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President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

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End it with Obama's inauguration.

When I took American history in HS in 1972-76, they quit before the Korean War, and explained that various parents were irate how the war was presented in history books.

There was a class called "Contemporary History" which studiously refused to say anything about Vietnam and civil rights.

It was treated as some kind of mysterious anomaly that Nixon lost the election in '60 then won in '68.
 
End it with Obama's inauguration.

When I took American history in HS in 1972-76, they quit before the Korean War, and explained that various parents were irate how the war was presented in history books.

There was a class called "Contemporary History" which studiously refused to say anything about Vietnam and civil rights.

It was treated as some kind of mysterious anomaly that Nixon lost the election in '60 then won in '68.
I went to high school in the late 1980s, and our U.S. history class basically ended with the end of World War II.

My history teacher, however, was a bit of a radical who insisted on spending a day or two on the Vietnam War. She resented the Rambo revisionist history that already was happening and made sure to discuss the iffy Gulf of Tonkin incident and things like the My Lai massacre.

Quite the rarity for suburban Chicago in the 1980s.
 
If I taught history in high school, I'd probably go backwards. I've always found history more compelling if you could relate to it. Maybe bop around the timeline a bit. Start with why Obama's election in 2008 was significant. Shoot back to the Civil War, the history of white Presidents, slavery. Go into origins of Civil War conflict that still play out in the Electoral College that goes back to the framers wanting to balance the power of urban and rural.


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If I taught history in high school, I'd probably go backwards. I've always found history more compelling if you could relate to it. Maybe bop around the timeline a bit. Start with why Obama's election in 2008 was significant. Shoot back to the Civil War, the history of white Presidents, slavery. Go into origins of Civil War conflict that still play out in the Electoral College that goes back to the framers wanting to balance the power of urban and rural.
I like that idea. I took a HS class in the late 1980s called Topics in American History. Over the semester we covered just three major topics, but explored them somewhat in-depth but also in context as to what was happening in the country at the time. The topics were immigration, the Vietnam War and, IIRC, the civil rights movement. I still recall much of the immigration topic and how this issue continues to repeat itself with little to no consideration of past policy or events.
 
"They're eating the pets of the people who live there!!!" Trump barked at the one and only debate he had with Harris. Trump repeated a lie initiated by neo-Nazis about Haitian immigrants. Eight weeks later, he won reelection to the most powerful office in the world.
 
I went to high school in the late 1980s, and our U.S. history class basically ended with the end of World War II.

My history teacher, however, was a bit of a radical who insisted on spending a day or two on the Vietnam War. She resented the Rambo revisionist history that already was happening and made sure to discuss the iffy Gulf of Tonkin incident and things like the My Lai massacre.

Quite the rarity for suburban Chicago in the 1980s.
Had a U.S. History class in high school in the mid-70s. Fairly new text, but barely mentioned Watergate while touting Nixon's achievements with China and the USSR. Finally asked the teacher "are they trying to sugar coat Nixon?" He came up with some bs answer.
 
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Depends if the text was written before June 1972 when it happened or early 1973 when Watergate really blew up.

Myself, we never made it past WWII but I read ahead and the textbooks got to Jimmy Carter once.
 
I graduated high school in '74. My social studies teacher was head of the history department, and she decided to dedicate the last quarter to studying Watergate. So we read Woodward and Bernstein's stories, all the various coverage in Time and Newsweek, the Watergate Hearings, the whole schmear, five days a week. She also assigned each student one of the major players to report on. I got Maurice Stans, Commerce Secretary under Nixon and head of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Follow the money!

It was fun, on topic, and gave us an up close look at how Congress did things, the influence of politics on government. It was really a good learning experience. Nixon resigned three months after I graduated.
 
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