When public schools deliberately don't teach an important topic, is it right ?

[Cazzo]

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it..."
-George Santayana, 1905

I went to public school during the 1980s, and during that time my English, History, and Social Studies teachers beat students over the head with the evils of facist Nazi Germany, and the 6,000,000+ million that died in concentration camps. And rightfully so, kids should learn about that tragic time in history.

BUT, not once in all my years in public school did ANY of my teachers teach the students about the even greater tragedy of the 20th century. Estimates range as high as 100,000,000 innocent civilians were tortured and/or killed under Communist governments (NOT including WW2 deaths); most through govt. managed mass starvations, much like starvation that occured in Nazi concentration camps.
During China's "Great Leap Forward", at least 14,000,000 Chinese were starved to death because of the Communist policies.
Nearly 1/3 of all Cambodians died in the 1970s under the Communist Khmer Rouge, through torture and starvation.

Do you think it's ethical and right for public schools to deliberately overlook this, perhaps largest of all tragedies in human history ?
Why do you think public schools deliberately omit this important piece of history ?

 

[iceaura]

Estimates range as high as 100,000,000 innocent civilians were tortured and/or killed under Communist governments (NOT including WW2 deaths); most through govt. managed mass starvations, much like starvation that occured in Nazi concentration camps.

It wasn't at all like the Nazi concentration camps.

Stalin starved some of his enemies, purposefully. None of the others were deliberate engineerings to kill masses of people, except maybe Pol Pot's massacres, and if you include those you also have Rwanda, Bangladesh, Timor, Armenia, and so forth.

There's a certain danger, as well, in an American school opening the can of worms that is "caused mass death and misery" on the geopolitical scale. How many Cambodians did Pol Pot kill and starve, compared with the number the US killed and starved in the bombing campaigns and military assaults collateral to the Vietnam War, for example?

 

[swarm]

I've wondered this myself. Particularly when we were enimies it seemed an odd thing to ignore.

I've seen civilian casualties from vietnam put at 1-2 million depending on who is counting what.

And yes it was purposeful killing and torture of their respective populations. I've seen it posited that more Soviet Jews were killed than German Jews.

 

[joepistole]

I don't know where you guys went to school. But when I went to school, I was taught about slaughter and abuses of communists. But to answer your question, there should not be any manipulation of information to support one side or the other...just the facts and reasoning skills to evalutate facts.

 

[cosmictraveler]

I would think that young adults would learn about many things on their own if schools did not teach those things to them. Their parents and relatives would be sources that would tell them about those horrible things that happened if the educational system doesn't. Also the internet has many historical data basis for them to find more about history as well.

 

[Cazzo]

It wasn't at all like the Nazi concentration camps.

Stalin starved some of his enemies, purposefully. None of the others were deliberate engineerings to kill masses of people, except maybe Pol Pot's massacres, and if you include those you also have Rwanda, Bangladesh, Timor, Armenia, and so forth.

There's a certain danger, as well, in an American school opening the can of worms that is "caused mass death and misery" on the geopolitical scale. How many Cambodians did Pol Pot kill and starve, compared with the number the US killed and starved in the bombing campaigns and military assaults collateral to the Vietnam War, for example?

Stalin's Communist party DID deliberately torture and starve millions of Russian farmers, and also in their gulags. You're response is an example of the disinformation I'm talking about. You haven't been educated in the Communist democides, and it's evident. Not your fault, but our public schools fault.

 

[Orleander]

Our history class ended at WWII. Never learned about Korea or the Viet Nam war. It wasn't that our teacher didn't want to teach it, he just ran out of time.
Does a teacher teach a lot about some things and nothing about others or does he just skim everything?

 

[Cazzo]

I would think that young adults would learn about many things on their own if schools did not teach those things to them. Their parents and relatives would be sources that would tell them about those horrible things that happened if the educational system doesn't. Also the internet has many historical data basis for them to find more about history as well.

That makes it "O.K." for public schools to deliberately dis-inform students on such an important topic ?
It's amazing how some people brush this off like it's nothing.

If children's parents were also not taught about this topic, how are they going to teach their children ?

 

[cosmictraveler]

Young adults today in primary schools have allot of crap to remember and learn about. As adults we should remember just how much time they have at learning and give them what they really need in order to get a good job and advance in education if they so choose. I would think that certain things in history should be taught but let them learn on their own more if they choose.

 

[Cazzo]

Our history class ended at WWII. Never learned about Korea or the Viet Nam war. It wasn't that our teacher didn't want to teach it, he just ran out of time.
Does a teacher teach a lot about some things and nothing about others or does he just skim everything?

Of course history teacher's can't teach everything, but don't you find it a little bit odd many of them "overlook" the greatest democides of the 20th century, but focus on the Facist genocide ?

 

[Orleander]

Of course history teacher's can't teach everything, but don't you find it a little bit odd many of them "overlook" the greatest democides of the 20th century, but focus on the Facist genocide ?

