288
submitted 4 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

Gen Z'er here. I graduated high school without ever even having the option of a civics class. Everything I've learned about civics has been from history class and independent reading of wikipedia/books.

[-] Spitefire@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

This hurts my heart as an elder Millennial who took AP Civics in high school. We are failing the kids so completely...

[-] Resonosity@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Same here, Zoomer. My time in high school was filled with AP classes in the normal subjects all meant to prepare me for college. No time left for finance, civics, or other basic life stuff.

And I wonder why I struggle with this stuff as an adult now.

[-] leadore@kbin.social 3 points 4 months ago

I'm glad to hear you took it upon yourself to learn, kudos to you! And that you mention books, not (just) the internet as a source. Your library should have lots of great books on these subjects. I thought history was kind of boring in high school, but later I found out it's really fascinating (was it me/my youth, or the school that made it seem boring? :D).

One thing I definitely remember being drilled into us back then was that we must be constantly vigilant to protect our rights, or we'll lose them. How true that turned out to be! We're on the verge of losing so much right now. :(

[-] Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

And that you mention books, not (just) the internet as a source

Yeah it took be forever to start actually reading, I feel like only ever really reading when being forced to throughout all of school makes a lot of people wanna avoid it after they've graduated. Eventually I got sick of having only a wikipedia level depth of knowledge on cold war poverty in the U.S., so I bought Michael Harringtons "The Other America" and my library has grown exponentially since.

(was it me/my youth, or the school that made it seem boring? :D)

Almost definitely school lol, I feel like the whole learning through "Great history man did ____ on ____ day remember it for the test" really alienates people and makes it super hard to feel connected to or interested in any of it.

One thing I definitely remember being drilled into us back then was that we must be constantly vigilant to protect our rights, or we'll lose them. How true that turned out to be! We're on the verge of losing so much right now. :(

Maybe this was something else that changed or the deep south is just different, but I never really heard the importance of defending our rights as a kid (Unless that meant allegedly defending them from random groups in the Middle East).

Down here it was much more of a "Our country is the greatest and the free-est and everyone is jealous of us for our unexstinguishable freedoms" type of thing, and then most of us woke up in 2016 and realized that wasn't true.

[-] leadore@kbin.social 2 points 4 months ago

That's great! I have to alternate non-fiction with fiction to "cleanse my palette", lol.

I'd forgotten how they would put more emphasis on memorizing dates than on why the events were important. Yes, it's definitely the school's fault. :)

I think there's always been that teaching to school kids that "we're the greatest and bestest country!" (gotta get that indoctrination well-embedded). When I was in school during the Cold war it was mostly about all the reasons why we were better than the Soviet Union (many of which either had unmentioned exceptions, or sadly no longer apply, especially post 9/11).

this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
288 points (98.0% liked)

politics

18870 readers
3857 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
  2. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  3. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  4. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
  5. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  6. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS