple Guinness. The English refused to give us the supply we needed, so we sought help from the Americans..before we destroyed them!

 

[Pandalisk]

Well I'm just finishing up my school years and I am sick to the stomach of Irish history, it's the only history I've studied all year and it's starting to drive me nuts.

What he said, the second we got away from Irish history and into WW2 i was relieved

Irish history is pretty much a testament on how much we got our asses kicked of the years by foreigners and other Irish

What those two guys said. The Irish education system seems to have a fascination with the Iirhs history. Sure, it is intresting, but a good bit of it just says "we got out asses kicked, we fought back, we got our asses handed to us" repeat that a few times, and thats the baisic jist untill the 1900's.
Thats when we got our independence and oh god I'm giving you all a history lesson now, I apologise

Ah but in truth our race is a sneaky one see we dont do what the other countries do and start world wars by "Invading" no no, were much smarter than that, We "Em-migrate"

Ah yes, as the great Tommy Tiernan said, the Irish want to invade the world as much as any other country, but we're sneaky about it. We dont send in people, with guns and foreign accents, oh no!
Only 2 Irish people go into a country, with nothing but a phone book, and a sleeping bag. We walk up the the tallest guy in the village and say "Oh no, don't mind us! Sure we're only Irish! We're great craic!"
And then we walk of into a small cottage, and then two weeks later....47 Of us walks out!!

He is truley a god

Those Americans with there "freedom" is only they knew that they were under our thumb! even Obama is Irish! we own your country you fools! and you thought us weaklings on our little island! muahahah

The Island of britain was made to keep The Brits from terrorising the European mainland, The island Of Ireland was made to keep the Irish from terrorising the brits, we are the greater evil muhaha!

Exactly! Thats why the Brits tried to keep us under their control for so long! They knew we were the real threat! Thats the real reason they invaded other countries, so they could have an army large enough to defeat us!
Mwa ha ha!! It failed miserably! We will soon be in control!

getting out arses kick for a century? nay we were putting the other countries into a false sense of security!, Famine? No! it was a lie to give us a reason to "Emmigrate" two days from now the world will be ours! look to the west for the coming storm!

Civil war? no we were just drunk! that was a regular bar brawl!

Pfft! I laugh at how little other countries know about us, that civil war was nothing! We were just pissed drunk!
The only reason DeValera left Ireland to go to America for so long, was to secreatly bring back our main weapon, the thing that makes us great and uniqe..the booze.
No! He didn't go for help, nor did he go for anything else, but simple Guinness. The English refused to give us the supply we needed, so we sought help from the Americans..before we destroyed them!

ah yes Guinness, i noble drink, only irish stomachs have been known to be able to drink this violantile substance and live, many have tried to receive the power from this sacred brew they still do not realise its not the brew its the irishman, the brew just gets him pissed!

Northern ireland? you foolish people, have you never heard of the saying "keep your friends close and your enimies closer"? every month when the moon is full the other countries offer a sacrafice to ireland, a boat of beer is floated down to Dublin and burnt, they still dont realise this just pisses us of more..we dont drink your "beer"

the only thing as bad ass as us are Vikings! and there busy terrorising the russia and eastern europe while drinking with us!..

I nuke was set off on the irish mainland, the irish used the heat to cook Irish pork and beef

 

[Lavi]

Uh, french vs. english, what tribes lived where, how the treaties came about... aka a shitload of nothing? It's not like Canada actually HAS history. History of the Americas is a Grade 12 class and I'm only Grade 11. It'll be freaking boring >.< I prefer more interesting countries.

 

[Lukirre]

What I learned about Western Civilization in school:

1. We developed from settlers.
2. We weren't very good to Black people.
3. We really weren't that great to Black people.
4. We fought in World War 2, and we won.
5. Passchendale has no right to be made into a movie and be claimed as a pivitol moment in the war.
6. We were really, really bad at dealing with Black people.
7. We developed a system of tolerance.
8. After point 7, most of us were still bad at respecting Black people's rights.
9. Even today, Black people still fight for equality amongst Western civilizations.
10. If nothing else, remember this: We were assholes.

I kid you not, this pretty much sums up what we learned in our History classes. I can't begin to explain how many guilt trips our teacher tried to give us for slavery.

P.S: Our teacher was a white male.

 

[bookboy]

at my high school, history basically consists of this. (I'm in canada, by the way)
chapter 1: the Natives, and how we used them, abused them,and completely wrecked their way of life.
2: why you should feel guilty about the way the natives were treated.
3: canada in WW1
4: the post WW1 years, and how the natives suffered more than the oppresive white man.
5: the natives in WW2 (and some mention of the rest of Canada).
6: the modern Native, how the rest of Canada is ruining the lives of the people that the land really belongs to.
the end.

however, i got lucky and my teacher is actually a part-time military officer, so our history consisted of: pre-WW1, WW1, the depression years, WW2, post WW2 europe, Korea, Vietnam, and politics up until modern day, with a heavy focus on warfare.
oh, and a lot of jokes about the french, the Natives, and people from Newfoundland.

