learning about Ancient History

Gee, I was taught some (but not a lot, as there's a finite amount o' time in a school year) BC history in High School, and I graduated in the BC era, AKA 1979.

not me

where were you taught , out of curiosity ?

New York (Long Island, to be more precise). There was not much -- like I said, there is a finite amount of time in any given school year -- but it was not nonexistent.

does this school still teach it ?

do you think that it should be taught , more seriosly in high schlool ?

like being added to the curriculum

i would much rather have learned about ancient history (especially the crazy (and probably made up) hidden archeology stuff ala michael cremo et al) than any of the boring history i was taught (notice i didn't say learned )

I agree

about michael cremo , just starting to read his book

so you then think that BC history should be part of the curriculum of high scools all over the country

Closest I got to Ancient History in high school was in New York City (the school I attended in Rutland didn't even make the attempt). It was in that brief time I was out on Staten, and it was an elective. The man who taught it, was a tough teacher, I'd had him for World History. Anyways, as an elective, it needed enough interest, not enough students wanted it, it ended up shelved. I later took Ancient History in college (I was a History major before shifting over to the sciences and ultimately education). Should it be a required course? It's a definitely good idea.

In Catholic school we were taught entire segments about ancient history. We learned about the various paleolithic cultures etc. The only problem was, most of what we learnt was bullshit and had to be unlearnt later. When I went to Public Jr and HS, we had several small segments of "Ancient hostory" in 7th and 8th grade.
Agfain, most had to be dumped by the 1990s when several technologies required that the Mousterian, Magdelinian, and SOlutrean ages needs some redefinition.

eh, everything changes. what we were certain we knew then we hold as bullshit today. WHo knows what tomorrow will bring?

just keep reading

when I mean Ancient history though was from Egyptian , and back to the Sumer time

In the Sumer time, when the weather is fine . . .

In fact, new archaeological discoveries keep redefining who the Egyptians were, and also continue to demolish the "middle east" first prejudice of the 19th century historians and archaeologists. In fact, it has now been estalished that people in Europe did not learn metallurgy from the Sumerians, and in fact may have begun smelting copper and alloying bronze before it was done in Sumer. There is even increasing evidence that not only did they not get writing from Sumer, but may have been using their own form of writing before the Sumerians did. That's not to say that the Sumerians got it from Paeleo-Europeans, though. One of the important things about followings the facts rather than what you want to believe is that all sorts of sacred cows get butchered. The long-standing devotion to the concept of "cultural diffusion" is being hammered into dust. So, for example, the Japanese probably invented pottery, perhaps as much as 14000 years ago--that's thousands of years before the Chinese. But that doesn't account for pottery in the middle east and Europe, which predates the Sumerians and the Egyptians. It doesn't explain pottery in the Americas, either. The evidence is, increasingly, that good ideas get invented in many places at many times.

We learned about the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Medes and Farsi, as well as the Egyptians and Greeks when i was in school. But as FM points out, most of it was wrong, which is now being discovered. Pre-history--what can be learned from achaeological and genetic sources--is far more interesting to me than the tired old crap about the Egyptians and the Sumerians.

Well, one man's Mede is another man's Persian . . .

A useless generalization . . . a carpet statement . . . er, blanket statement . . .

Well, I had to do ancient history three time (like any other period) at school, each time more "scientifically". (Okay, in the 11th/12th/13th it really was.)

I've just looked up the curicula in our state: it's the same as it has been 45 years ago, though it's done only twice (due to the fact that we don't have a 13 anymore).

In 11 and 12, ancient history is taught with three focal points:
· earliest cultures and early higher social systems (that's from the beginning of life unttil early stone age)
· antique settings, Greek Poleis, Imperium Romanum
· "what men know in ancient history about fellow humans" (= intercultural contacts, geographical knowledge, their view of the world, life, religion etc)

In the 1960's the archdiocese of Philadelphia taught ancient history in the fifth grade in Catholic schools. It was taught alongside of the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

I got that too in the fifties, Chicago diocese. And then we moved to california where I went to school with a bunch of nuns that were very old guard.

Which is why I'm such a fuckwidgettroubleonwheels today.

Well, by now I'm over a lot of that.

Still, I cringe at the history I was taught.

Took World History in 11th grade on Long Island. One of the best teachers I ever had taught it. Mr. Murphy. He was a 5 day Jeopardy champion in 1969 .

We spent a lot of time on the Greeks.

Mr. Murphy would start each class by asking us if we wished to discuss anything in the news that week or any subject he would agree might be considered philosophical in nature.

Called us all by our last name Mr. or Miss.

He had this schtick where he would bring up some obscure personage and then act incredulous when no one knew who the he'll they were.

"Surely you know who Ignatius Semmelweis was! You mean to tell me you don't know Semmelweis?"

Deadpan delivery and always good for a laugh, and I'm sure everyone in that class knows who Ignatius Semmelweis was.

Great teacher.

Do they not teach World/Ancient History in HS anymore?

We also spent much timeon Sumeria, the Hittites (Mrd Kelly was a big fan of te Hittites_)
.

However, my favs were the really ancient paleolothic cultures and I had my own copy of Herbert Wendts }Ich Suchte Adam" )I search for Adam..

Sumer-time? Hell, I thought it was fall. I better check my sundial.

I recall...studying Ancient History in Junior HS (or first yr) of Senior HS...but I graduated HS in 1968. Somewhere around 1973, they started watering down HS curriculums, IMHO.