Life lately...

[pickawittyname]

has been pretty good.

I've been watching the early seasons of The West Wing, which is a FANTASTIC show if you haven't watched it. It's quite possibly the most intelligent show I have ever seen on television. It follows the daily activities of the staff members in the White House and all the politics and world calamities that they have to resolve. I

Comments

[lessrest]

I don't think I really knew about Hitler until the eight grade... I mean, I knew the basics, German dude, hated jews, led Germany in 2nd world war against Americans and Germany invaded France and Poland and Sweden stayed out of it. That's... okay, that's not nothing, but that's all I knew until eight grade.
We didn't cover second world war in history until eight grade in my school. Then we spent a month on the subject and learned about how economy played a part, and about Hitler's life, about all the nations that were involved and the most important dates and battles...
Point is, maybe she'll learn about it next year?

Maybe they're doing history in a chronological order. ;)

[lessrest]

Maybe I should add: that's all I knew about the 2nd world war until 8th grade, and my paternal grandmother moved to Sweden because of the war, so you'd think I would have known all about it.
Nope.

[pickawittyname]

Yeah... the thing that got me was that I don't think she even really knew the invaded-France-and-Poland part. The 8th grade history class here stops at the American Civil War. Next year, she will be taking a world geography course, so she probably won't learn about it until the year after in world history.

But you do have a point.

I just tend to get awfully disappointed in my country quite often, when things like that happen. I've also just always been really interested in learning, so it blows my mind when people don't know things that I consider basic knowledge.

[lessrest]

It's probably a good thing she's taking geography first. Then she'll at least know where the countries being invaded are placed geographically. ;)

[lessrest]

I think that this might be the sign that made it click in my head: the American youth is not prepared to run the country. I am now terrified for the future of the world.

I kind of agree with you there, based only on what I've seen on TV, which is probably all wrong..
But don't worry, I honestly don't think America will be "in power" for that much longer. There's the EU, and then there's a lot of things going on in Asia... students at my school are starting to focus on learning Chinese instead of becoming better at English.
Which nation is the unofficial world leader tend to change quite often, you know.

I'm kinda bummed that Sweden already had it's turn. :/

[pickawittyname]

Thanks. That's all quite comforting. ;p The American youth can barely get a hang on English! I don't know what we're going to do. But you're right, it will be the Chinese or the EU in a decade or two anyway.

[lessrest]

Oh, most people in the EU can barely get a hang on English either.
Granted, that's 'cus we all have different native tongues and the "everyone should speak three languages" policy means that most people are only fluent in one language... but still.
And with "but still" I mean that English is often the language used when people from different countries talk to each other, and it's therefore pretty damn important. :/

I'm hoping it'll be the EU, I'm about worried about the view of human rights in China. :/
Seriously, we can't have another country that have death penalty and weird religious hang ups as world leader. That'd suck. D: