Can’t stop thinking about how the Byzantine Empire saved Western Civilization

[Anonymous]

And how high school history teachers won’t spend more than 10 minutes (at best) on this fascinating empire that spanned 3 continents and persisted for more than 1,000 years. Its earliest inhabitants would have experienced the sack of Rome by Odevacer. Its last would have lived long enough to hear news of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the new world.

I feel greatly strongly about this and may bring it up at the next school board meeting.

[Anonymous]

That's a great idea. History is very neglected and does not follow any rational progression. One of my children learned about the Great Fire of London while the other one learned about Mali. Both completely random, tangential issues - none of them, thus far, have learned about Mesopotamia or even World War 1.

[Anonymous]

My friend has high school aged kids and said they spent 2 weeks on apartheid in 9th grade world history. I couldn’t believe it.

[Anonymous]

In middle and high school history, in the 1980s, we spent hours and hours on the French & Indian War (because we had local historical sites), and never studied anything that happened past the Korean War.

I always wanted to have a formal presentation of the Vietnam War. But it was probably "too soon" for our community.

I think the rise of AP classes has given my kids better historical analysis skills than my long ago honors classes. But they also don't know much post-WW2 history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And how high school history teachers won’t spend more than 10 minutes (at best) on this fascinating empire that spanned 3 continents and persisted for more than 1,000 years. Its earliest inhabitants would have experienced the sack of Rome by Odevacer. Its last would have lived long enough to hear news of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the new world.

I feel greatly strongly about this and may bring it up at the next school board meeting.

Your kid can take a history class on this in college to learn more if you need to learn via a class. Just don't take it 8am MWF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In middle and high school history, in the 1980s, we spent hours and hours on the French & Indian War (because we had local historical sites), and never studied anything that happened past the Korean War.

I always wanted to have a formal presentation of the Vietnam War. But it was probably "too soon" for our community.

I think the rise of AP classes has given my kids better historical analysis skills than my long ago honors classes. But they also don't know much post-WW2 history.

I agree with OP. More ancient history is preferable because recent issues are not that historical. Plus, this is so easy to fix by watching some documentaries. Ken Burns on Vietnam is captivating and taught by someone much better than the average public school teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In middle and high school history, in the 1980s, we spent hours and hours on the French & Indian War (because we had local historical sites), and never studied anything that happened past the Korean War.

I always wanted to have a formal presentation of the Vietnam War. But it was probably "too soon" for our community.

I think the rise of AP classes has given my kids better historical analysis skills than my long ago honors classes. But they also don't know much post-WW2 history.

Did I write this?
Yes we did so much on our state.
Then later we spent sooooo much time on WWI (barf. Archduke Ferdinand) that we had to speed through WWII and literally nothing after that. It wasn't until university that I even learned about Johnson, Kennedy, Nixon! Never mind Byzantine empire. Please do bring this up a school board meeting. And also how much influence Greek culture had, how they re-used Roman empire items, and then how it was "turkified". Fascinating stuff. There's a podcast if you're interested

[Anonymous]

My kid is taking AP. World which is what most junior’s take at our school and it’s a major part of unit 1. So it’s more like a week up to a month that they are spending on it. It’s part of “The global tapestry” unit.

I also strongly disagree with PP about WW1–the war itself is boring but the insane reasons leading up to it, and the fall out from it, are incredibly important. It basically was like a violent reboot for the entire world system — I don’t think that’s ever happened so quickly and we’re all still living with the consequences.

[Anonymous]

They had strong borders and repelled invaders.

Rome and western Roman Empire did the opposite.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know. Much of ancient learning was transferred via the Arabs through places like Cordoba rather than through tge East Roman Empire. I agree it is understudied, though.