Anyone else feel WWI doesn't receive the attention it deserves?

[Karth]

Most people dont even know who the 2nd President of the United States was. lol

[Allasaphore]

I'm an American, so this is the perspective I'm coming from. Given its importance in world history, it deserves a little more than a day, I'd think. That's just me, though.

[Ililsa]

Much to my chagrin in my schoolboy days, I never noticed history classes focussing much on military history at all.

We did have a bit on World War I though, in which we watched Blackadder and were shown some pictures of half rotten feet.

Most of the World War II we covered was about the home front as well, as I recall.

[Nipplestockings]

Much to my chagrin in my schoolboy days, I never noticed history classes focussing much on military history at all.

We did have a bit on World War I though, in which we watched Blackadder and were shown some pictures of half rotten feet.

Most of the World War II we covered was about the home front as well, as I recall.

Same here, they mainly talked about general themes and topics instead of specific events. I think the curriculum used to focus more on military history but they tried to steer things away from that because it didn't teach the most important part of history, which is understanding the past. Military history is more raw facts based and its hard to really take anything away from it if you don't know a great deal about the long term significance of the war or the causes behind it.

[TORN]

Here in Belgium is gets alot of attention. Everyday.

In Ypres when the sun goes down. People do the last post.

[Jefferson]

The version of the UK curriculum that I studied does pay quite a bit of attention to WW1. We did quite a long, and fairly in depth course about the beginning of the war and Trench warfare itself, although I don't remember doing anything beyond what British troops did, and it was all about the Western Front. Come to think about it, my teacher barely aknowledged that there were other fronts!

We have recently also finished a mini - topic about the Home Front during WW1, which was actually rather interesting.

Incidentally, we did next to nothing on WW2.

[BSM 'Shut up' Williams]

Here in the UK we learnt very little about WW1, in fact I can't even remember being taught it at all. My brother was once told who was on each side, but he insisted that Italy was in the Central Powers so I doubt they taught him well... When I chose to do GCSE History (High school qualification) we spent quite a bit of time on Treaty of Versailles, St. Germain, Neuilly, Sevres etc etc. Nothing on the actual war itself though.

Same. Damn British Education! They only teach us about Britain no other countrie's History!

[Ililsa]

Here in the UK we learnt very little about WW1, in fact I can't even remember being taught it at all. My brother was once told who was on each side, but he insisted that Italy was in the Central Powers so I doubt they taught him well... When I chose to do GCSE History (High school qualification) we spent quite a bit of time on Treaty of Versailles, St. Germain, Neuilly, Sevres etc etc. Nothing on the actual war itself though.

Same. Damn British Education! They only teach us about Britain no other countrie's History!

Are you somehow from every country there is or ever was, or something?

[Docm30]

Being Polish, I received my education in pre-Colombian Coixtlahuaca, where they didn't even teach us about World War 1.

[Duuring]

Here in the UK we learnt very little about WW1, in fact I can't even remember being taught it at all. My brother was once told who was on each side, but he insisted that Italy was in the Central Powers so I doubt they taught him well... When I chose to do GCSE History (High school qualification) we spent quite a bit of time on Treaty of Versailles, St. Germain, Neuilly, Sevres etc etc. Nothing on the actual war itself though.

Same. Damn British Education! They only teach us about Britain no other countrie's History!

Are you somehow from every country there is or ever was, or something?

Baktech lives in British but is a Polish nationalist. Like that Eagle guy who lived his entire life in Norway of social care, but is a Turkish Nationalistic Fascist. I'm not even kidding.

But back on topic - Isn't it that history on high schools is never quite 'it' ?

[McEwan]

My high school actually has some pretty good history programs. There's intensive Advanced Placement US and EU history courses and a range of specialized electives, among other things. I haven't taken the US and EU history courses, so I'm not completely sure what the entire curriculum is, but I'm pretty sure they teach some substantial stuff on WWI. One elective I've taken is a History of Modern Warfare class, so it's fairly obvious we spent some time on WWI. I really appreciated that fact, especially now that I saw this thread. Sadly the course is only one semester so we didn't have time to get into the truly nitty-gritty stuff. All the same, I think my school gives a fair portion of its time to WWI (although WWII is at the forefront, as always).

[Menelaos]

There's intensive Advanced Placement US and EU history courses and a range of specialized electives, among other things. I haven't taken the US and EU history courses, so I'm not completely sure what the entire curriculum is, but I'm pretty sure they teach some substantial stuff on WWI.

It has little emphasis because of how little the role of the US actually had on the war. It's just based on Wilson's Foreign policy and first major wartime country that had to dedicate toward resource usage. So not really.

[Dom13WorstNW]

My teachers barely mentioned it, although I'm not surprised seeing as USA did little. We usually talk about American revolution, Texas/USA war with Mexico, and ACW. Very little WW1, WW2, and no Napoleonic Wars.

Yep same thing for me 

[Gokiller]

Didn't get shit about WW1 in the two years I had history. Perhaps they said once that it was there but I probly forgot that. I think we only had it once or two lessons abount WW2. In those lessons we only did the next: 1. Speaking about the holocaust 2. Watching a movie - der Undergang. Absolute terrible.

[Olafson]

We had to do powerpoint presentations about it. I still remember all that horrible inaccuracies in my classmates presentations.
Two of the groups showed pictures from Call of Duty 2... One of them said that after the first world war, Berlin was completely destroyed and showed a picture of it. One group showed color pictures of American sherman tanks in France. Almost everyone just talked about the western front, all other parts of the war were completely left out.
Surprisingly, my teacher thought that their presentations were good and gave them good marks. After that we watched this horrible 1979 version of "All quite on the western front". Thats all we did.

But I am quite happy, at least we talked about it. Napoleonic Wars, 30 years war, Franco-Prussian war, basically all the important wars for the history of Germany were just completely left out. We learned 0 seconds about it. Not that we learned much anyway... My teacher was a retard who didn't know anything about history anyway.
But thats Germany. You learn alot about Nazis and how bad they are and how guilty you should feel, but you don't actually learn anything proper about Germanys history. (In the part of Germany where I live, might be different in other parts.)