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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

American schools just aren’t very good. I remember when I was in third or fourth grade, my mom flipping out about why we were spending so much time learning about native Americans and so little time learning math. To this day, my mom, who grew up in Bangladesh but got a classic British education from a tutor, is more well read in western literature than I am (Tolstoy, Jules Verne, Socrates, Plato, etc.)

As far as I can tell, private school doesn’t even fix the problem. My kids go to a pretty expensive private school and it’s not rigorous or challenging—the main benefit is that the kids are better behaved so there is less chaos and distraction.

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> spending so much time learning about native Americans and so little time learning math

After a bunch of years overseas, I returned to the US to complete my last two years of high school.

I was shocked and dismayed by how much time (and stupid memorization-minutiae) was dedicated solely to the 4 years of the US Civil War.

The remarkable thing is that Americans don’t understand their own civilization. They don’t learn anything substantive about the founding U.S. cultures (big differences between Puritans and Jamestown settlers). They don’t study European history as a required course so they know almost nothing about how the modern world came to be (Westphalian nation states, etc). And they learn almost no world history beyond ancient civilizations (native Americans, ancient Egyptians, etc).

I spend $33,000 a year on my daughter’s education and she was telling me about some supposed connection between the Constitution and some Indian tribe—but she has no idea what the Magna Carta is, or what the political structure was of the UK that we declared independence from, who Plato is, etc. My mom was more educated as a girl in a desperately poor Muslim country in the 1950s than my daughter in an affluent DC region private school.

I attended the best school district in my state, and the history education was absolutely miserable. Didn't cover either World War, but covered and re-covered early American history in a very boring, unrevealing way.

Not sure how it is today but in the late 90s it felt like we had a section about Nazis and WW2 every year in high school (in Germany). Yes, I get it, it's important - but it's not important to rehash it every year for 9 years.

That said, overall I was pretty happy with history class.

>The remarkable thing is that Americans don’t understand their own civilization... some supposed connection between the Constitution and some Indian tribe.

The Iroquois Confederacy. Irony.

> some supposed connection between the Constitution and some Indian tribe

Do you mean the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee [1]? I.e., the constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy? The place where the founding fathers of the US got the idea of separation of powers? The form of government of one of the major regional powers at the time the US was formed? Don't know why your daughter's teachers would bother teaching her about that. Sure, it's awful if they were neglecting all those other things, but seriously, anyone learning American colonial-era history needs to learn about the Iroquois Confederacy.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Law_of_Peace

> The place where the founding fathers of the US got the idea of separation of powers?

This reads a bit more like spinning a noble savages tale rather than the much more obvious explanation being that the founders were building on the proven greco-roman models and various Enlightmentment figures - as they directly state in a number of federalist papers.

I don't think the "noble savage" idea applies in this case. The problem of the noble savage idea is that it portrays indigenous people as simple, pure, and uncorrupted, while overlooking that indigenous people are complex just like non-indigenous people.

It's no myth that the Haudenosaunee and other indigenous people had sophisticated governments that could have inspired the writers of the US Constitution. The Haudenosaunee's democracy-ish form of government extends back probably a thousand years. The people who wrote the US Constitution had contact with these people. The exact extent to which this shaped the Constitution is up for debate, of course.

Yes, the US government draws from European roots too. I hope my kids learn about both the Magna Carta and the Great Law of Peace.

> The place where the founding fathers of the US got the idea of separation of powers?

That would be a synergy of ideas primarily found in Polybius, Montesquieu, and the extant British constitution.

Not to discount the value of teaching about the political system of the Iroquois -- that's an interesting a valid topic to cover in school -- but it's not appropriate to attempt to link it to the US Constitution in a way that's wholly speculative and tenuous, and do so at the expense of properly teaching about the actual ideas that factored into the development of the constitution.

It was from the extensive intellectual discourse on separation of powers during the English civil war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

The single greatest influence on American society is what was going on in Britain in the mid 17th century and Americans learn absolutely nothing about it in school. It’s like writing a history or MacOS X that doesn’t mention NeXT.

> dedicated solely to the 4 years of the US Civil War.

And don't even start on how little is dedicated to explain slavery and the social and economic ramifications until the late 20th century. Or how the native people were actively suppressed during the expansion to the West, and how all that lead to some of the current social and economic structures around predominantly Native American groups.

My daughter's middle school science class spent a month and a half chewing through water and rock cycle. I don't think geology is in her future.

> I was shocked and dismayed by how much time (and stupid memorization-minutiae) was dedicated solely to the 4 years of the US Civil War.

Really? I remember the Civil War being a unit (significantly less than a semester) in US History, which was one class in my sophomore year of high school.

I think that Native American history, the Civil War, and Geology are all reasonable subjects to cover in school.

I don't think OP disagrees, or their mother. I think it's more the time spent on such things. They might be worth a semester or two, but the world would be a much better place if we learnt a little about a lot, because to functionally understand one thing means to understand the links between things. I person would have a much deeper understanding of the American Civil war if they understood the British Empire at the time their competition with France to dominate the world stage, and how the US fits within that. Instead, the US seems to teach about the Civil War as if it were an independent conflict when not much happened before or after.

I believe early grade schools should be relatively broad in the subjects they teach. Not every child will be interested in math or science. And there's nothing wrong with that. I feel many parents don't agree, especially those from a technical background. A healthy society should have a diverse set of skills across many disciplines. Though I do believe if children are interested in furthering their study on a particular subject (not just math), there should ideally be opportunities from schools.

It’s shameful to not be interested in math and science—that’s like saying you’re not interested in reading. But putting that aside, the other subjects should be educational.

I remember what triggered my mom was us spending an inordinate amount of time making clay models of Native American villages. American kids shouldn’t graduate high school knowing more about the shapes of Native American houses than the conceptual underpinnings and history of their own civilization.

I believe there's value in learning about such topics such us how historical village buildings are created from a child's perspective. Regardless whether it's Native American, European, or African, etc. It allows us to reflect on what was built before and to understand what to avoid or improve in future development. Not to teach them the exact technical details, but to light a spark to those children inclined. We need people who are interested in such things to study it so future generations can understand where we have come from and how far we have gone. I believe it also allows us to appreciate that there are many peoples and countries today that still live this way and allow us to be empathetic or humbled by their way of living.

I believe math and science should be invested in but if I had a choice between a broad learning curriculum and a focused one, ill choose broad.

If you've ever watched a movie or listened to music, you'll be surprised to know not all of the artists are well versed in math or science. You may be surprised that many of the people, experiences, entertainment, and sports you absorb may not be math inclined either. I personally find value in that.

> It’s shameful to not be interested in math and science

What? Don't you know anyone who is not a nerd? I know many very fine people with no interest in either, and they have nothing to be ashamed of

Because people live in a world that is understandable through math and science. They don't need to specialize in those subjects, but as a human in reality they should familiarize themselves with reality.

> the main benefit is that the kids are better behaved so there is less chaos and distraction.

This is such a scam, unreal.

Private schools have a market with one of their distinguishing features being "kids don't openly flail around instead of paying attention"

They're only able to get away with "only" being marginally better cause the bar is so, so low.

(I'm not condemning you, it's just obscene the amount of effort and time required for kids to get even something that approaches a decent education)

Western literature is bad because it was written by cis white men. Native Americans lived here and had an advanced society that was way better and it didn't have capitalism. /s

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