Not odd, sad. Sad that the teacher didn't have the time to cover it all, and sad that the kids were more fascinated by how the peopel died than why.

 

[Cazzo]

Young adults today in primary schools have allot of crap to remember and learn about. As adults we should remember just how much time they have at learning and give them what they really need in order to get a good job and advance in education if they so choose. I would think that certain things in history should be taught but let them learn on their own more if they choose.

Well the Communist democides in the 20th century were the greatest mass murders in human history, greater than the evil Nazi's.
Public schools skipping that "trivial" piece of history is kind of like a math teacher skipping "2+2=4".

Do you think public schools should stop teaching history, because they should only teach what they need to know to get a good job ?

 

[Cazzo]

Not odd, sad. Sad that the teacher didn't have the time to cover it all, and sad that the kids were more fascinated by how the peopel died than why.

Do you REALLY think that public schools skipping the Communist democides of the 20th century, yet beating kids over the head about the Nazi genocide, is because they "didn't have time to cover it" ???

 

[Nasor]

Stalin's Communist party DID deliberately torture and starve millions of Russian farmers, and also in their gulags. You're response is an example of the disinformation I'm talking about. You haven't been educated in the Communist democides, and it's evident. Not your fault, but our public schools fault.

I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that we have many more jews living in the U.S. than ethnic Russians. If we had many more russians than jews, we would probably hear a lot more about the Stalin's atrocities and less about the Nazis.

 

[Orleander]

Well the Communist democides in the 20th century were the greatest mass murders in human history, greater than the evil Nazi's.
Public schools skipping that "trivial" piece of history is kind of like a math teacher skipping "2+2=4".

Do you think public schools should stop teaching history, because they should only teach what they need to know to get a good job ?

No, instead of being a semester long class, it should be a year long class. When kids ask questions all semester long, do you answer them or say "Look it up on wiki, we have a time table to stick to"?

Was the Communist democide greater than Cambodia? N Korea? Argentina? China? I didn't learn about any of those, maybe because it was World History, not American History.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Well the Communist democides in the 20th century were the greatest mass murders in human history, greater than the evil Nazi's.
Public schools skipping that "trivial" piece of history is kind of like a math teacher skipping "2+2=4".

Do you think public schools should stop teaching history, because they should only teach what they need to know to get a good job ?

No, I didn't mean that if that's what you thought I meant. I just was saying that how much can young adults learn and how much can they remember as well. Teaching them about many atrocities is a necessary part of world history for sure but will they retain that when time comes to get a job? I'd think they are more interested in becoming responsible adults and getting a good job in order to survive in todays world more so than historical facts.

 

[Cazzo]

Was the Communist democide greater than Cambodia? N Korea? Argentina? China? I didn't learn about any of those, maybe because it was World History, not American History.

Communist China's "Great Leap Foward" that killed 14,000,000+ civilians : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward , and that's just the Great Leap Foward.
Communist China under Mao, 60,000,000+ civilians murdered : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

Communist Soviet Union's democide that killed 60,000,000+ people, via starvation and gulag labor prisons. "Most modern scholars agree that the famine was caused by the policies of the government of the Soviet Union under Stalin, rather than by natural reasons" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

Communist Khmer Rouge of Cambodia that killed 2,000,000+ (about 1/3 of the countrie's population) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

 

[Cazzo]

No, I didn't mean that if that's what you thought I meant. I just was saying that how much can young adults learn and how much can they remember as well. Teaching them about many atrocities is a necessary part of world history for sure but will they retain that when time comes to get a job? I'd think they are more interested in becoming responsible adults and getting a good job in order to survive in todays world more so than historical facts.

But you know if public schools taught students about these Communist attrocities, perhaps there wouldn't be as many people that sympathize with Communism. History could indeed repeat itself with another Communist attrocity thanks in part to public schools deliberately skipping this topic.

Likewise, if public schools didn't teach students about the Nazi attrocity, another Nazi attrocity would be more likey to occur.

 

[cosmictraveler]

But you know if public schools taught students about these Communist attrocities, perhaps there wouldn't be as many people that sympathize with Communism. History could indeed repeat itself with another Communist attrocity thanks to public schools deliberately skipping this topic.

Likewise, if public schools didn't teach students about the Nazi attrocity, another Nazi attrocity would be more likey to occur.

I'd agree but we must learn to separate the past from the present. Because SOMEONE 50 years ago killed millions doesn't mean that a new leader will do the same thing. I'd think by teaching to earn trust would be better than to never trust again because of past transgressions. Look at Germany today as an example. Russia as well. Even China is making some steps into Democracy as you well know. That does not change the past for sure but is shows that the future can be better if given a chance and earn the trust needed.

 

[GeoffP]

Absolutely it should be taught; I ultimately believe in communism, but I must be honest about its history, and its failings.

At the same time, the failings of Capitalism must also be acknowledged. We take our artificial system for granted, seeing the benefits and ignoring its foibles - the long term degradation of our environment, the damage to the human spirit imposed by the constant chasing of money.