this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
1170 points (99.7% liked)

History Memes

3223 readers
1070 users here now

A place to share history memes!

Rules:

  1. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.

  2. No fascism, atrocity denial or apologia, etc.

  3. Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.

  4. Follow all Lemmy.world rules.

Banner courtesy of @setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
PugJesus@lemmy.world
PugJesus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
1170
That's an, uh, extremely suspect phrasing there, school textbook (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/historymemes@lemmy.world
132 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Do you really expect middle school public education teachers to explain genocide and ethnic clensing to eight year olds?

Yes.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It really isn't that hard. "The European colonists forced the native population off their land." You can spare the rape and murder until the kids are older, but don't just outright lie to them

[–] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

I did my best to explain slavery to my daughter when she was 6 because due to COVID, we were basically home schooling her...

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, middle school is literally where it was hammered in for me. I think around ~4th grade we started to get some more serious "We treated the Native Americans really poorly", but I remember very starkly from 6th grade on that we got a pretty robust view of the historical-scale resolution of the genocides, even though they weren't referred to as such. Invasions, broken treaties, massacres, and backstabbing.

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 2 months ago

Better than the washed-down history I got, which made it dull & pointless: why do they think children like to draw boring pilgrims or waste mindspace on insipid, antiquated shit drained of all significance?

A minor exception was elementary school lessons on the holocaust & genocide by the Nazis. They showed us death camps, piles of shoes, masses of corpses, read & played Anne Frank's diary, and they invited survivors to speak & show their tattoos. An odd point was when they showed photos of Nazi artifacts made from human remains & asked how that made us feel: some kids (recalling an earlier lesson treating native americans positively for resourcefully using every part of the animal) were confused & drew comparisons.

[–] toastmeister@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Then what, explain why we dont actually give the land back because nobody actually cares outside of virtue signaling?

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Where's the hard part?

Don't explain, "I don't know", or "ask them" goes far. Better than telling garbage to unlearn.