How Civics/History Went Down the Toilet in American Schools

 Around the mid-1970s....I started to notice once to twice a month....the civics-history class had what I'd call a down day, and the teacher would attempt to have a current events day (to explain things to us).  

I commented on this trend in the late 1990s....to an American military member who had their two daughters in the military school at Ramstein. The response from the other person was.....this was now a guaranteed thing with a minimum of one to two days a week spent on current events....instead of civics or history.

Back around 2012, I got into another discussion with someone in the Pentagon that I worked with, and their kids were in the Fairfax, VA school district.  He figured that at a minimum of two days a week....sometimes even three days....civics/history was cut entirely and current-events-explaining was chief topic for that 50-minute period.

The current-events-explaining 'drill'?  Well....after a while, this guy had come to realize that it was more of a propaganda effort than any true explanation episode.

I would take a guess....presently....that whatever knowledge I left school with at age 18....the current knowledge base is probably around 60-percent of my level then.

Intentional loss?  This is what I ponder about.

Fourteen year old kid hears something via news or via a friend, and wants someone to stand there and explain this in eight minutes (his max limit of attention span).  In a group of 25 kids....figure at least six kids have such a question each day.  Can you get across the screwed-up nature of health-care insurance in eight minutes?  No.  Can you detail the reason why nine Supreme Court Justices exist?  No.  Can you explain abortion in eight minutes?  No. 

So what we have is a mini-dose of knowledge that doesn't do justice to the facts and reality.

You wake up on a Tuesday night, where the kid (13 years old) wants to explain how your knowledge of capitalism is 'fu*ked-up', and he learned this via one of the 8-minute lessons by Carl (the teacher).  You try to bring the kid back around to reality with a 16-minute dose of economics and capitalism....but lost them around minute nine.  

The problem here....if you start to really think hard about the mess....you've got a nation of 8-minute geniuses standing there, and unable to think in a coherent manner.