One day, while watching Hotel Rawanda...

... my daughter, who was in high school at the time, began to offer some views on the conflict in Rawanda and about the Hutu and Tutsi.  This took me by surprise, as I was half shocked that she knew of Rawanda, let alone had any oppinions about the war there and the horrors that took place between the Hutu and Tutsi.  While I doubt that the goings on there play much part in the pursuit of most gamers, in my case, I had started my African imagi-nations campaign some years prior, and the history of Rawanda was part of the research that eventually manifested on my table as the Uwanda-Mugabia War.

My daughter does not share my passion for history, though she is frequently curious about historical events, and asks me questions usually leading with, "In one sentence or less, why did bla bla bla....". Inevitably I offer a sentence in response with the qualifier, "...but that is over simplifying things."  Which leads to the also inevitable dissertation that she was hoping to avoid.

Anyway, as she explained her views, I tried to recover from the shock that war in Rawanda had made it to my daughter's social studies classroom at school.  Though she spent a little time studying the ancient world, mostly focussing on several religious groups (rather than empires and military conquest as my schooling had done), most of her school history covered US interests, spanning the American Civil War to Vietnam.

This got me thinking about the contrast in both the bits of history, the interpretations of that history that she and I received in school, and in general, my own experience learning history through the miracle of public education.

She also spent a little time studying what we call "Ohio History".  In my day (mid 1970's), we used an early 1950s vintage book, illustrated with red ink line drawings (an absolutely horrible little book), explaining how the noble and heroic white dudes freed Ohio from the clutches of the savage Indians.  

My daughter's version spent more time addressing the injustices imposed by the white dudes on the mostly peace loving native inhabitants of the Ohio territory.  We both found it curious how the history of 200-300 years ago had changed in the last thirty years.  If nothing else, it made a dramatic point to her about tryng to maintain a little objectivity with respect to how one embraces history.

This morning, while reading up a bit on Russia's role in the Seven Years War,  it occurred to me that the SYW was never mentioned in any part of my schooling.

Imagine that.  A war that was closely tied to the existance and shape of my nation, and that was maybe the first truly "world war",  was utterly irrelevant to the public educators of my day.  

My public education relating to history was pretty sad really.  I generally disliked history in school, mainly because of how it was presented, mostly as a rapid succession of dates, places and names of those who "liberated" distant lands from native inhabitants.  Curiously, separating native peoples from their land and culture was always presented as a good thing, rather than just a thing.   

The reality is that there was almost no study of the history relating to the heavily stressed lists of anitquarian details that we students were expected to memorize.  Very little about the how and why of what happened. 

An example of the scope of study and how it was addressed in class and on our tests follows.  In class:  Inca, people conquered by Pizarro of Spain, 1532.  There would be little more than the insinuation that it was good for both the Inca and the Europeans who did it.  But on the test:, "Who conquered the Inca?"  Answer: "Pizarro, Spain, 1532".  That's it.  Seriously.  No other names, nothing about cultures, devoid of any substance.

One day in history class, the day that we studied the entire 20th century (which by the way had apparently ended in 1945, despited it being 1977 at the time) in my 8th grade history class, I learned an important lesson about WWII (which we studied for about 4 minutes).  World War II, won by the US, who, for all practical purposes, defeated Hitler's Germany single-handedly, and in a sort of side conflict, dropped the first atom bomb on Japan.   World War  II, US defeats Germany, Japan glows in the dark, 1945, the end.  At least in my mid-1970s history class.

I had a notable interest in WWII at a young age, and started acquiring my library on the conflict before the age of eight.  As a result, the scope of my knowledge on the subject was somewhat greater than what was presented in class.  As Mrs. Quinn was wrapping up her four minute presentation of WWII, she pointed out a photo in our book that showed the M65 atomic cannon firing the test round circa 1950, with the mushroom cloud rising in the distance, and explained that it was a picture of a US artillery piece on a Pacific island, viewing the atomic bomb which had just been dropped on Hiroshima off in the distance.  The caption in the book did not directly adress the photo.

Having the same pic in several of my own books, and "knowing" that she was in error, I quickly raised my hand, was called upon to speak, and explained, "Why no Mrs. Quinn, that is the picture of the atomic cannon...."  It must have looked like a scene from "Young Sheldon" (US TV series).  Her face contorted, and needless to say, it did not end well for me.  I spent the next several minutes learning that the most important fact about WWII was that you don't correct Mrs. Quinn in front of the class.

In all fairness to Mrs. Quinn, she was tasked with teaching the history of the western world from the time of the discovery of the Americas through about 1977 (i.e, 1945) in her year with us.  And in retrospect, she was sometimes very passionate about seemingly irrelevent historical tidbits that she would present in class, true historical elements that were never included on the tests, and no doubt, points of particular interest to her.  All of these years later, I kind of regret that she didn't have the opportunity to actually teach history.

My parents had "geography" and "civics" when in school, by my day, they were combined into "Social Studies".  Basically, it was geography the first couple of years, types of land formations and waterways, then continents and countries.  From about 5th grade on it got more into history (well, dates and places anyway), with a mix of geograpy as needed.  

In fifth grade, Ohio history was a hot topic, where we were introduced tot he names, date, and places school of history.  Over the next few years, there was an overview or mostly western history from the pharaohs to WWII (WWII actually got honorable mention there too), Central and South America from the establishement of modern nation states (curiously, completely failing to mention the US involvement in any of the events or conflicts there). Then we touched on the discovery of the Americas and European conquests there, an introduction to law, and US governmental structure, the glory that was Theodore Roosevelt (a teachers personal hero), the industrial revolution and history of labor, and the history of the study of psychology (??).  History ended my Junior year with the French revolution and US economics.  I sometimes wonder if the chaos as presented was the plan, or disjointed bits of endlessly changing curriculums.

Ironically, I really disliked history in school; then, went home and studied ... history (and a bunch of other things. I used to think it was fun to come home and read encyclopedias) (Hmmm, used to?).  For over five decades now, the study of history has been a hobby.  Much of it linked to, but not exclusively related to gaming.  It may be "bunk",  but I find it fascinating.

To be honest, I remember remarkably few of those dates, and maybe a slightly greater number of the names and places that my educators thought to be important.  In place of those many lost dates, I did discover many other dates, names, places, and even more interesting, a little of the how and why associated with some of them.

Despite my effort, I realize that I have learned very little, and no doubt have utterly failed to embrace it in its own context, but I will always remember that most important lesson about WWII: 

Don't correct Mrs Quinn in front of the class.

Oh, and if you haven't seen it, give Hotel Rawanda a look.  I thought it was a pretty well done, and note that it is a movie, not a documentary.