"Most American students learned about it and knew that picture..."
I'm 38: We didn't learn much about the Vietnam war, honestly. The sections on everything from the 50's onward were very short, and sometimes glossed over due to time constraints. I think we had one teacher tell us that it was simply because not enough time had passed since it happened, which always seemed ridiculous to me.
It is kinda like we knew it happened, but didn't really learn much about it formally. Lots of heresay and rumors and things.
49 here, and High-school history class 'finished' not much past WWII/Korean War era. Very little if any touching of the Vietnam war. And at that time it was the same reason. End of school year arrived, and that was as far forward in time as the teacher had achieved. And so that was that.
I'm 48, Italy, and I know about the Vietnam War but not because of school. Same problems you experienced.
I have few memories of it from TV news back then. I remember katyusha missile launchers firing and general happiness when the war was over. But many movies kept remembering everybody about that war. I read books, visited the memorial in Washington when I was there on vacation. I browsed wikipedia in the last years. I studied many wars at school (European history is pretty long) but I know less about most of them than about the Vietnam War. It's pretty easy to get informed even if school didn't care much about that war when we were little. Same about the Korean War.
If your only real exposure to history was through primary and secondary school, you really owe it to yourself to explore the space yourself.
It's not just late 20th century history that's elided, I'm finding (despite some exposre) that my knowledge of Greek and Roman history, of the post-Enlightenment era in Europe, much of English history, the late 19th century, 20th century issues of labour, race, drugs, culture, immigration, women's rights, and more, was tremendously elided.
* James Burke's Connections and The Day the Universe Changed are good introductions to histories of technology and philosophy. From these, continuing the PBS series mode, I'd recommend Kenneth Clark's Civilisation and Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. These are truly excellent productions.
* Daniel Yergin, The Prize, whacked me over the head with just how tremndously momentous the discovery of petroleum in Western Pennsylvia was, and the impacts across the last quarter of the 19th century and all of the 20th. Follow this with a more technical exploration in Vaclav Smil's Energy in World History and Manfred Weissenbacher's Sources of Power.
Really? We got a decent amount on Vietnam, though not so much in high school. I remember in middle school one of our teachers had us watch some of the actual newscasts, as well as exposing us to some other things like this picture. I'm 35 btw.
Yeah, really. Different books, perhaps, or you had a teacher that made sure to teach it. I remember watching stuff from the first Iraq war in school, but basically everything between WWII/Korea and whatever they said were current events was basically rushed and glossed over.
I'm 30, we definitely did. However, (I assume) both our parents were draft-age at the time of Vietnam. We also went to school during a time prior to the overly structured curriculum. Part of it may simply have been that the curriculum was generationally influenced.
I think my dad was a touch too young at the time, be was born in 1956 I think.
>We also went to school during a time prior to the overly structured curriculum.
This is probably why there's so much variation.
>Part of it may simply have been that the curriculum was generationally influenced.
This is probably a huge piece of why you and I got a lot on it. For many people that were teachers when I was young, this was a huge moment in US history, and warranted the attention.
I can't remember if I took AP or advanced history (I don't remember if they offered AP in that class at that school or if I simply didn't do the test). It would have been the 94-95 school year since seniors took government and econ. Considering the lag time for updating books, they might not have gotten through much of Reagan's stuff. It was during Clinton's first term, so Reagan would have been out of office less than 8 years. Short section if anything. Timing is everything.
I remember 3 books for summer reading, and a different project was having a somewhat historically accurate journal of someone moving west. She taught with a college book, and we had to buy it instead of rent the book.
But the same thing. Emphasis was much earlier, and by the end of the semester or school year, the stuff was glossed over. The information about things so current became more of an overview without so much information.
I'm 38: We didn't learn much about the Vietnam war, honestly. The sections on everything from the 50's onward were very short, and sometimes glossed over due to time constraints. I think we had one teacher tell us that it was simply because not enough time had passed since it happened, which always seemed ridiculous to me.
It is kinda like we knew it happened, but didn't really learn much about it formally. Lots of heresay and rumors and things.