Thanks for referring me here, @eric3579.

It's all true. The bit about pretty much zero world history being taught in schools is correct, but in a way that just makes it all the MORE puzzling.

I teach high school level students English. I do a unit on "Local Heroes" where my students learn a little bit about significant people from native English speaking countries. To get the theme across, I start with a Thai guy named Phraya Phichai who is a very significant person in the province where I live. From there I talk about Elvis Presley or Amelia Earhart for the US, Lord Nelson for England, William Wallace for Scotland, Nelson Mandela for South Africa, etc. to demonstrate people who have a similar kind of significance to people from those states/countries.

After that unit, during oral testing I ask every student to name their favorite historical figure / hero other than the ones we covered. Single most common response: the King of Thailand (the one that just died last year was and still is extremely respected / revered by Thais). But the second most common response: Hitler. By a pretty wide margin. I'd say 30%+ say the King, and nearly 10% say Hitler. Random sports players, musicians, etc. make up most of the rest -- but none with a big chunk of the responses like those 2.

I used to be pretty shocked by all of that kind of stuff here (I've seen the shirts, chicken restaurant, nazi flags for sale, etc.) but I guess I'm pretty numb to it by now. No idea what the source of it is, because it really does seem quite strange that Hitler isn't covered in schools here, yet somehow people seem to learn broad strokes about him enough for him to be oddly "popular". Whatever the source of that is, it seems to filter out the stuff that should make him infamous as opposed to a general pop culture sort of famous.

>> ^aurens:

A short and varied list of Americans educated in public high schools before the creation, in 1980, of the Department of Education:
Steve Jobs
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Ron Paul
Warren Buffett
Toni Morrison
Carl Sagan
Ernest Hemingway
Linus Pauling
Sandra Day O'Connor
John Steinbeck
Bob Dylan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Milton Friedman
Noam Chomsky
Oprah Winfrey
George Lucas
Jimmy Carter
Paul Newman
Amelia Earhart
Walt Disney
George Carlin
Elvis Presley
Neil Armstrong
Richard Feynman
Aaron Copland
(I could keep going, but I'm sure you get the point.)>> ^ghark:
No public education ... Sounds exciting.



Aye aye, was being sarcastic

A short and varied list of Americans educated in public high schools before the creation, in 1980, of the Department of Education:

Steve Jobs
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Ron Paul
Warren Buffett
Toni Morrison
Carl Sagan
Ernest Hemingway
Linus Pauling
Sandra Day O'Connor
John Steinbeck
Bob Dylan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Milton Friedman
Noam Chomsky
Oprah Winfrey
George Lucas
Jimmy Carter
Paul Newman
Amelia Earhart
Walt Disney
George Carlin
Elvis Presley
Neil Armstrong
Richard Feynman
Aaron Copland

(I could keep going, but I'm sure you get the point.)>> ^ghark:

No public education ... Sounds exciting.