How come we learn about American history, and British history, but not Canadian history?

no name now.: How come we learn about American history, and British history, but not Canadian history?
im american….i remember in history class, we learned about our history, and some of the british history (mostly the monarchs, and WWI and WWII).

but we never learned about canadian or austrailian history. why is that? i know our education system is pretty messed up……
wow, a person cant even be curious and ask a question, without someone getting rude and trying to imply crap that isnt even on here???
thank you hippy longstocking.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Last Action Gyro
Because America was originally a British colony; our history is dependent on theirs. If you want to know it read about it yourself. Take some initiative, schools can only do so much. The idea is they teach you how to learn and be interested in the world so you can continue to be a lifelong learner

Answer by guanotwozero
History is vast, and no education system can teach any more than a small part of it. History departments and teachers have to select and prioritise what should their students learn. It makes sense that the national history is there, as well as certain major world events. Individual teachers will also have their own interests.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter that much what particular aspects are taught, as long as students are encouraged to keep studying more after they finish the course. If you add Canadian/Australian history, then something else will have to drop out. However, you can always read up about it if you’re interested, and good teaching should indeed make people interested to find out more.

Answer by hippy longstocking
1. not enough time to teach everyone’s history….you see american schools, are behind other schools for a reason, partly due, to the gov’t always cutting back and not emphasizing education. not to mention, the system is very unorganized.

2. britaina and american history are more connected….so, this way they kinda feed off of eachother…..

Answer by Sleepy Cat
Trust me, you don’t learn about British history. I went to school in England and I learned about monarchs, wars and battles from 1066 onward. I’m going to guess the name King Stephen means very little to you.

Americans learn the token amount that relates to their own history (I also went to school for some years in America, so I’m qualified to say this). That, of course, is because U.S. history is so intertwined with that of Britain — not just the founding of the colonies and roles the countries play in both world wars but in terms of trade, social influence, things like that.

Canada and Australia don’t play such a significant role. They certainly feature in the world wars and even Vietnam, but they haven’t influenced the United States the way England has, from America’s beginning to the 20th century. In fact, the pasts of Canada and Australia are also intertwined with that of England — that pesky imperialism thing, you know? Plus, unlike Canada and Australia, England has been a world power, a superpower back in the day, and is arguably historically more significant.

I don’t think it’s a case of the educational system being messed up. In America, we naturally focus on America’s history rather than study other countries, which I completely agree with. One could argue the American educational system is messed up for not focusing on the rich and complex histories of almost any country, from Western Europe to the Middle East, but that’s because the scope of such a subject is simply to vast.

Luckily, in college, you get to specialize some. 🙂