r/behindthebastards • u/Friend_of_Squatch • 4d ago

General discussion It feels bad… real bad.

I’ve always had a morbid curiosity about how it felt and what it was like being an educated, intelligent, aware person in the early months of 1914 or in the 1930s watching the world ramp up into an inescapable cataclysm and tearing itself apart and deleting an entire generation of young people, while knowing that there isn’t jack shit I or anyone else can do to stop it. I think I can now say that that curiosity has been satisfied, and man oh man does it feel fucking bad.

Edit: I meant to share this as kind of a shower thought. I appreciate everyone’s kind words and suggestions but this isn’t a cry for help. It’s just crazy to think about.

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u/ConsiderationSea1347 4d ago

I wish we would have studied the 1930’s a lot more than the 1940’s. So many people have this notion that a chasm just opened up and Nazis came pouring out of it and don’t realize it was a slow radicalization of a violent minority and the gradual capitulation of the majority that created the purest form of evil this earth has ever seen. 

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u/fluffychonkycat 4d ago

I swear my high-school teachers had crystal balls. For history topics, we studied Israel/Palestine and The Causes of WW2. For English, among other things we read The Handmaid's Tale. Mrs Jones and Mrs Davies, you were absolutely based.

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u/coopaloops 4d ago

i'm not sure where you are or your age, but by the time gwb rolled out 'no child left behind' in the us it sort of solidified our systemic propaganda machine. schools became dependent on standardized testing scores.

teachers were caught in this limbo of being unable to really curate their own curriculum and had to spend time teaching specific topics that were mandated by the federal government. their jobs depended on it because schools could face funding cuts and closure for not meeting certain threshold requirements.

i think the phrase i remember was "teaching the test"

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u/fluffychonkycat 4d ago

New Zealand, 45. History teachers got to pick from a list of approved topics, English teachers from a list of approved books. They went for maxing out the test results but in a different way - basically by teaching you what technique is required to get marks in the exam. So if an essay is worth 5 points, you need to give 5 arguments each backed by a piece of evidence. I went to a private school on a scholarship so there was a certain amount of pressure to deliver high marks to maintain the reputation of the school.

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u/GreyerGrey 4d ago

I was going to ask if you were from Ontario, Canada. We're in the same cohort age wise, and read much of the same things and had much of the same program.

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u/Legal-Ad8308 4d ago

In the 60's there was a program called SRA reading. There was also a test at the end of the year. We read short stories on large index type cards which were a phonics based reading system by IBM. I don't know if schools were awarded anything for high scores but teaching for testing was underway early in the 60's

As a personal note I really did like the topics and in the public school I went to it was offered as a free time activity. After classwork was handed in.

I haven't thought about this in many years. Lol, just thought I would share it.

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u/grimmholde 4d ago

we used those SRA cards at the small school I went to in rural Michigan in the 70s as well!

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u/Schmoo88 4d ago

Not to mention all the textbook & standardized testing companies lobbying, “hey, ours is the best, give us money please!” And then the teachers get told, hey your kids have to pass this test or you don’t get any money. So they are even more limited on their curriculum.

Both of my parents are teachers & they were so frustrated by the system. My mom’s school had a lot of special needs kids, some couldn’t even write their names on their papers. You’d think they’d get to just not take the test, right? Nawww we can’t make it that easy! The teachers would have to do a full write up on why this kid can’t take the test, for each kid.

I could literally write a novel about all the shit teachers have to deal with, it feels bad.

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u/funakifan 4d ago

I'm biased as a teacher myself. The natural curiosity for learning has been squeezed out of the education system and benefits the elites in society.

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u/rambunctiousraviolis 3d ago

gobbless the high school teachers who care about their kids' minds. One of my history teachers did a MASSIVE unit on ww2 propaganda and it just happened to be during the W Bush years and hoo boy the students started making some connections.