[animeweedlord]

In American schools an overwhelming amount of time is spent teaching about the sins of our country and other white people. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, the genocide of Native Americans. In a unit on WWII, a week would be spent on the entire war, and the other 3 specifically dedicated to the Holocaust. All in all I'd say we spent over half of our history lessons and a third of our English lessons covering subjects like these.

[nihonde]

Very true, and a great point. There are still gaps, though. How many schools teach you the reasons that Germany turned against Jewish people after WWI? In fact, how many schools teach the history of WWI in any kind of detail at all? And what about the reasons for the Southern resistance during the Civil War? My recollection (and I went to an expensive private school) was that these wars were characterized as simplistic, binary good/evil conflicts, where a bunch of "bad" people went nuts and had to be sorted out by "good guys" who were obviously right. If someone asked a question like "why did National Socialism focus on Jewish people", that person would be immediately shunned and the question would be offensive——again my experience. If you don't let people ask difficult questions, and provide answers for them, it isn't so much an education as a program.

[animeweedlord]

I was trying not to ruffle feathers, but that's what I was getting at. I was quite liberal as a teenager but even I could tell that history/social studies was mostly used as an opportunity to indoctrinate. The one teacher I had that tried to provide opposing views on every topic got canned.

[bagacrap]

I agree with you but the schools' focus on the Holocaust, in my experience, was heavily centered on the Jewish experience, despite that many millions of non Jews were also exterminated. I guess this is because America has lots of Jews but not so many Poles, handicapped, homosexuals, etc (or they don't have much political power).

Also I remember learning about measles blankets and all that, but it never got to the point of using this historical context to inform a discussion of the current social/economic situation Native Americans face. All in all it was portrayed as a romantic and fair battle between cowboys and Indians.

Tldr the only war crimes we teach our kids are those whose victims have survived and attained some political prominence.

[studentrob]

Agreed. Not sure why you were downvoted. You can find this information in American history textbooks or online.