 

[Motti]

I love australian history. I learnt about how the aboriginal people lived peacefully as one with the land, until us white fellas came, massacred and kidnapped 'em. Only recently have their numbers come back to what they were 200 and something years ago. Then there were more euros and chinese coming and tearing up the ground with the discovery of gold, along with the eureka stockade (our own short-lived civil war, of sorts).
On the other hand you've got the ANZACS at villiers de brettonaux (hope I spelt that right) halting the german war machine twice in WWI (all in a days work!). You've got the rats of tobruk doing it again in WWII and the mice of moresby holding back a superior force that had never been beaten before in history.
Like everything else in the country, our history's full of dualities.

 

[dwightsteel]

We spent a lot of time on slavery when I still took history. Wayyyy too much time. Basically we learned everything about America from a pure propaganda point of view. If only people were smart enough to break through the bullshit. Hell, I wasn't even taught that the French helped out in the American Revolution. Learned that from movies. Terrible.

The French never helped with anything. Because they're french.

Hey, what do you call 170,000 People with their hands up?

A country that can organise one hell of a resistence and has a foreign Legion that kept fighting.

*sigh*, the answer to the joke was "the French Army". Dammit, why is it so hard to get backup on my prejudiced joke?

 

[Agent Larkin]

We spent a lot of time on slavery when I still took history. Wayyyy too much time. Basically we learned everything about America from a pure propaganda point of view. If only people were smart enough to break through the bullshit. Hell, I wasn't even taught that the French helped out in the American Revolution. Learned that from movies. Terrible.

The French never helped with anything. Because they're french.

Hey, what do you call 170,000 People with their hands up?

A country that can organise one hell of a resistence and has a foreign Legion that kept fighting.

*sigh*, the answer to the joke was "the French Army". Dammit, why is it so hard to get backup on my prejudiced joke?

Had you gotten me a year ago I would have agreed but since then I have been to France numerous times and have met a member of the Maquis so i now have a lot of respect for them.

 

[dwightsteel]

We spent a lot of time on slavery when I still took history. Wayyyy too much time. Basically we learned everything about America from a pure propaganda point of view. If only people were smart enough to break through the bullshit. Hell, I wasn't even taught that the French helped out in the American Revolution. Learned that from movies. Terrible.

The French never helped with anything. Because they're french.

Hey, what do you call 170,000 People with their hands up?

A country that can organise one hell of a resistence and has a foreign Legion that kept fighting.

*sigh*, the answer to the joke was "the French Army". Dammit, why is it so hard to get backup on my prejudiced joke?

Had you gotten me a year ago I would have agreed but since then I have been to France numerous times and have met a member of the Maquis so i now have a lot of respect for them.

Congrats. I'm sure you're very cultured now. I would like to point out that it was a joke. I would also like to point out that I don't hate the French in general. I hate people in general.

 

[uncle-ellis]

We rolled around in ditch until the Vikings came and killed us all raped our women and made our children into cheap labour.
O yea then there was a civil war about the church then we killed lots of Germans with help from americia and now were americias bitches.

EDIT: and the French are cowardly bastards because they surenderd.

 

[DI7789]

I remember, first we covered World War 2, which was basically just talking about the Blitz and the bombing raids on JUST our city. Then we started on about Richard III and whether he usurped the throne out of ambition or self-preservation. Then came Henry VII and how he was apparently the greatest thing since sliced bread, followed by his son Henry VIII, who was a compelte asshole, without argument. Then we went ahead a bit and started on World War I, Trench Warfare, Blackadder Goes Forth and all that. Followed by Germany's status before and after the War. Then we moved on to the Wall Street Crash and how much better Roosevelt was compared to Hoover.

I'm sure I'll remember a bit more eventually

 

[Zydrate]

I learned that the voting system is so contradictive and pointless.

 

[Silver]

What I learned about Western Civilization in school:

1. We developed from settlers.
2. We weren't very good to Black people.
3. We really weren't that great to Black people.
4. We fought in World War 2, and we won.
5. Passchendale has no right to be made into a movie and be claimed as a pivitol moment in the war.
6. We were really, really bad at dealing with Black people.
7. We developed a system of tolerance.
8. After point 7, most of us were still bad at respecting Black people's rights.
9. Even today, Black people still fight for equality amongst Western civilizations.
10. If nothing else, remember this: We were assholes.

I kid you not, this pretty much sums up what we learned in our History classes. I can't begin to explain how many guilt trips our teacher tried to give us for slavery.

P.S: Our teacher was a white male.

I've always found that obsession with digging that up very interesting about America. I mean, I'm sure some of the people living in this country a few hundreds of years ago were jackasses too. I know they were actually, we had tons of wars for silly reasons, mostly against the Danish.

Today though? No, we left that in the past. We stopped doing it, and after we stopped doing it, we stopped dwelling on it, especially since much of it was before our generation, where we had no way of changing how things were short of inventing a time machine. And given how much you seem to dwell on it, it seems like people are almost expected to invent a time machine, and go back and stop their ancestors for acting the way they did.

I mean, I know you have some values over there I don't understand, and some I do understand but don't agree with, and perhaps this is one of those things I don't understand, but newsflash, people are not responsible for what other people did, especially not when it happened before they were born.