Ryu, send these to Ukraine !

Yes.

I've always said 'history' is by far the most important subject in school. Because contrary to pretty much every other subject, it makes one wiser. It teaches what went right and what went wrong. Without knowing what was before, things are bound to repeat itself. Sadly politicians are blind and don't see it that way for some reason.

I'm not sure that's true, at least to a significant extent. I was pretty interested in some history (but definitely not all) in school, but I don't think I was mature enough to draw any notable conclusion about how the world works. By the time I was mature enough, history would probably have been forgotten already, if I didn't have some interest in it anyway. I'm sure there are many students are mature enough to gain more wisdom from studying history in school, but at the same time, I consider myself fairly smart, so a large chunk of people is probably just not very well equipped to gain much insight from studying history in school.

Now if we could teach people history at a more mature age, that would be a different story. But sadly there's no good way to do so at the moment.

This is why we went through it twice (dunno if it's still done that way, the school system has drastically changed since my time), once early on when we're barely 10-12 years old to get the basics (and maybe some interest), and then again when we're 13-17 years old (much more detailed and annotated) and then also supplemented with modern history (or contemporary world history), which is more on politics and other things that move the world of today, like climate change or pollution.

Oh, we had history education practically all the way through the school years, with what I would consider more important parts taught later, i.e. at a more mature age. Depending on your chosen education path, you can probably skip the history education at roughly ages 16-18 here though. I'm just convinced most of us are ready to consider the big picture at that age, especially in regard to what's happening now instead of just learning it as purely history.

As a German I can tell you we get told a lot about our history in school and most is about WWII.

And I'm sure it helps to some degree but like we can also see, it can't prevent that evil people will still grab many votes If they are good in manipulating the people

As long as it's unbiased.

Growing up in the Netherlands it wasn't until much later in life that I realized history in high school was a big white wash of history. Nothing about apartheid, the slave trade, Boer wars, Indonesia massacres. Instead all about the golden age, victories of Willem of Oranje, spice trade with Indonesia, and then the evil Germans. WW1 and WW2 omitted the world stage pretty much. In fact I got nothing about the Middle East in school (that while the first Iraq war was happening while I was in high school), very little about Russia (also the fall of the Soviet Union happened when I was in school).

Most of it was ancient history, Mesopotamia, Romans, Greeks, Egypt, Mongolians, Vikings, Dark Ages, Spanish inquisition, French revolution, 'discovery' of America, British empire. Really nothing very useful to understand today's conflicts and how not to repeat the same mistakes. It was good for trivia knowledge... Not even anything about trading New Amsterdam for Suriname nor the Dutch Antilles.

Modern history needs to be taught in school without white washing. But of course each country wants to paint themselves in the best light. Colonialism was always presented as bestowing the gifts of European greatness on new nations. Yuck.

How history is taught in school (or was when I was in school) is partly responsible for the apathy now towards Ukraine and Gaza.

Rep. Ryan Zinke responds to Russia allegedly downing another passenger jet by suggesting Ukraine pledging to not join NATO and handing over Crimea to Russia would be "a good start" for negotiations to end Putin's war on Ukraine
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3le7svqlcck2e

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Assclown, gotta be another GOP shill for Russia.